Smash World Tour 2022 Finals & 2023 events shut down over Nintendo licensing policy [UPDATED]

Updated (11/30/2022 @ 9:10 a.m. PT): In the time since Smash World Tour announced cancellation of its 2022 Finals and 2023 events, Nintendo issued a statement to Kotaku on the matter.

In turn, the Smash World Tour organizers released a follow-up statement sharing confusion at Nintendo's public statement on the matter, especially regarding the 2022 Finals:

We did not expect to have to address this, but Nintendo’s response via Kotaku has been brought to our attention:

“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.”

We are unsure why they are taking this angle, especially in light of the greater statement and all that it contains.

To reiterate from the official statement:

“As a last ditch effort, we asked if we could continue running the Championships and the Tour next year without a license, and shift our focus to working with them in 2024. We alluded to how the last year functioned in that capacity, with a mutual understanding that we would not get shut down and focus on the future. We were told directly that those times were now over. This was the final nail in the coffin given our very particular relationship with Nintendo. This is when we realized it truly was all being shut down for real. We asked if they understood the waves that would be made if we were forced to cancel, and Nintendo communicated that they were indeed aware.”

To be clear, we asked Nintendo multiple times if they had considered the implications of canceling the Championships as well as next year’s Tour. They affirmed that they had considered all variables.

We received this statement in writing from Nintendo shortly after our call:

“It is Nintendo’s expectation that an approved license be secured in order to operate any commercial activity featuring Nintendo IP. It is also expected to secure such a license well in advance of any public announcement. After further review, we’ve found that the Smash World Tour has not met these expectations around health & safety guidelines and has not adhered to our internal partner guidelines. Nintendo will not be able to grant a license for the Smash World Tour Championship 2022 or any Smash World Tour activity in 2023.”

To be clear, we did not even submit an application for 2023 yet, the license application was for the 2022 Championships (submitted in April). Nintendo including all 2023 activity was an addition we were not even expecting. In our call that accompanied the statement, we asked multiple times if we would be able to continue to operate without a license as we had in years past with the same “unofficial” understanding with Nintendo. We were told point blank that those “times are over.” They followed up the call with their statement in writing, again confirming both the 2022 Championships and all 2023 activity were in the exact same boat.

It would appear that these various statements are at odds with one another on the matter of Smash World Tour 2022 Finals and whether or not the event was actually threatened with shutdown by Nintendo or whether Smash World Tour made that call itself in light of Nintendo's decisions. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story with further updates.

Original Story: The Smash Bros scene has suffered a major loss today as the Smash World Tour 2022 Finals and 2023 events have been canceled. After an allegedly healthy relationship with Nintendo, the Smash World Tour team has announced it has been unsuccessful in acquiring a commercial license and as such will not be able to proceed with the events.

Source: Smash World Tour Twitter

In a lengthy post on Medium on November 29, 2022, the Smash World Tour team announced the cancelation of Smash World Tour 2022 Finals and all 2023 events. In the post, the team breaks down the situation, highlighting the conversations with Nintendo prior to the shutdown, the conversations and alleged threats from Panda Global’s CEO, and ultimately the lack of commercial licensing which means the team could not continue with the events.

The team alleges that problems began to arise when Panda Global told potential partner events that they were going to get shut down and that they “were not coming back in 2022.” The post goes on in greater detail:

At first, Panda targeted events that were not on the Smash World Tour (including those who did not join because of the aforementioned warnings). A few of these events had broadcast deals with a popular tournament broadcaster, Beyond the Summit (BTS). The CEO of Panda wanted broadcasting rights to be included as part of the deal of the events joining the Panda Cup. Most of the events refused to break their contracts, so Panda approached Beyond the Summit directly to try to get the rights released.

BTS had very little motivation to give up the broadcast rights for free, so they declined to get involved, causing the CEO of Panda to escalate things quickly. We were told he made a variety of threats to Beyond the Summit, including shutting down their entire Smash operation in 2023 if they did not eventually join Panda Cup. After BTS held firm, the CEO of Panda warned that they would get Nintendo directly involved, putting broadcast rights for all tournaments in jeopardy.

LD from Beyond the Summit took to Twitter to corroborate the story in a series of Tweets.

In one of the latest calls with Nintendo, the Smash World Tour team notes that Nintendo “expects us to only operate with a commercial license,” but that the company would not be granting one for the upcoming events. This information was also issued in writing.

Despite playing by the rules and not infringing on Nintendo’s IPs in terms of game modification, it would appear that Smash World Tour has ended for the foreseeable future. Nintendo and Panda Global have yet to comment on the situation. Stay tuned to Shacknews as we bring you the latest on this story.