Nintendo Issues Full Statement Over Smash World Tour Cancellation
Nintendo Issues Full Statement Over Smash World Tour Cancellation
by Amiibofan101
30 Comments
large_oil_tanker
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.
KenshiroTheKid
Nintendo trying to gaslight us about this is really insulting. I can’t believe that they think we’re this dumb. It doesn’t matter if Nintendo states verbally that they aren’t cancelling the event if they sent SWT a written statement that says:
>**“It is Nintendo’s expectation that an approved license be secured in order to operate any commercial activity featuring Nintendo IP. It is also expected to secure such a license well in advance of any public announcement.** After further review, we’ve found that the Smash World Tour has not met these expectations around health & safety guidelines and has not adhered to our internal partner guidelines. **Nintendo will not be able to grant a license for the Smash World Tour Championship 2022 or any Smash World Tour activity in 2023.”**
Or to paraphrase: Nintendo no longer accepts running large tournaments with huge prize pools without a license and we aren’t giving you a license. If the SWT team was to take Nintendo’s verbal statement and run the event they can easily open themselves up to a cease and desist which would open them up to significant legal liability on top of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they already lost.
This is just typical slimy PR speak statement and nothing of actual substance
TheNightquest
Is it just me or does this just sound like a PR Lawyer making an obviously stupid statement?
Gopoopahorse
I sure do love being gaslighted by a multi-billion dollar corporation
Squish_the_android
People seemed confused about what happened here but it’s pretty clear to me. You see this kind of communication a lot in business that’s really contract heavy.
Nintendo has an official stance in writing that they require licensing for tournaments. They are presumably in talks with Panda about providing this licensing.
Nintendo and SWT have some kind of understanding that the SWT tournament is happening without licensing.
SWT calls up and requests clarity on their situation. (Never a good thing to do when you have an unofficial agreement).
Nintendo communicates, in writing, their official stance but communicates verbally (or off the books) that the tournament doesn’t need to be cancelled.
They’ve done this because their preference is licensing, they’re in talks with someone else to sell licensing, but don’t want to give the appearance of licensing being unnecessary. They already accepted that SWT is happening and are unofficially fine with it.
SWT doesn’t want to move forward without an official agreement and cancels.
They didn’t want to make a special case for SWT, SWT presumably didn’t meet the requirements for licensing, but they didn’t want/couldn’t put in writing that they were letting it slide.
No_Property2880
They’re releasing full detailed statements regarding this but a few words when releasing a broken and buggy Pokémon title lol
TonicMorok
No matter their “reasoning”, only telling them two weeks beforehand that they can’t have the license is a real shit move. they knew about this long, long beforehand. But that’s just typical Nintendo behavior, and far from the first time they have done something like this. Just look at how they behaved around pokemon fan projects. They are out to deal maximum damage, and they have always been.
Frostymagnum
Don’t know what this is really about, but it seems like these SWT fellas could’ve still had their tourney and did t need to cancel
Weslyy_
Inexcusable
Wubbzy-mon
Better than radio-silence we would’ve gotten 5 years back
DarkKirby14
Gaslighting 101
French_Booty
I feel like a lot of this is ambiguous language. What IP guidelines did they break? What organizational best practices or inappropriate things were they doing that Nintendo worked with them to correct but didn’t get done? (/s I don’t think they wouldn’t work to correct something if Nintendo asked) I wanna know which ones. Point to the rules they broke Nintendo.
Rialmwe
“*It’s also important that a partner adheres to brand and IP guidelines and conducts itself according to professional and organizational best practices.*”
This mean that Nintendo didn’t like how Smash World Tour organizers reacted and I doubt they will work with them for a while.
mas_one
SWT *did* consult a legal team before releasing their statement. They received written information from Nintendo saying they required a license to proceed with their tournament, and that they would not be receiving a license. Any competent lawyer would look at this and tell you not to put on your tournament. So Nintendo skirting around that statement with this PR cover up is extremely deceptive. “We didn’t *tell them verbally* they couldn’t put on their tournament, so they must have decided to cancel it themselves.”
You’d think if there was even the slightest indication that they could proceed with the circuit they would, especially after consulting a legal team about Nintendo’s statement. The alternative is bankrupting your entire business and financially fucking over hundreds of players, sponsors, commentators etc. Nintendo is straight up lying here. The most telling part to me is that they do not elaborate on the accusations levied towards Panda rather they just say:
>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
SWT straight up told Nintendo that Panda was racketeering the rest of the community. So what in the world is Nintendo doing doubling down on their relationship with Panda?
