 Today we're going to be talking about Nintendo and Super Smash Bros. Smash Tournaments. Nintendo may be even doing something really bad, maybe issues with Panda Cup. Look, the stuff we're going to talk about today is something that is extremely out of my depth. I am not a professional Smash Bros. player. I don't pay attention to professional Smash Bros. I also am not somebody who even cares that much about Smash in general. But I want to cover this story because it seems big and it's so big that Nintendo themselves has issued a pretty lengthy response due to the accusations made against them where Nintendo basically is being accused of shutting down an extremely popular Super Smash Bros. circuit. Now, that's about all I'm going to say for right now before I get right into the accusations because I don't know enough of the history of all of this to really dive much deeper than what was stated on both sides of the spectrum. That being said, I do want to thank the sponsor of today's video, EWIN Racing. EWIN Racing creates some amazing gaming chairs, office chairs, whatever you want to call them. Also some cool desks and stuff like that. You can use discount code Nintendo Prime to get 20% off. We got a link down in the description to make this nice and easy for you guys. And let's get right into our video. And first off, we have a post at Medium.com, which is a blog website from Smash World Tour. Alright, I want to make sure we go through this thoroughly and explain some of this stuff along the way, at least according to what I can understand. So here's what they say, an official statement by Smash World Tour posted on 1129, 2022. It is with an unbelievable heavy heart that we must announce that both the upcoming Smash World Tour championships as well as the 2023 Smash World Tour must be cancelled without any warning. We received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate. This was especially shocking, giving our discourse with Nintendo over the past 12 months. Since then, we have been working around the clock to take the proper steps logistically, as well as to prepare this statement with proper legal guidance. We are seriously grateful for all the support over the years. And we are incredibly proud of what we were able to build as a community in 2022 alone. We connected over 6,400 live events worldwide with over 325,000 in person entrance may you smash World Tour, the largest e-sports tour in history for any game title, the championships would have had the largest prize pool in Smash Bros history at over $250,000 the 2023 Smash World Tour Planet of a prize pool of over $350,000. Now again, these are just numbers and stuff that they're stating. I can't verify any of this stuff. Maybe people from the Smash World Tour that participated in it maybe could do that, but I can't verify any of this stuff. They're devastated. It says the impact of the tour globally can be overstated, etc, etc, etc. So they're just kind of going over some general stuff about the tour. And it says how we got here. Ironically, we thought there was a chance that last year Smash World Tour championships and to where we're always going to be shut down in November of 2021 after the Panda Cup was first announced. Nintendo contacted us to jump on a call with a few folks on their team, including a representative from their legal team. We truly thought we might be getting shut down given the fact that they now had a licensed competing circuit and partner in Panda. Once we joined the call, we were very surprised to hear just the opposite. Nintendo reached out to let us know that they had been watching us build over the years and wanted to see if we were interested in working with them and pursuing a license as well. They made it clear that Panda's partnership was not exclusive and they said it had not gone unnoticed, that we had not infringed on their IP regarding game modifications and had represented Nintendo's value as well. They made it clear that game modifications were their primary concern in regards to coming down on events, which also made sense to us, given their enforcement over the past few years in that regard, which Nintendo has been attacked for coming down on Smash events, especially over COVID that we're using online stuff because like online didn't exist for Melee, but that seems to be what Nintendo was presenting to them. Hey, as long as you're not modifying the game, we're cool. And I guess this seems to be the case. They weren't really shutting down tournaments official or not that weren't modifying games. Anyways, basically this whole section of their article, and I'll link it down below, goes over how Nintendo had been communicating with them for like nine straight months or so on this stuff. And the circuit was running this whole time. They didn't have a license yet. Things were looking promising. And then Nintendo just kind of went silent for a little bit. And this is interesting when they pick things up. So we found out that many organizers were concerned about joining up in 2022. It's also that they have been told by Alan, the CEO and co-founder of Panda that we were going to get shut down and we're not coming back in 2022. So now they're making accusations of Panda. The company Nintendo has partnered with that they're interfering now with Smash World tour partners and stuff like this, which affect venues, affect the prize pool, and all of that. Nintendo said that we're very sympathetic and reassured us on a few counts. They reminded us and reassured us that Nintendo is only looking to shut down IP infringement related to game mods, not unlicensed Smash World tour. The Panda CEO does not represent Nintendo and they would have to have a conversation with him about his behavior. They reminded us and assured us that Panda's license is not exclusive. They reminded us that Nintendo's goal was not to gatekeep or trap the community and that license guidelines would be accessible and clear. So again, Nintendo just reassuring them and they continued to talk for a little bit. Then there's some stuff about the Panda Cup. Basically just talking a bunch of trash about the Panda Cup, which I'm not going to get into it. They're a competing circuit. Panda Cup is licensed. Smash World tour is not. I don't know how much of this I can honestly verify. Maybe people from the Panda Cup side can explain some of this. Panda Cup has put out an official statement as well, but we're going to leave that alone because that seems to be, again, that's two different competing cups given different stories in the course of events. Even