Politicians in Europe are picking up on Nintendo’s Smash World Tour cancellation and are asking questions if game companies should have the final say in who gets to run tournaments
Politicians in Europe are picking up on Nintendo’s Smash World Tour cancellation and are asking questions if game companies should have the final say in who gets to run tournaments
by Fawesum
24 Comments
Fawesum
Google Translate version is pretty good, but here’s a summary:
* The cancellation of SWT made headlines in gaming press the world over.
* The Norwegian government is working on a dedicated gaming strategy and both gaming and esports has been discussed a lot the last few years.
* Earlier this year, Riot Games stopped Norway’s largest esports series (Telialigaen) from arranging League of Legends tournaments after many years of successfully doing so, so the whole issue with huge companies clamping down on grassroot initiatives is already something that was being discussed.
* [An opinion piece](https://www.pressfire.no/artikkel/e-sportenes-varslede-katastrofe-er-i-gang) criticizing the game companies and pointing out the problems with esports ownerships apparently ended up in the Norwegian parliament, where one of the sitting parties now has formally asked the government to comment on the inherent problems in esports, citing the Nintendo cancellation and saying it’s problematic that grassroot initiatives are being stopped.
* The Green Party says: “Gaming tournaments are being stopped because the game developers are threatening organizers with legal action if their tournaments and events are using their games without permission or partnerships. This is halting progress in esports and is creating a monopoly that is stunting ordinary people’s opportunities to compete and watch esports. What is the government going to do to address this problem and to ensure that tournaments can be held?”
* **The Norwegian Government now has 6 days to formally reply.**
* Politicians elaborate more in the article: “It’s important to stop these monopolies so that development of esports can happen players’ terms, not based on what is profitable for commercial companies at a given time”
* “[Ownerships of esports] is obviously a big challenge, and we probably have to think new and differently about regulation than for other sports, where we have never faced anything similar. What makes this extra demanding is that we are talking about international companies, so by all accounts there is a need for regulation not only in Norway, but across national borders.”
* “We need to raise our own knowledge of the structural conditions around e-sports and the room for opportunity that exists politically to support the grassroots movement in these sports.”
* “We hope more politicians both in Norway and internationally see the need for new regulation that ensures a diverse and democratic development of esports, and take action to ensure this.”
* Asked if esports can be regulated at all: “Most things can be regulated, and esports is no different.”
**While this is just in a small country so far, Nintendo has nevertheless now ended up in political discussions and not in a way I think they wanted.**
The EU has just a few months ago voted to create a large unified video game strategy – and game company ownerships were brought up as the single biggest issue with esports there as well. Norway’s barking about this now might attract the EU’s interest.
(By the way: Norway dragged Nintendo to EU courts a few years back and made them stop the unlawful practice of not allowing cancellations of pre-orders before release)
Dopesmoker402
Of course they should. Have you seen the smash competitive scene. Rhese people should not be trusted around children and an evenement like this with people like that is just quite damming. So only good that nintendo does something
Show-Adept
Thank you for sharing this.
HelloNevvanna73
Good
shadowknuxem
Yeah, this is kind of an odd situation, because the closest analogy we have is showing a movie, but games aren’t movies. It makes sense that people should be able to have a tournament of any game that they have legally obtained, even if the creator doesn’t like it.
This does make me wonder if Project M would be allowed to play, assuming this goes through.
wicktus
in France the government directly contributed to some esports competition coming in the country, and they recently invited a lot of esport and streamers to the Elysee.
Why ? esport generates a lot of revenues (and “internet fame”) and politicians now notice it, that’s the only reason they’d care but in the end it’s a win for us if they prevent something like the Smash world tour competition
alfalfalafo
Always nice to see a government body doing it’s job
GuyDanger
Couldn’t anyone run a tour? The only difference would be that one would be officially sanctioned while the other isn’t.
Chef_Caspian
Bruh didn’t expect this one
TakedownCorn
Run your tournaments all you want, as you wish, with no prize money. As soon as money is involved, then yes, the owners of the IP/Games should have a say in if their games can be used
socoprime
The IP belongs to the company and it should be the company’s choice who gets to use it and how. Its no different than any other form if IP or property.
People only support this sort of theft because it makes them feel like they are sticking it to “big corporate”. Meanwhile if this was some small indie dev or if some large corporation was using an indie dev’s IP without permission or compensation, they would be howling about how its “not fair”.
StoryAndAHalf
I don’t watch esports and have no horse in the race, but my stance on why I can’t see it on same pedigree as sports and get into it is mostly around the fact that you can’t really have the same level of freedom:
Imagine you want to start a new soccer league, football league, baseball league, and alter the rules because you may think the games are too slow, don’t score enough, or anything else. You’re free to do so. Now you want to create a League of Legends league, now you’re running into multiple problems of copyright infringement, don’t have access to the code to make changes to feel are necessary. You have to create your own game, and can’t call it League of Legends or use any characters. So at this point it’s a different game altogether. Football is still football whether you go by NFL, CFL, or NCAA/college rules or even make your own up. Until organizers have this level of control I will forever see most esports as product-specific sports at best no matter how much money is thrown around.