Drsmiley72
so can someone explain it to me? so my question is …why does it matter waht nintendo thinks? people bought the game, and are having a party wth peopel to play it in a tournament style. cant they just… ignore nintendo and say “well your not part of this” and just do thier thing?
​
i mean it feels like nintendo could come to your house when you and your friends are playing and say “we dont like you guys playing to gether, so your not allowed to any more”
​
like…people own the game, own the right to play it. nintendo could ban the systems fro monline sure but they cant ban peopel from playying a game.
like.. i literally have 2 places in my city, a local game store and a card shop, that both run weekly tournaments. and nintendo has never told them they cant do it. nor do i doubt they would care if nintendo did. i see no reason why they dont jsut keep playing.
Classic Nintendo gaslighting the smash community since 2013
Genesis1221
I’m so done with Nintendo at this point. It feels like controvery after controversy, anti-consumer decision after anti-consumer decision. I’m tired of getting excited over various competetive scenes like Melee, SWT, and Splatoon only to see Nintendo throwing everything in their fan’s faces. It isn’t even fun anymore.
Willie-Alb
So what the hell actually happened?
moongaia
Nvidia and Nintendo, in bed together and two of the worst companies in the universe.
Puffd
“Full” Statement is a comical description for this lackluster, vague, and contradictory response.
mrwho995
I trust SWT in a heartbeat over Nintendo, who have proven themselves time and time again to be extremely anti-consumer and anti-fan when it comes to ‘protecting’ their IP. As far as I’m concerned, Nintendo are probably just lying because of the pushback. SWT should call their bluff and reannounce the event.
DGB31988
Nintendo hates hardcore gamers.
UnknownMight
I am so confused lol
Halos-117
Why is Nintendo playing defense for Panda Global?
AkilleezBomb
Would like to know exactly what Nintendo’s assessment saw as not brand appropriate.
that1senpai2
Damn. All this dmca shit and now this makes me really reconsider if I want to continue to support Nintendo
AkiWar
Can’t wait for another Cr1tical video about him jumping the gun early
Unhappy-Valuable-596
World tour in America lol
NeonHowler
For those that can’t tell, Nintendo 100% wanted the tournaments cancelled. That was their goal. That’s what they got.
They do not want to be held responsible for any financial losses that SWT or any of the entrants/cre will inevitably face, and that’s why they’re telling everyone they had said it could continue “verbally”. Verbally doesn’t matter.
What comes across as malicious is that they waited until 3 weeks before the tournament to cancel the event. Essentially ensuring maximum losses for everyone involved in putting the tournament together. This is not the first time they’ve done this.
30 Comments
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.
Nintendo trying to gaslight us about this is really insulting. I can’t believe that they think we’re this dumb. It doesn’t matter if Nintendo states verbally that they aren’t cancelling the event if they sent SWT a written statement that says:
>**“It is Nintendo’s expectation that an approved license be secured in order to operate any commercial activity featuring Nintendo IP. It is also expected to secure such a license well in advance of any public announcement.** After further review, we’ve found that the Smash World Tour has not met these expectations around health & safety guidelines and has not adhered to our internal partner guidelines. **Nintendo will not be able to grant a license for the Smash World Tour Championship 2022 or any Smash World Tour activity in 2023.”**
Or to paraphrase: Nintendo no longer accepts running large tournaments with huge prize pools without a license and we aren’t giving you a license. If the SWT team was to take Nintendo’s verbal statement and run the event they can easily open themselves up to a cease and desist which would open them up to significant legal liability on top of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they already lost.
This is just typical slimy PR speak statement and nothing of actual substance
Is it just me or does this just sound like a PR Lawyer making an obviously stupid statement?
I sure do love being gaslighted by a multi-billion dollar corporation
People seemed confused about what happened here but it’s pretty clear to me. You see this kind of communication a lot in business that’s really contract heavy.
Nintendo has an official stance in writing that they require licensing for tournaments. They are presumably in talks with Panda about providing this licensing.
Nintendo and SWT have some kind of understanding that the SWT tournament is happening without licensing.
SWT calls up and requests clarity on their situation. (Never a good thing to do when you have an unofficial agreement).
Nintendo communicates, in writing, their official stance but communicates verbally (or off the books) that the tournament doesn’t need to be cancelled.
They’ve done this because their preference is licensing, they’re in talks with someone else to sell licensing, but don’t want to give the appearance of licensing being unnecessary. They already accepted that SWT is happening and are unofficially fine with it.
SWT doesn’t want to move forward without an official agreement and cancels.
They didn’t want to make a special case for SWT, SWT presumably didn’t meet the requirements for licensing, but they didn’t want/couldn’t put in writing that they were letting it slide.