though Panda might be part of this, we want to make sure that we recognize that obviously there could be with reason for Smash World tour to have animosity towards Panda Cup and talk down to them. Panda Cup obviously worried about Smash World tour could talk down to them. Again, that's not something I'm interested in a little bicker fest, but the shutdown is as we were not able to reconvene with Nintendo again until November. So I mentioned that there was a bit of a break in communications nearly seven months after our application submission. At this point, we were only one month out from the championships and we pressed Nintendo a bit harder on how things were progressing, which is weird. Nintendo already said they wouldn't shut you down in 2022. So you didn't need to really press them. If we're completely honest here, Nintendo was letting you run already. You're cool. You didn't need to worry about it. You didn't need to press them about anything except for maybe 2023 licensing. Anyways, they said it had been a very complex issue navigating the planning for commercial licensing, but they were very empathetic to us feeling put on the back burner, especially given the context of the Panda Cup's messy inception and execution in terms of there are many decision makers involved and some of them advocating very hard for the community at the Smash World tour and the importance of the relationship to grassroots organizers. They were just an opportunity to potentially meet with some other decision makers. We were worried they did not know the full context of what had taken place this year. Nintendo said they will see what they can do and that we should continue to meet regularly to discuss planning. Finally, last Wednesday evening, November 23rd, we had our most recent call with Nintendo. Our Nintendo rep open 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 that we would not be granted one for the upcoming championships or any activity in 2023. We received this in writing as well, so the claiming they have written evidence of all of this is important because of something Nintendo is going to say. If we asked if we could clarify the reasoning for the decision, initially Nintendo gave us a reason that seemed to be misinformed and when we pushed back and asked for more details, they said they were unable to give any specifics and had to speak in generalities moving forward. It was very frustrating and that's basically it. They asked if they could continue running the championships into our next year without a license and shift their focus to working on them in 2024. We alluded to how the last year functioned in that capacity with a mutual understanding. We were told directly that those times were now over. This is the final nail in the coffin, etc. etc. The rest of this is kind of an opinion. But here's the thing, Nintendo actually released a lengthy response and it's key that special tour says they have this stuff in writing because Nintendo is contending some of the claims. Here's Nintendo's full statement as read and provided to IGN. 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 for their upcoming activities. Nintendo's decision was solely based on our assessment of the proposals submitted by Smash World Tour 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 is also important that a partner adhere to brand and IP guidelines and conducts itself according to professional and organizational best practices. We use the same approach to independently assess all partners. We discover that a partner is doing something inappropriate. We will work to correct it. When we notify the Smash World Tour 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 Smash World Tour 2022 was and still is their own choice. So basically what Nintendo is saying is we did tell you that we're not going to be licensing your finals. We're not going to license you in 2023. However we're not telling you to cancel the finals. That's not our request. We want you to run the finals. You've been running this tour all year. Finish out. Run your finals. Call it a day. We're cool with that. So they're trying to basically point blame at Smash World Tour for the cancellation this year because they're saying hey we never told you to actually cancel those finals. That's on you. Stop pointing the finger at us. That's what Nintendo is saying anyways. We are open to partnering with other organizations and we'll 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 Smash World Tour to benefit the larger 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 work hard to bring joy and fun to the community through tournaments while also assuring that we and our partners are operating in a manner that is positive and responsible. Now what's interesting of course is that we have a couple conflicting things. Obviously Smash World Tour claiming Nintendo said they can't run their championships. Nintendo saying no no no. We never said that. We said we're just not going to license your championships. You can still have them. You haven't been licensed all year so us not licensing you shouldn't really matter. Now Nintendo's not denying that they said you shouldn't run the event in 2023. They said they went licensed in 2023. Maybe they could run as an unlicensed event but Nintendo's like we would prefer if you just didn't run at all in 2023. That part seems to be mostly backed up by Nintendo. They don't go into as excruciating their detail. Well they just note hey we never told you to cancel the 2022 finals. In fact we said you should probably have the 2022 finals. They said verbally on call hey we said you should have the 2022 finals. The problem of course with a verbal statement like that is unless that call was recorded there's not going to be any evidence. So Nintendo could be making this up. That's the problem with verbally stated things is that if no one's recording the call on either side it's literally he said she said there is no evidence. So they could be making this up after the fact or Smash World Tour could have misinterpreted and there's just no way to know because there's not going to be any record of it. And because Nintendo said verbally it's notable because Smash World Tour says we have this in writing but in the writing it doesn't say you could run your 2022 championship. So the evidence might actually lean towards Smash World Tour despite what Nintendo is saying here. This is just quite interesting. Panda Cup came out by the way and they released their own statement. Again I'm not interested in the bickering between Smash World Tour and