ParagonEsquire
The thing is this, they probably don’t.
The argument that game pubs can control these things is based on, as I understand it, streaming rights. Nintendo, and other companies, claim you cannot publicly exhibit their games without their consent. For a movie, this is obviously true, free showing a movie without the studio’s permission is obviously illegal, as it destroys the market for that movie.
But games are not movies. Watching a video game is not a replacement for playing that video game, at least in general. Hence, streaming games should be considered fair use. And as such the publisher would have no control.
However, the way the law is setup this is just theoretical. You need court rulings declaring that to be the case. And those are expensive. Right now the publishers are relying on that. They threaten to sue and your choice is to get into a legal battle with a multinational corporation or fold. Even though I think they probably lose that case, the uncertainty and cost allows them to throw their weight around for now.
Europe is basically powerless on this because the streaming sites that are going to enforce or based out of the US. You need SCOTUS and that requires a lot.
Swordofsatan666
No Game Companies should not get to decide who can run tournaments. They can hold their own official tournaments if they want, but anyone else should also be allowed to run a tournament if they want to
TheAllterQuestion98
I don’t have much to say about this, but nintendo still disliked their own community because of everything they’ve experienced in the EVO for years, but it’s a shame for what happened in that tournament, the final the previous CEO of global panda had something to do with the closure but I did not read what it did
sputnikv
You can’t have a film festival or screenings of a film without permission from the studio holding the rights. This is precedence.
Altruistic_Water_423
First place this ain’t happening in? USA
cruss4612
What a fantastic protection of intellectual property rights for anyone that creates art, or more broadly anyone who creates anything.
Unintended consequences.
Politicians want to help organizers of game tournaments and esport events be able to host popular games.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Fortnite tournaments are organized by Neo-Nazis and are used to spread horribly vile messages. This exposes children to ideas that are grossly inhumane and best left relegated to the darkest corners. Developers don’t want their games played in a manner that divides people and marginalizes entire groups of vulnerable people, but can no longer limit the use of their intellectual property to prevent such things. Singers and bands can’t levy cease and desist orders to Trump for using their music at their rallies. (Yes I know this isn’t US Law, but it’s the best situation I could think of.)
IceeMcNastiness
LETS GO FUCK NINTENDO
Banansvele2
Norway has a strong grassroots tradition in sports, this might be getting a foothold because of that
arabic_slave_girl
If they drop the title “Nintendo” and rename to “Retro”… not sure there is a lot they can do about it.
im_absouletly_wrong
Hot
jjamm420
Liken this to pro wrestling…WWE stopped the Dudley Boys from reuniting this weekend because D-von works for the WWE, and they own the ECW name and and the Dudley name…Nintendo owns the Smash Bros name, and as such can stop anything that they didn’t authorize in prior…it was an unauthorized tournament with an intellectual property to which the tournament organizers had no authorization to use…Nintendo has every right to shut this down as they see fit…end of story…
24 Comments
Google Translate version is pretty good, but here’s a summary:
* The cancellation of SWT made headlines in gaming press the world over.
* The Norwegian government is working on a dedicated gaming strategy and both gaming and esports has been discussed a lot the last few years.
* Earlier this year, Riot Games stopped Norway’s largest esports series (Telialigaen) from arranging League of Legends tournaments after many years of successfully doing so, so the whole issue with huge companies clamping down on grassroot initiatives is already something that was being discussed.
* [An opinion piece](https://www.pressfire.no/artikkel/e-sportenes-varslede-katastrofe-er-i-gang) criticizing the game companies and pointing out the problems with esports ownerships apparently ended up in the Norwegian parliament, where one of the sitting parties now has formally asked the government to comment on the inherent problems in esports, citing the Nintendo cancellation and saying it’s problematic that grassroot initiatives are being stopped.
* The Green Party says: “Gaming tournaments are being stopped because the game developers are threatening organizers with legal action if their tournaments and events are using their games without permission or partnerships. This is halting progress in esports and is creating a monopoly that is stunting ordinary people’s opportunities to compete and watch esports. What is the government going to do to address this problem and to ensure that tournaments can be held?”
* **The Norwegian Government now has 6 days to formally reply.**
* Politicians elaborate more in the article: “It’s important to stop these monopolies so that development of esports can happen players’ terms, not based on what is profitable for commercial companies at a given time”
* “[Ownerships of esports] is obviously a big challenge, and we probably have to think new and differently about regulation than for other sports, where we have never faced anything similar. What makes this extra demanding is that we are talking about international companies, so by all accounts there is a need for regulation not only in Norway, but across national borders.”
* “We need to raise our own knowledge of the structural conditions around e-sports and the room for opportunity that exists politically to support the grassroots movement in these sports.”
* “We hope more politicians both in Norway and internationally see the need for new regulation that ensures a diverse and democratic development of esports, and take action to ensure this.”
* Asked if esports can be regulated at all: “Most things can be regulated, and esports is no different.”
**While this is just in a small country so far, Nintendo has nevertheless now ended up in political discussions and not in a way I think they wanted.**
The EU has just a few months ago voted to create a large unified video game strategy – and game company ownerships were brought up as the single biggest issue with esports there as well. Norway’s barking about this now might attract the EU’s interest.
