Article by Dom Sacco with help from Wade White and MetalQueerSolid
The fighting game community (FGC) is up in arms over the sudden cancellation of the Smash World Tour following Nintendo’s decision to halt the circuit for 2023.
It’s a messy, complex situation involving both Nintendo and Panda Global, whom Nintendo partnered with this time last year as the organiser of the first licensed circuits in Smash Bros Ultimate and Super Smash Bros Melee in North America.
In a lengthy official statement, Smash World Tour said that “many organisers were concerned about joining up [with the Smash World Tour] in 2022”.
“They told us that they had been told by Alan, the CEO and co-founder of Panda, that we were going to get shut down and were not coming back in 2022,” Smash World Tour said. “This directly contradicted our conversations with Nintendo, who said that the Panda CEO does not represent Nintendo, and that they would have to have a conversation with him about his behavior. They reminded us and reassured us that Panda’s license is not exclusive, and that they can see the two circuits co-existing.
“Unfortunately, the attempts from Panda to undermine the Smash World Tour did not stop, as the CEO continued to tell organisers we were definitely not coming back in 2022, and if we did, we’d get shut down shortly after announcement.”
Smash World Tour statement
“Furthermore, organisers were told that their individual events would also be at risk if they were on the Smash World Tour. A few organisers told us this directly as the primary reason that they did not participate in the Tour this year, which we completely understood.
“…Finally, last Wednesday evening (November 23rd), we had our most recent call with Nintendo. Our Nintendo rep opened by letting us know that they are being asked to deliver the news that going forward, Nintendo expects us to only operate with a commercial license, and that we would not be granted one for the upcoming Championships, or any activity in 2023.
“Without any warning, we received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate. This was especially shocking given our discourse with Nintendo the past 12 months.”
There is more to it than this, so it’s worth reading the full statement, but it’s confirmed the Smash World Tour will not take place in 2023, leaving many upset about this, and angry towards the actions of Panda Global.
VGBootCamp also added a statement about how its future is uncertain here.
UK talent affected by Smash World Tour cancellation
By Wade White
There are three UK players affected by this as they had all qualified for the Smash World Tour finale: Frenzy (who played at Smash Summit 13 earlier this year) and Professor Pro for Melee, and Bloom4Eva (pictured above, who recently signed to French team BMS) for Ultimate.
Frenzy is with UK org Reason Gaming, Professor Pro is a free agent and Bloom4Eva is with BMS.
Frenzy said him and Professor Pro will be going to another Major event in Ontario – Mainstage – from December 2nd to 4th 2022:
Professor Pro will also take part in Ludwig’s tournament – see the bottom of this article.
The Smash World Tour news may also affect DAT Team – Smash tournament organisers based in London – and bigger EU events. That’s because the team behind the Smash World Tour, VGBootCamp, has put out a statement saying they have cancelled all their major events for 2023 and are not sure what the future holds.
VGBootCamp would host the streams for these tournaments on their Twitch channel to bring in a bigger audience for the event. For DAT Team, they would host the weekly event we ran on their channel, increasing the viewership of the event from roughly 50 viewers to between 500 and 1,000 viewers.
Smash Bros community responds to Smash World Tour shutting down
Long-running UK esports organisation Reason Gaming, who have UK Melee player Frenzy, said they were “incredibly disappointed” by the news, describing it as heartbreaking and that the Smash scene deserves better:
Elsewhere, BeyondTheSummit’s co-founder LD said:
We’ll post some more Twitter comments from the community below:
— Winston (@odeio_milho) November 29, 2022
What Nintendo said and other follow-up statements
And finally, what did Nintendo and Panda have to say about it all?
Nintendo sent Kotaku the following statement: “Unfortunately after continuous conversations with Smash World Tour, and after giving the same deep consideration we apply to any potential partner, we were unable to come to an agreement with SWT for a full circuit in 2023.
“Nintendo did not request any changes to or cancellation of remaining events in 2022, including the 2022 Championship event, considering the negative impact on the players who were already planning to participate.”
Smash World Tour responded to Nintendo’s comments here.
Nintendo then sent a longer statement to IGN, saying: “Nintendo’s decision was solely based on our assessment of the proposals submitted by the SWT and our evaluation of their unlicensed activities. This decision was not influenced by any external parties such as Panda Global.
“When we notified the SWT that we would not license their 2022 or 2023 activities, we also let them know verbally that we were not requiring they cancel the 2022 finals event because of the impact it would have on players. Thus, the decision to cancel the SWT 2022 was, and still is, their own choice.
“We are open to partnering with other organisations 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.”
Smash World Tour responded once again here.
And finally, Panda Global commented on the matter here:
YouTuber Ludwig also announced his own circuit finale, with UK player Professor Pro invited.
Further updates on the Smash World Tour story: Panda CEO departs
December 8th 2022 – update by Wade White:
The ex-CEO of Panda, Dr Alan, released a statement going over the many weeks of statements and accusations thrown at both him and Panda. The 32-page document goes over SWT and VGBC, Beyond the Summit, the “strong-arming” of community tournament organisers and Nintendo.
In the statement, Alan insinuates that the entire Smash World Tour was meant to get cancelled to draw sympathy from the wider Smash Ultimate and Melee scene, and that the finals that were meant to happen this year did not even have any venue booked for it at all.
Alan also said he received ‘extreme harassment, death threats, and has fleed his own home due to doxxing’.
Smash World Tour replied to the statement with their own receipts of being charged for both the venue and hotel rooms they had booked out for invited players, commentators and staff for the event. They even showed a direct email from Nintendo where they received the statement: “It is Nintendo’s expectation that an approved licence be secured in order to operate any commercial activity featuring Nintendo IP.”
The rest of Alan’s document goes on to speak about his interactions with Beyond The Summit and other tournament organisers.
Smash World Tour’s response to Dr Alan can be found here.
HotBid and other Tournament Organisers have spoken out after Alan’s statement, going against what he has said in the document:
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
