Image via Nintendo
Organizers of the Smash World Tour have announced that the 2022 championship tournament and its events in 2023 have been canceled. This follows a notice from Nintendo telling the organizers that they could no longer operate their tournament.
“It is with an unbelievably heavy heart that we must announce that both the upcoming Smash World Tour Championships, as well as the 2023 Smash World Tour must be canceled,” the organizers wrote in a Medium post.
“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 twelve months. Since then, we have been working around the clock to take the proper steps logistically, as well as to prepare this statement with proper legal guidance.”
The Smash World Tour typically has over 6,400 live events worldwide with an attendance of over 325,000. This year’s championship was supposed to have the largest prize pool in competitive Smash Bros. history at nearly $250,000.
This isn’t the first time Nintendo has come into conflict with third-party Super Smash Bros. events and tournaments. Back in 2020, a Super Smash Bros. tournament was shut down for using online mods. Back at Evo 2013, Nintendo attempted to shut down Super Smash Bros. Melee from taking place. The tournament was allowed to take place following public outcry.
The Panda Cup May Have Caused This Situation
Last year, it did seem like Nintendo was trying to push for more competitive Smash Bros. by announcing an officially-licensed tournament with Panda Global called the Panda Cup. However, the Smash World Tour organizers believe that this Panda Cup may have been the cause of the closure of their tournaments.
The organizers’ statement says that Panda CEO Alan Bunney sabotaged Smash World Tour’s organization efforts. This comes despite ongoing discussion between Smash World Tour and Nintendo about a potential license for themselves. Additionally, Nintendo had “made it clear that Panda’s partnership was not exclusive.”
The statement continues, saying: “However, we quickly found that many organizers were concerned about joining up [with 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.”
Nintendo has responded, saying, “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.”
The organizers dispute this in their Medium Post, writing, “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.”
The organizers also claim that they received this notice in writing.
Smash World. Tour is set to face “hundreds of thousands of dollars [in loss] due to Nintendo’s actions.” They are promising that refunds will be given to those planning on attending.
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