Popular video maker Wood Hawker better known as BeatEmUps on YouTube was surprisingly dropped from Nintendo’s Ambassador Program for what seems like no reason. The news caused quite the stir and shook up the entire Nintendo community.
The news was broken by Hawker himself in a video dubbed “I'll no longer be working with Nintendo, here's why.”
Ironically, the rather long video does not give an answer to the question why. BeatEmUps explains that he’s been an official Nintendo partner for a long time, though they’ve never really done much for him, save for the occasional game code (rarely before the game’s release). He speculates with a bunch of reasons - his recent mod video (when Nintendo is against modding or any fan intervention in their games), or negativity surrounding the company’s microtransaction politics, but is quick to dismiss them.
Turned out Nintendo wouldn’t even stop offering him benefits - after all, the guy is one of the biggest Switch content creators - but do not want his name associated with the brand, which might be viewed as a personal attack.
In any case, the video went super viral and remained on YouTube’s Trending tab for a solid two days. Hawker made sure to encourage his fans not to talk to Nintendo about the matter, especially not in a rude way. He made it known that the world has plenty of bigger issues right now and his personal disappointment with a gaming brand should not be a priority. Little did he know what would happen next.
Turns out the internet was more than sympathetic to the guy. The citation was met with tons of support from fellow creators and casual fans, and sadly yes, the occasional rude tweet to Nintendo, but one thing was made clear - people care.
Maybe it's all the negativity lately with world problems, maybe it’s the building animosity towards many Nintendo practices, maybe it’s just human-to-human sympathy. But BeatEmUps was shown incredible support in an unpleasant situation and the gaming community united to do something positive, something we hadn’t seen in a while.
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