Panda Cup. If you guys want to dive deeper into it I will provide a link to the official response from Panda as well as the original stuff and Nintendo's response that you guys can get the full context for yourself. I think this is just overly complex for something that shouldn't be. Look Nintendo licensing is funny because well Nintendo licensed events they don't provide any money for the event. So Nintendo is not providing prize pool money. They're not providing seating money. They're not providing venues. They're not providing anything. They're giving you a piece of paper that says you are officially sanctioned and allowed to run these tournaments and run these Smash circuits. That's it. It's a piece of paper. That's what you're doing. Nintendo isn't shutting down other unlicensed events at this time but I think because Smash World Tour wanted to be licensed that's why maybe Nintendo shutting them down moving forward whereas other events other grassroots events Nintendo's like hey we're not like we're just going to run around sort of shutting people down. Nintendo hasn't really been shutting down grassroots events unless it involved modding. I do find it interesting. I would like to know the conversation about continuing to run Smash World Tour without Nintendo's license because Smash World Tour has been running for years without a license so okay they can't get one so can they just continue to run as is. I know that they argued Nintendo said no but do we know that for sure because Nintendo doesn't even seem to address it so this is one of those situations where Nintendo is in the wrong in so much as they do make it pretty complicated to be an officially licensed and sanctioned event. They're in big claim here is that health and safety protocols weren't being followed whatever those strict health and safety protocols are especially with COVID and everything I could imagine that if they weren't requiring masks at in-person events and stuff like that that maybe that was a big red flag for Nintendo. I look I don't I don't obviously know what went behind these decisions because we don't have enough details other than Nintendo saying it was health and safety protocols. I was like the big thing was they weren't following our health and safety protocols ergo we were going to you know cancel this which is interesting because none of the conversations described by Smash World Tour ever mentioned health and safety protocols and I kind of feel like if it was just health and safety protocols it could have been one of those hey in 2023 if you guys will follow these health and safety protocols for your events we can then license you kind of would feel weird if we didn't license you because of this but we also never told you this and now we're telling you this now so it makes you wonder did Nintendo tell them about the health and safety protocols earlier this year giving them time to adjust and Smash World Tour never did I don't know like there's feel like there's just not enough information here from either side to really know enough unless the Smash World Tour story of events is the actual story and Nintendo's just making things up I don't know they claim Panda had nothing to do with them them not going forward I look this is just a this situation reminds me of a divorce right yeah you have people who are happily married had a lot of conversations a lot of good times things seem to be going well and then something breaks down and next thing you know accusations fly one way accusations fly the other way everyone's pointing fingers reality is somewhere in the middle but we'll never know where that middle is a judge is left sitting you're trying to sort out what the hell is all this bullcrap because your lies were so entangled in such a specific way and now you're completely savoring and I don't even know why you're savoring none of this makes sense but you know what it's life so find a way to deal with it like adults or I guess I'll have to put you in jail until you are dumb being stupid and decide you want to help each other out I look this is just stupid I think this whole situation is stupid Nintendo we know has a long reputation of not being very friendly in the smash community so I'm not going to give them the benefit of this isn't a defense Nintendo video but I also feel like the way smash world tour did this entire post I read the whole thing it does come along as like a disgruntled X like it does come across in a way where there seems to be a lot of pain also a lot of vitriol and venom which isn't always necessarily indicative of the truth and can sometimes take actual true events and twist them to be much worse than they probably are to an onlooker or say a third party that could look at this objectively and go you're getting a little too personally involved with your emotions that's not really what's going on here this is what's going on instead like maybe the whole hey Nintendo said you could run your 2022 championships it's just completely lost in communication because of how hurt someone is so I kind of feel like this situation just sucks and I don't know that Nintendo's ever just going to be completely nice with any sort of esports stuff why Nintendo themselves doesn't just run their own esports league and just say screw everyone else I know that's not necessarily what you want to do either but hey whatever at least Nintendo's providing prize money in that case you would hope not knowing Nintendo they'll give you a box of pop tarts and a trophy so I just maybe it'll be a participation ribbon instead remember everybody gets something right yeah we're in that world everybody wins right you even if you lose you win that's just how it goes oh you took last place in the tournament don't worry you still get a pretty a pretty little ribbon just like first place don't worry about it I just I hate talking about this it's so out of my depth but I wanted to present it to you guys you guys tell me what you think down in the comments below it's a bit of a longer video but it's because there's just so much information again all of this is so far out of my depth maybe some of you guys that know more about this can explain this stuff better to me down below of it maybe that's part of the reason I'm making this video is I kind of want my community to educate me on this because again this is not something I pay attention to but it seems big maybe it's not and that's what the community is going to tell me I don't know you guys let me know you guys tell me educate me thank you guys for tuning in catch you in the next video