The Smash Bros. Tournament Fiasco has players boycotting events

In the wake of Nintendo being Nintendo and unceremoniously cancel the smash World Tourone of the biggest esports tournaments of the year dedicated to everything Super Smash Bros., many in the game’s community protested. Casual fans, professional gamers, long-time commentators and even other tournament organizers, AITX eSports at Beyond the summitall publicly denounced not only Nintendo for its stupid decision, but also Panda Global for allegedly causing the smash World Tour to get arrested. Now, it seems that many of these people are also boycotting all officially licensed Nintendo tournaments.

As of 2020 and operated by Video Game Boot Camp, the smash World Tour is a series of unofficial international tournament circuits for the brawler. Despite the pandemic that closed the smash World Tour 2020 event, Video Game Boot Camp held an online tournament last year and planned for this year’s competition to return to the in-person format planned two years ago. Unfortunately, since Nintendo would not sponsor the smash World Tour 2022 event, potentially due to the company already in partnership with the esports organization Panda Global in 2021Video game boot camp announced in a Medium Publish that “without any warning” that year’s tournament was now dead.

Read more: Nintendo shuts down smash World Tour organizers ‘lose hundreds of thousands of dollars’ [Updates]

“We don’t know yet where it’s all going to land with contracts, sponsor obligations, etc. In short, we’re going to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because of Nintendo’s actions,” said the smash World Tour organizers said in the post. “That being said, we are taking steps to address [the] many problems resulting from the cancellation of the next smash Circuit world championships, especially for gamers. Please keep an eye out for the next few days for assistance with travel arrangements. Given the timeline we were forced into, we had to release this statement before we could iron out all the details. All participants will receive a full refund.

Super Smash Bros. fans are not happy with what is happening, with many posting their frustrations on Twitter. Some pointy fingers at CEO and co-founder of Panda Global Dr. Alan Bunney for allegedly tried to recruit tournaments for the Panda Cup by threatening to implicate Nintendo to shut down the smash World Tour down and apparently attempt to create a monopoly requesting exclusive Panda Cup streaming rights. Others fear it will harm their career and livelihood. The main consensus is never to watch, support or attend a Panda Global ever event Again. Many people seem to feel this.

In Twitter messages with my cityCaptain Falcon principal Jas “Fizzi” Laferriere said he no longer buys Nintendo games out of moral duty since the company took down another one. smash tournament, The big house online, back in December 2020. Now, with news of Nintendo causing another tournament to be halted, Laferrière suggests that the communitythere boycott.

“I have no plans to attend any Panda Cup events,” Laferriere said. “We’ve always been a grassroots community first and I think it’s important to stand up for our tournament organizers. I hope we can come back stronger, like we have done many times before.

Even Video Game Boot Camp, having already canceled the smash World Tour, posted a google doc just quickly touching the “uncertainty about the future of Video Game Boot Camp.” In the short statementthe organizers said that a few more to come smash tournaments it organizes this yearsuch as Glitch: Duel of Fates and Double Down 2023 have also been cancelled.

“At this time, our future is uncertain in terms of hosting major tournaments, but at this time, based on our recent communications with Nintendo, we would be putting ourselves at additional risk if we proceed with our current plans. “said Video Game. Boot Camp said in the post. “We hope that doesn’t mean we won’t be hosting major events in 2023, just that our future is currently uncertain.”

The future of Super Smash Bros.competitive fights Game the scene is looking quite precaire, with Video Game Boot Camp admitting in the statement that it is “currently navigating budget cuts, internal communications with our team and partners, commitments/contracts, as well as sponsorship negotiations which will inevitably be affected by all of this.” . It’s possible that smaller tournaments will continue without Nintendo’s blessing, but, as has been done so many times, it’s probably only a matter of time before Nintendo strikes. And that it annoys me a lotas a big fan of these tournaments.

my city contacted Nintendo and Panda Global for comment.