Smash World Tour organizers blame Nintendo for championship shutdown

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On December 9, the top Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Super Smash Bros. Melee were planning to reunite in Texas after a year on the competitive circuit leading up to the Smash World Tour Championships. But on Tuesday evening, just over a week before the events kick off, Smash World Tour organizers made a sudden announcement: the event is cancelled, along with the entire Smash World Tour 2023.

The organizers of the Smash World Tour released an official statement on Medium, blaming Nintendo for stopping the events. Without any warning, we received a notice the day before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate, organizers said in a statement. This was particularly shocking given our conversation with Nintendo over the past twelve months. Since then, we have worked around the clock to make the appropriate logistical arrangements, as well as to prepare this statement with appropriate legal advice.

Organizers said the Smash World Tour will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars due to the sudden halt in events.

The group described a never-ending licensing request with Nintendo essentially asking for official permission to hold the event. Nintendo has targeted Smash Bros. tournaments. in the past, mostly events that use a modded version of Super Smash Bros. Melee which enables the online play necessary for an online event. Despite the size of the Smash Bros. competitive scene, Nintendo hasn’t supported the efforts in the past and has outright restricted tournaments that use the modded version of the game. Nintendo surprised the community in 2021 by partnering with the esports company Panda Global in the first officially licensed tournament circuit.

Smash World Tour organizers say they have been contacted by Nintendo to authorize their tour and obtain official clearance for their events. The process, however, left some things uncertain, leading to the abrupt announcement of the cancellation on Tuesday.

A Nintendo spokesperson took issue with Smash World Tours’ characterization of events in a statement to Polygon. Specifically, Nintendo said it did not ask Smash World Tour organizers to cancel the remaining events.

Unfortunately, after ongoing conversations with Smash World Tour, and after giving the same deep consideration we give to any potential partner, we have been unable to reach an agreement with SWT for a full circuit in 2023. Nintendo did not request any changes or cancellations of remaining events in 2022, including the 2022 Championship event, given the negative impact on players who were already planning to participate.

In response, the organizers posted a notice they received from Nintendo in which the company stated that an approved license would need to be obtained to hold a tournament like the Smash World Tour. The declaration, however, does not explicitly call for the cancellation of the event. Nintendo also said Smash World Tour failed to meet expectations regarding health and safety guidelines and did not adhere to guidelines from our internal partners. Nintendo’s full statement, via Smash World Tour, is below:

It is Nintendo’s expectation that an approved license be obtained in order to operate any commercial activity featuring Nintendo IP. It is also planned to obtain such a license well before any public announcement. Upon further review, 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 license the Smash World Tour Championship 2022 or any Smash World Tour activity in 2023.

Over the past year, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate qualified for the main event, which offered a prize of $250,000, which organizers said would have been the biggest prize pool in Smash history. There were over 35 official stages on the Smash World Tour leading up to the championships; players had to attend these events to compete and earn the points needed to qualify for the championship. Players from all over the world have invested a lot of time and money to attend these events in hopes of qualifying.

Several players have tweeted about the investments they have made in the Smash World Tour. Damn I took SWT seriously and traveled to 10 countries/3 continents just for this?, the Super Smash Bros. pro player tweeted. Ultimate Santiago Chag Prez Checchi. Enrique Maister Hernndez Sols, a Mexican Super Smash Bros. player. Ultimate of pro team Luminosity, said he missed other events to prepare for the Smash World Tour.

Sols told Polygon he sacrificed a lot to prepare, putting aside his regular streaming schedule and YouTube.

It meant a lot to me, especially considering the bad luck I had in the last tournament I tried to attend, Sols said. It felt like a chance to redeem myself from that situation and use everything I prepared for throughout the year to get at least one Grand Finals in the event. I felt extremely prepared and ready for this for a long time.

It really hurts to see him go, and obviously I’m not the only one affected by the cancellation of this. People from Japan, Australia, Europe, literally all over the world were coming to this event and it doesn’t happen anymore.

On Tuesday, a second Smash Bros. tournament organizer, VGBootCamp, canceled two of its upcoming in-person events, according to a statement posted to Google Docs. At this time, our future is uncertain when it comes to hosting major tournaments, but at this time, based on our recent communications with Nintendo, we would be putting ourselves at additional risk if we continued with our current plans.

The Smash Bros. event. under license from Panda Globals, the Panda Cup Finale is set to begin on December 16 in Los Angeles. It offers a prize pool of $100,000. However, several players and members of the community have expressed their contempt for the tournament and its organizers after Smash World Tours’ claim that Panda Global attempted to obstruct the competing circuit. Polygon has reached out to Panda Global for comment.

Update: This story has been updated to include commentary from pro Smash player Enrique Maister Hernndez Sols.

Update (December 2): A Nintendo representative released a second statement late Thursday evening in an effort to explain to all Super Smash Bros. fans. and interested parties why it did not license Smash World Tour.

The full statement is reproduced below:

Nintendo would like to explain to all Super Smash Bros. fans. and to interested parties the background and rationale for our decision not to license the Smash World Tour (SWT) for their future activities.

Nintendo’s decision was based solely on our assessment of the proposals submitted by the SWT and our assessment of their unauthorized activities. This decision was not influenced by any external party such as Panda Global. Any partner we license must meet the high standards we demand for the health and safety of our fans. It is also important that a partner adheres to brand and intellectual property guidelines and conducts itself in accordance with 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 informed the SWT that we would not be allowing their 2022 or 2023 activities, we also verbally let them know that we did not require them to cancel the 2022 finals due to the impact it would have on the players. So, the decision to cancel SWT 2022 was, and still is, their own choice.

We are open to partnerships 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 for the Super Smash Bros. community, even to the point where Panda has advocated for other organizations and tournaments to work with Nintendo, such as The Big House and SWT organizers to benefit the largest Super Smash Bros. community.

Nintendo cares a lot about Super Smash Bros. fans. and its community, and we hope to continue to hear their passionate comments. We are committed to working hard to bring joy and fun to the community through tournaments while ensuring that we and our partners operate in a positive and responsible manner.

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