Smash Bros esports in chaos: Nintendo destroys unaffiliated events

The Smash World Tour (SWT), a grassroots Super Smash Bros. circuit hosted by VGBootCamp, announced that Nintendo is stopping the finals less than two weeks before the event. This has major implications for both the grassroots esports scene and its relationship with Nintendo.

Smash World Tour background and accusations

Over the past year, figures from the Super Smash Bros. community have launched two major circuits to help unite the community: the SWT and the Panda Cup. Both events were structurally similar. Players could earn points when participating in independently organized events to earn their way to a year-end final. However, Panda Global’s Panda Cup partnered with Nintendo in an official capacity.

In a open letter, VGBootCamp claims that the problems started when Panda Global tried to have tournaments compete exclusively in the Panda Cup instead of participating in both circuits. In the document, they claim that tournaments were nervous about joining the SWT because Dr. Alan Bunney, CEO of Panda Global, told them that the SWT “would be closed and [was] not come back in 2022.”

These statements have been confirmed by Beyond the Summit – another prominent broadcaster in Super Smash Bros.

Despite not being licensed, VGBootCamp also claims they had positive conversations with Nintendo. According to VGBootCamp, Nintendo said that “Panda’s partnership was not exclusive” and that the SWT was in good standing for “not infringing on their IP regarding game modifications and representing Nintendo’s values ​​well.” They even went so far as to indicate that they wanted to work with the SWT and to grant a permit according to the organizer’s statement.

VGBootCamp applied for a license from Nintendo for their April 2022 event. The organizer claimed that despite months of reminding Nintendo about the pending license, the developer did not respond until the night before Thanksgiving. This was just weeks before the scheduled final on December 9-11 and eight months after the application was submitted.

However, in a statement to KotakuNintendo disputed some of these claims: “Nintendo has not requested changes to or cancellation of remaining events in 2022, including the 2022 Championship event, given the negative impact on players already planning to participate.”

SWT too responded to Nintendo’s statement, including the company’s response to close the SWT Finale and confirm that licenses will be required for all future Smash Bros. tournaments.

“Nintendo expects to obtain an approved license to conduct commercial activities with Nintendo IP. It is also expected to obtain such license well in advance of any public announcement. After further review, we determined that the Smash World Tour did not meet these expectations regarding health and safety guidelines and did not comply with our internal partner guidelines. Nintendo cannot license the 2022 Smash World Tour Championship or any Smash World Tour activity in 2023.”

Smash World Tour’s reproduction of Nintendo’s emails destroying the event

The legal options of SWT

VGBootCamp has shut down most operations in the near future. Unfortunately for them, it seems that legal action is unlikely to remedy the situation.

According to Richard Hoeg, corporate lawyer and host of Virtual legality, the lack of a formal contract between SWT and Nintendo makes legal action difficult. If the relationship between two parties is not formalized and only future, a third party has much more leeway to intervene.

“It’s possible that based on some of the later statements there is some harmful reliance or even defamation claim against Nintendo, but it would be a guess,” confirmed Hoeg.

These developments have confused both the SWT and the Super Smash Bros. community.

VGBootCamp is one of the top organizers for the Smash Bros. scene and has been around for over a decade. They are one of the central hubs for the disparate community. The consequences for the company seem catastrophic. The organizers stated that they will “lose hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of Nintendo’s actions.” VGBootCamp has also canceled most of their upcoming assignments.

If Nintendo shuts down all unlicensed events, it would be a fundamental shift in the way the ecosystem works. The competitive Super Smash Bros. community has always had a difficult relationship with Nintendo. Typically, most event organizers were able to run events without Nintendo involvement or legal threats. However, this was always a gray area and Nintendo sometimes took action, especially against mod events like Project M.

Now it looks like Nintendo is taking a stronger stance. It seems that the developer is using Panda Global as a middleman to sell Smash Bros. manage esports events.

However, tensions have reached a new boiling point within the community. A lot prominent players and community figures to be boycott Panda Cup events or re-evaluate their relationship with Panda.

This has big implications depending on how far Panda’s influence extends to Nintendo. If they have a say in which events can secure licenses, they will be the main power broker in the community. In addition, Panda operated PG statistics – one of the most used player rankings for both Melee and Ultimate. This could affect players and tournaments seeking sponsorship legitimacy.

Panda did not respond to a request for comment.