Current Events > Nintendo forces Smash World Tour finale to be cancelled

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://twitter.com/smashworldtour/status/1597724859349483520

Streaming company that grew from the grassroots of the Smash community and was running the whole event, VGBC, says its future is uncertain and has cancelled events in 2023:
https://twitter.com/vgbootcamp/status/1597725131430047744

Nintendo and Panda Global havent issued any statements on this as of yet. Panda, who are running their own, officially licensed circuit, reportedly conspired to have the SWT shut down. They reportedly tried to strong-arm event runners into dropping SWT participation from their events, bully rival streaming companies into dropping their contracts on partnered Panda Cup events and more. The SWT tournament organizers are poised to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars due to the event being cancelled. The tournament was due to have a prize pool of $350,000+, while Panda Cup has a $100,000 prize pool.

When I first saw this, I assumed it was just Nintendo being Nintendo again, it felt pretty bad to see Panda seemed to have a big involvement in this happening. Panda felt sort of sus with their partnership and the controller thing that happened a while back, but you want to hope for the best.

It looks like a lot of players are declaring they will never play a tournament done by the Panda people again. Wonder if they will stick to their word

Panda was very much well-liked by a sizeable portion of the community, despite peoples distrust of them working with Nintendo. It was speculated that SWT could be cancelled in the first part of the year, but to see the plug get pulled now when the tournament was due to be held next week is nothing short of shocker and a major fall from grace. Pretty much the entire community is calling for a boycott of Panda Cup and anything related to Panda.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

He left the org in 2020

Panda has a lot of sponsored players and they all seem blindsided by this. Most of them havent said anything concrete about it but I assume thats because theyre probably contractually prevented from disparaging the org/want details from the source of the problem.

iBDW, a Melee player sponsored by Panda and a frequent defender of the Panda Cup before all of this, did make a statement:
https://twitter.com/ibdwssbm/status/1597738739564150786

feel bad for the members of the org that had nothing to do with this, especially the ones that have been there basically forever

my guy coney gotta get up outta there

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Tournament scene died in 2020, then the sexual assault scandals all came out. Like its easy to lose track of things that year, especially when you have the toll covid took on everyones lives factored in

bump

Seems like the competitive Smash scene can never catch a break. Between Nintendo fighting them at every turn (including trying to get Melee removed from EVO 2013), earnings from Smash tournaments being far less than other eSports because Nintendo refuses to adequately support it, COVID fucking with the Smash World Tour as it was starting out, the sexual misconduct scandals of 2020, Nintendo successfully removing Smash from EVO 2022, and now this. It's really shows the passion of the community that they still keep going on despite all that.

PerseusRad posted...

When I first saw this, I assumed it was just Nintendo being Nintendo again, it felt pretty bad to see Panda seemed to have a big involvement in this happening. Panda felt sort of sus with their partnership and the controller thing that happened a while back, but you want to hope for the best.

Yeah, it sounds more like the head of Panda, Alan, is much moreso responsible for this than Nintendo themselves:
https://twitter.com/LDeeep/status/1597728742343778304
https://twitter.com/LDeeep/status/1597731460072423424

Solar_Crimson posted...

Seems like the competitive Smash scene can never catch a break. Between Nintendo fighting them at every turn (including trying to get Melee removed from EVO 2013), earnings from Smash tournaments being far less than other eSports because Nintendo refuses to adequately support it, COVID fucking with the Smash World Tour as it was starting out, the sexual misconduct scandals of 2020, Nintendo successfully removing Smash from EVO 2022, and now this. It's really shows the passion of the community that they still keep going on despite all that.

Seriously, I remember the grand prize for first place in an official Smash tournament was a fucking Gamecube controller with the smash symbol on it. Nintendo really doesn't like their competitive scene at all for some reason.

Turns out this was a bunch of crap and it was cancelled by them and not Nintendo. The only thing Nintendo did was refuse to renew the license.

Nintendo would like to explain to all Super Smash Bros. fans and interested parties the background and rationale related to our decision to not grant a license to the Smash World Tour (SWT) for their upcoming activities.
Nintendos decision was solely based on our assessment of the proposals submitted by the SWT and our evaluation of their unlicensed activities. This decision was not influenced by any external parties such as Panda Global.Any partner that we grant a license to has to meet the high standards we require when it comes to the health and safety of our fans. Its also important that a partner adheres to brand and IP guidelines and conducts itself according to professional and organizational best practices. We use this same approach to independently assess all partners. If we discover that a partner is doing something inappropriate, we will work to correct it.
When we notified the SWT that we would not license their 2022 or 2023 activities, we also let them know verbally that we were not requiring they cancel the 2022 finals event because of the impact it would have on players. Thus, the decision to cancel the SWT 2022 was, and still is, their own choice.
We are open to partnering with other organizations and will continue to offer licenses for major tournaments outside of the Panda Cup. Panda Global will continue to be a key partner and we look forward to receiving proposals from other groups for tournament licenses. In the meantime, Panda continues to advocate on behalf of the Super Smash Bros. community, even to the point that Panda has advocated for other organizations and tournaments to work with Nintendo, such as The Big House and the organizers of the SWT to benefit the larger Super Smash Bros. community.
Nintendo cares about Super Smash Bros. fans and its community very much, and we hope to continue to hear their passionate feedback. We are committed to working hard to bring joy and fun to the community through tournaments while also ensuring we and our partners are operating in a manner that is positive and responsible.

https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-issues-full-statement-over-smash-world-tour-cancellation

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


you mean Melee tournaments.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Turns out this was a bunch of crap and it was cancelled by them and not Nintendo. The only thing Nintendo did was refuse to renew the license.

Nintendo: You arent allowed to run any non-licensed events and were not giving you a license for this event

Also Nintendo: We didnt tell them to cancel it tho

The people behind SWT stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars by this event not running, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by cancelling

The licensing is for the partnership, not for the event. They can still run the event they just can't say it's official or anything like that.

Tyranthraxus posted...

The licensing is for the partnership, not for the event. They can still run the event they just can't say it's official or anything like that.

They were explicitly told in writing

It is Nintendos expectation that an approved license be secured in order to operate any commercial activity featuring Nintendo IP."

And then denied a license.

The fact that anyone would believe Nintendo's attempt at damage control PR is laughable in the first place, sure they didn't say the words "you have to cancel this event" they just denied them a license while simultaneously telling them that unlicensed events were not allowed

Tyranthraxus posted...

Turns out this was a bunch of crap and it was cancelled by them and not Nintendo. The only thing Nintendo did was refuse to renew the license.

https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-issues-full-statement-over-smash-world-tour-cancellation

They responded:

https://twitter.com/SmashWorldTour/status/1598674295189905409?s=20&t=1CrRuZxnvIv_G0j7_WaG4A

I'm more skeptical on Nintendo because they always had it out when it comes to competitive games.

I mean, I still think we should wait a little bit before we throw an entire man's reputation into the fire, lol.

Nintendo does have a bad rep with competitive events, but do keep in mind, Nintendo has cause for concern over letting non-affiliated groups run huge events with their IPs. It hasn't even been that long ago since Smash Bros got #MeToo'ed, and damn hard at that.

I'm not arguing that Panda/Nintendo aren't in the wrong either; I'm just saying the internet has a bad habit of going way too hard for the side they heard from first, and then deciding all contrary evidence must be fake.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Turns out this was a bunch of crap and it was cancelled by them and not Nintendo. The only thing Nintendo did was refuse to renew the license.

https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-issues-full-statement-over-smash-world-tour-cancellation

Youre buying into their bs corporate statement bro.