Smash World Tour tournament cancelled over Nintendo's notice to no longer operate

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One of the biggest Smash tournaments in the world, the Smash World Tour Championships, with over 6'400 live events worldwide and more than 325'000 in-person entrants, has received a notice from Nintendo two weeks before the event to cease operations.

The Smash World Tour (SWT) was scheduled to start on December 9th up to December 11th in San Antonio, Texas, with the biggest prize pool ever in the championship's history, with over $250'000. The tournament had previously stopped due to the worldwide pandemic, and this year's tournament was going to be the return to the in-person format for participants and those involved.

Back in November, 2021, the people from SWT got contacted by Nintendo themselves, alongside a legal representative of them. Though, to their surprise, the contact was not given to shut the event down, but rather to pursue a partnership and a legal use of the license so they could continue carrying forward with SWT's projects. Afterwards, from December up to March 2022, the announcement for a 2022 project was withhold as requested by Nintendo, and continued forwards according to Nintendo's guidelines, but with some issues with Panda's team in regards to the event. SWT submitted their request in April of 2022 for the upcoming event, and there was no response up until August, where the team had no option but to come forward with the announcement due to the delays in communication with Nintendo.

Nintendo responded back, and quoting the SWT team's official statement:

Nintendo finally responded and mentioned another event that had their team incredibly busy, which is why there were delays. They were very apologetic for the long silence and said they completely understood that we had to announce.

The proper submission was made in April, which reconvened with Nintendo all the way up to September, with Nintendo yet again reassuring that, while nothing was decided yet, they apologized for how long the process had taken so far, while mentioning that they were also monitoring the actions of Panda and their executive team due to their behaviour throughout the year.

November quickly came by, only one month before the event, and Nintendo finally got back in contact with the team on November 23rd, and quoting SWT's team:

Our Nintendo rep opened by letting us know that they are being asked to deliver the news that going forward, Nintendo expects us to only operate with a commercial license, and that we would not be granted one for the upcoming Championships, or any activity in 2023. We received this in writing as well.

We asked if they could clarify the reasoning for their decision. Initially, Nintendo gave us a reason that seemed to be misinformed, and when we pushed back to ask for more details, Nintendo said they were unable to give any specifics and had to speak in generalities moving forward. This was very frustrating given everything we had been told all year regarding accessibility and transparency in requirements. It felt as though Nintendo simply did not want the Smash World Tour to continue to exist. At this point, we now felt we had been strung along this entire time.

Without a license, the championship couldn't operate. In short words, they can't continue forward, or they might risk a legal action by Nintendo (if one reads between the lines) if they continue forward with the event.

:arrow: Source
 

Foxi4

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What a bunch of assholes! Nintendo has really changed in the past years, and I don't fucking like them very much now.
They were always like this, people just didn’t pay attention. They stiffed the inventor of Tetris nearly over 30 years ago, not sure what people were expecting from them today.
 

Bladexdsl

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nintendo doing what they do best: DMCA. they come up with this bs excuse about some license bs which is BULLSHIT we know the real reason. they truly are worse than apple now :gun:
Post automatically merged:

As I always say, Nintendo is a garbage company, almost EA level. I'm still gonna play their games, but they won't see a fucking penny from me (hehe).
yuzu/ryu all the way baby! don't need their garbage underpowered tablet that can't even get to 60 fps !
 
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Ryab

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Looking into the new a bit more it seems that this isnt 100% Nintendo just saying fuck off last second. They for sure told them to stop it, but I think I may understand some kind of reason for once.
 

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They were always like this, people just didn’t pay attention. They stiffed the inventor of Tetris nearly over 30 years ago, not sure what people were expecting from them today.
I think after Iwata died, the company started going downhill, now it's more about profit
 

64bitmodels

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GBAtemp Yesterday: OMG NINTENDO IS SO EVILLL THEY SUED THIS SMAHS TOURNAMENT OH MY GOD I HOPE THEY COLLAPSE
GBATemp Tommorrow: OMG THE NEW LEGEND OF ZELDA BREATH OF THE OVERRATED SEQUEL IS THE GREATEST GAME EVER ILYSM NINTENDO NEVER STOPPPPPP
 
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Pigma165

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Panda global again ruining everything with his stupid decisions to raise falsehood to other organizers to look good with nintendo, they never learn
 

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People aren't forgetting about this, are they..? It's not so unreasonable that Nintendo wouldn't want people advertising openly about Nintendo's hardware being exploitable and their software being piratable - though it's not clear if that's what was happening here.
(Soft-)Modding systems is (or at least SHOULD be because the law is a fickle beast) legal in America, I think sometimes Nintendo likes intimidating people they know wouldn’t be able to fight back (sometimes; they did fail with Console Classix)
But that wasn’t even happening here - people just wanted to play their game competitively & stream it, by the book with a license but was refused it just weeks shy of the actual event, in part thanks to Panda’s CEO.

The weeks shy bit feels… especially spiteful this time.
 

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Nintendo never "ceases" to disappoint... They're always one "cease and desist" letter away from raining on another unsuspecting loyal customer's parade which is why I don't feel so bad pirating all of their GC/Wii/Wii U/Switch games on PC 🙄😒🤦🏽‍♂🤷🏽‍♂😅😆😂
 

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Nintendo's response:

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.

Nintendo’s 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. It’s 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
 
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ShadowOne333

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So Nintendo pissed off hundreds of thousands of avid fans of their Smash franchise. Who have friends and families. Who are all potential future customers.
Just, why? This is just so wrong. They are intentionally missing out on INCREDIBLE opportunities for marketing with these events, for binding customers, for making this an esport etc. etc. How can one company be so blind and dismissive of their games' true fans? It's mindboggling...

I still hope they realize the potential they have here and do a quick 180. Else it's like burning money.
 

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