Smash Bros esports chaos: Nintendo cancels unaffiliated events

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The Smash World Tour (SWT), a Super Smash Bros. circuit. hosted by VGBootCamp, announced that Nintendo was halting its finale 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 Allegations

Last year, the personalities of the Super Smash Bros. launched two major circuits to help unify the community: the SWT and the Panda Cup. These two events were structurally similar. Players could earn points at independently run events to qualify for a year-end final. However, Panda Global's Panda Cup was working with Nintendo in an official capacity.

In an open letter, VGBootCamp alleges that the problems started when Panda Global tried to get tournaments to join the Panda Cup exclusively instead of participating in both circuits. In the document, they claim that the tournaments were nervous about joining the SWT because Dr. Alan Bunney, CEO of Panda Global, told them that the SWT "was going to be closed and not coming back in 2022." /p>

These statements have been corroborated by Beyond the Summit, another major broadcaster of Super Smash Bros., among other titles.

Despite not having a license, VGBootCamp also claims to have had positive conversations with Nintendo. According to VGBootCamp, Nintendo said "Panda's partnership was not exclusive" and that the SWT was in good standing as it "did not infringe on their intellectual property regarding game modifications and well represented Nintendo's values" . They went so far as to indicate that they wanted to work with and authorize the SWT as per the organizer's statement.

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

However, in a statement to Kotaku, Nintendo disputed some of these claims: "Nintendo has not requested any modification or cancellation of the remaining events in 2022, including the 2022 Championship event, given the impact negative on players who were already planning to participate."

SWT also responded to Nintendo's statement, including the company's response by closing the SWT Finals and confirming that licenses will be required for all Smash Bros. tournaments.

"Nintendo expects an approved license to be obtained in order to conduct any commercial activity with Nintendo IP. It is also expected to obtain such a license well in advance of any public announcement. After review Further investigation, we found that the Smash World Tour did not meet these expectations regarding health and safety guidelines and did not adhere to the guidelines of our internal partners. Nintendo will not be able to grant a license for the 2022 Smash World Tour Championship or any Smash World Tour activity in 2023."

Smash World Tour's reproduction of Nintendo's emails canceling the event SWT Legal Options

VGBootCamp has shut down most operations for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately for them, it seems that legal action is not likely 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 prospective, a third party m...