(By the way: Norway dragged Nintendo to EU courts a few years back and made them stop the unlawful practice of not allowing cancellations of pre-orders before release)
Of course they should. Have you seen the smash competitive scene. Rhese people should not be trusted around children and an evenement like this with people like that is just quite damming. So only good that nintendo does something
Thank you for sharing this.
Good
Yeah, this is kind of an odd situation, because the closest analogy we have is showing a movie, but games aren’t movies. It makes sense that people should be able to have a tournament of any game that they have legally obtained, even if the creator doesn’t like it.
This does make me wonder if Project M would be allowed to play, assuming this goes through.
in France the government directly contributed to some esports competition coming in the country, and they recently invited a lot of esport and streamers to the Elysee.
Why ? esport generates a lot of revenues (and “internet fame”) and politicians now notice it, that’s the only reason they’d care but in the end it’s a win for us if they prevent something like the Smash world tour competition
Always nice to see a government body doing it’s job
Couldn’t anyone run a tour? The only difference would be that one would be officially sanctioned while the other isn’t.
Bruh didn’t expect this one
Run your tournaments all you want, as you wish, with no prize money. As soon as money is involved, then yes, the owners of the IP/Games should have a say in if their games can be used
The IP belongs to the company and it should be the company’s choice who gets to use it and how. Its no different than any other form if IP or property.
People only support this sort of theft because it makes them feel like they are sticking it to “big corporate”. Meanwhile if this was some small indie dev or if some large corporation was using an indie dev’s IP without permission or compensation, they would be howling about how its “not fair”.
I don’t watch esports and have no horse in the race, but my stance on why I can’t see it on same pedigree as sports and get into it is mostly around the fact that you can’t really have the same level of freedom:
Imagine you want to start a new soccer league, football league, baseball league, and alter the rules because you may think the games are too slow, don’t score enough, or anything else. You’re free to do so. Now you want to create a League of Legends league, now you’re running into multiple problems of copyright infringement, don’t have access to the code to make changes to feel are necessary. You have to create your own game, and can’t call it League of Legends or use any characters. So at this point it’s a different game altogether. Football is still football whether you go by NFL, CFL, or NCAA/college rules or even make your own up. Until organizers have this level of control I will forever see most esports as product-specific sports at best no matter how much money is thrown around.
The thing is this, they probably don’t.
The argument that game pubs can control these things is based on, as I understand it, streaming rights. Nintendo, and other companies, claim you cannot publicly exhibit their games without their consent. For a movie, this is obviously true, free showing a movie without the studio’s permission is obviously illegal, as it destroys the market for that movie.
But games are not movies. Watching a video game is not a replacement for playing that video game, at least in general. Hence, streaming games should be considered fair use. And as such the publisher would have no control.
However, the way the law is setup this is just theoretical. You need court rulings declaring that to be the case. And those are expensive. Right now the publishers are relying on that. They threaten to sue and your choice is to get into a legal battle with a multinational corporation or fold. Even though I think they probably lose that case, the uncertainty and cost allows them to throw their weight around for now.
Europe is basically powerless on this because the streaming sites that are going to enforce or based out of the US. You need SCOTUS and that requires a lot.
No Game Companies should not get to decide who can run tournaments. They can hold their own official tournaments if they want, but anyone else should also be allowed to run a tournament if they want to
I don’t have much to say about this, but nintendo still disliked their own community because of everything they’ve experienced in the EVO for years, but it’s a shame for what happened in that tournament, the final the previous CEO of global panda had something to do with the closure but I did not read what it did
You can’t have a film festival or screenings of a film without permission from the studio holding the rights. This is precedence.
First place this ain’t happening in? USA
What a fantastic protection of intellectual property rights for anyone that creates art, or more broadly anyone who creates anything.
Unintended consequences.
Politicians want to help organizers of game tournaments and esport events be able to host popular games.
Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
Fortnite tournaments are organized by Neo-Nazis and are used to spread horribly vile messages. This exposes children to ideas that are grossly inhumane and best left relegated to the darkest corners. Developers don’t want their games played in a manner that divides people and marginalizes entire groups of vulnerable people, but can no longer limit the use of their intellectual property to prevent such things. Singers and bands can’t levy cease and desist orders to Trump for using their music at their rallies. (Yes I know this isn’t US Law, but it’s the best situation I could think of.)
LETS GO FUCK NINTENDO
Norway has a strong grassroots tradition in sports, this might be getting a foothold because of that
If they drop the title “Nintendo” and rename to “Retro”… not sure there is a lot they can do about it.
Hot
Liken this to pro wrestling…WWE stopped the Dudley Boys from reuniting this weekend because D-von works for the WWE, and they own the ECW name and and the Dudley name…Nintendo owns the Smash Bros name, and as such can stop anything that they didn’t authorize in prior…it was an unauthorized tournament with an intellectual property to which the tournament organizers had no authorization to use…Nintendo has every right to shut this down as they see fit…end of story…
Karen alert! Karen alert!