Nintendo doesn't seem interested in burying the hatchet with the competitive scene, if their new Tournament Guidelines are anything to go by.
Ah, Nintendo, what a temperamental beast you are. I still remember the days when Smash Bros. players were cautiously optimistic that the game's publisher might take an interest in their fledgling competitive community, and maybe even dedicate some resources towards helping it grow.
These days, Nintendo's stance towards the competitive communities for their games could be graciously described as "antagonistic", and their new Community Tournament Guidelines are the latest example of that.
These new guidelines were published for all regions just yesterday and have already infuriated large parts of the competitive scene. And for good reason, since they're so incredibly restrictive that even small-scale tournaments at your local high school might in theory no longer receive Nintendo's blessing, and could just get the good ol' Cease-and-Desist letter instead.
Just to cherry-pick some particularly egregious rules in the new guidelines, here are some examples of what community-organized tournaments featuring Nintendo games are no longer allowed to do:
- Be for-profit in any way
- Use names, logos or characters from Nintendo IPs in any of their promotional material
- Offer more than $5,000 / £4,500 / €5,000 in prize money
- Be sponsored by third parties
- Sell food, beverages or merch
- Have more than 300 participants
- Monetize any videos or livestreams of the tournament, if it would earn the organizers more revenue than Nintendo allows for
- Demand an entry fee if this would generate more revenue than Nintendo allows for
- Feature modified Nintendo software (sorry, Project M fans)
Nintendo And The Competitive Scene: It's Complicated
Under these new guidelines, practically no larger-scale tournaments featuring Nintendo games (that aren't organized by Nintendo themselves) would be feasible anymore. Which is massively disappointing for Nintendo fans, but should really not come as a surprise for the competitive scene anymore.
If one were to be less than gracious towards Nintendo one could call their relationship with the competitive scenes of their games "abusive". They've especially had a long and storied history of sabotaging the Smash Bros. scene at every turn.
The Panda Global controversy comes to mind, where Nintendo seemed to extend an olive branch to two different event organizers, Panda Global and Smash World Tour, by offering to license their tournaments. Only to snap that olive branch in half by revoking that license for Smash World Tour last-minute, effectively cancelling their event after they'd already sunk significant time and resources into it. Accusations towards Panda Global's CEO of using Nintendo connections to monopolize the Smash community then sank their event as well.
After plenty of similarly disastrous interactions with Nintendo, the competitive scene really just wants to be left alone at this point. Evidently Nintendo isn't content with an arrangement like that though and would rather have complete control over how their games are played.
Which is in stark contrast to most other games publishers, who see competitive communities as a way to grow their games' audiences and would rather see them thrive. Then again, Nintendo have always had their own way of doing things.