They’re releasing full detailed statements regarding this but a few words when releasing a broken and buggy Pokémon title lol
No matter their “reasoning”, only telling them two weeks beforehand that they can’t have the license is a real shit move. they knew about this long, long beforehand. But that’s just typical Nintendo behavior, and far from the first time they have done something like this. Just look at how they behaved around pokemon fan projects. They are out to deal maximum damage, and they have always been.
Don’t know what this is really about, but it seems like these SWT fellas could’ve still had their tourney and did t need to cancel
Inexcusable
Better than radio-silence we would’ve gotten 5 years back
Gaslighting 101
I feel like a lot of this is ambiguous language. What IP guidelines did they break? What organizational best practices or inappropriate things were they doing that Nintendo worked with them to correct but didn’t get done? (/s I don’t think they wouldn’t work to correct something if Nintendo asked) I wanna know which ones. Point to the rules they broke Nintendo.
“*It’s also important that a partner adheres to brand and IP guidelines and conducts itself according to professional and organizational best practices.*”
This mean that Nintendo didn’t like how Smash World Tour organizers reacted and I doubt they will work with them for a while.
SWT *did* consult a legal team before releasing their statement. They received written information from Nintendo saying they required a license to proceed with their tournament, and that they would not be receiving a license. Any competent lawyer would look at this and tell you not to put on your tournament. So Nintendo skirting around that statement with this PR cover up is extremely deceptive. “We didn’t *tell them verbally* they couldn’t put on their tournament, so they must have decided to cancel it themselves.”
You’d think if there was even the slightest indication that they could proceed with the circuit they would, especially after consulting a legal team about Nintendo’s statement. The alternative is bankrupting your entire business and financially fucking over hundreds of players, sponsors, commentators etc. Nintendo is straight up lying here. The most telling part to me is that they do not elaborate on the accusations levied towards Panda rather they just say:
>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
SWT straight up told Nintendo that Panda was racketeering the rest of the community. So what in the world is Nintendo doing doubling down on their relationship with Panda?
so can someone explain it to me? so my question is …why does it matter waht nintendo thinks? people bought the game, and are having a party wth peopel to play it in a tournament style. cant they just… ignore nintendo and say “well your not part of this” and just do thier thing?
​
i mean it feels like nintendo could come to your house when you and your friends are playing and say “we dont like you guys playing to gether, so your not allowed to any more”
​
like…people own the game, own the right to play it. nintendo could ban the systems fro monline sure but they cant ban peopel from playying a game.
like.. i literally have 2 places in my city, a local game store and a card shop, that both run weekly tournaments. and nintendo has never told them they cant do it. nor do i doubt they would care if nintendo did. i see no reason why they dont jsut keep playing.
SWT has released a statement directly responding to Nintendo’s full statement. It includes direct quotes from the verbal meeting: https://mobile.twitter.com/SmashWorldTour/status/1598674295189905409?cxt=HHwWgoC9xaTz0K8sAAAA
Classic Nintendo gaslighting the smash community since 2013
I’m so done with Nintendo at this point. It feels like controvery after controversy, anti-consumer decision after anti-consumer decision. I’m tired of getting excited over various competetive scenes like Melee, SWT, and Splatoon only to see Nintendo throwing everything in their fan’s faces. It isn’t even fun anymore.
So what the hell actually happened?
Nvidia and Nintendo, in bed together and two of the worst companies in the universe.
“Full” Statement is a comical description for this lackluster, vague, and contradictory response.
I trust SWT in a heartbeat over Nintendo, who have proven themselves time and time again to be extremely anti-consumer and anti-fan when it comes to ‘protecting’ their IP. As far as I’m concerned, Nintendo are probably just lying because of the pushback. SWT should call their bluff and reannounce the event.
Nintendo hates hardcore gamers.
I am so confused lol
Why is Nintendo playing defense for Panda Global?
Would like to know exactly what Nintendo’s assessment saw as not brand appropriate.
Damn. All this dmca shit and now this makes me really reconsider if I want to continue to support Nintendo
Can’t wait for another Cr1tical video about him jumping the gun early
World tour in America lol
For those that can’t tell, Nintendo 100% wanted the tournaments cancelled. That was their goal. That’s what they got.
They do not want to be held responsible for any financial losses that SWT or any of the entrants/cre will inevitably face, and that’s why they’re telling everyone they had said it could continue “verbally”. Verbally doesn’t matter.
What comes across as malicious is that they waited until 3 weeks before the tournament to cancel the event. Essentially ensuring maximum losses for everyone involved in putting the tournament together. This is not the first time they’ve done this.