Community Tournament Guidelines Publication date: October 24th, 2023 Effective date: November 15th, 2023 Thank you for sharing your passion for Nintendo’s games, characters and worlds.
So Nintendo just announced their “community tournament guidelines” which basically imposes restrictive rules against anyone running a tournament with their games. Is this even legal?
Well, looks like they have finally succeeded in killing off the tournament scene. There will probably still be some holdouts trying to adhere to the ridiculous rules, but this is effectively the end.
It probably is legal, and if it isn’t no one has the resources possible to fight against Nintendo. At least, no one who would be interested in taking that fight.
My prediction- someone’s going to try running a major tournament, and we’ll see if Nintendo is serious about policing things then (they probably will be, unfortunately). It does mean that any outside investment coming into Melee will be nil from here on out, so it’s effectively capped the growth of Melee forever.
These rules blow but I’m wondering if any of these rules apply to bigger tournaments or if larger tournaments are just simply forbidden.
It is not permitted to use Nintendo’s trademarks or IP in the name of a tournament. For instance, “Super Smash Bros. Super Challenge” and “Splatoon Throwdown” are not permitted as names of Community Tournaments.
“Hey bro are you going to join the Splatoon tournament?”
Does this apply only to the EU? The definitions on the site give UK/EU-specific limitations in terms of currency and applicable regions, and I cannot seem find a comparable release on the NA site.
Edit: Did a bit more digging online and found a North American version of these terms as well, not posted in their news section but is listed in the customer support site.
If anything, they are too afraid of litigation in any way. I know protecting your IP is important for running your business and controlling your brand, and I respect Nintendo’s hands-off stance on any sort of outside issues and not wanting to be associated with anything that could damage it, but Nintendo’s IP attorneys really need to learn to chill a bit. You have to get permission to stream the tournament for spectators and can’t even use the game’s name or logo in tournament publications? Really? You can hold a tournament but can’t even tell other people what game it’s for without permission?
That said, I would guess that the scandals/fiascos that hit the Smash Bros tournament scene a few years ago were the big impetus for this (on top of wanting $). As mentioned above, Nintendo is notorious for guarding its image and avoiding any sort of outside controversy whatsoever, to the point that they’re even willing to kill off any kind of grassroots tourney scene to avoid it. Many of their execs still see Nintendo as a kids’ toy company and run it as such.
I think it’s related to the rules for display of media. E.g., you can turn on the TV and show a baseball game you receive from an antenna at your home. But if you are a sports bar and try to do the same thing, the MLB will come calling asking for license payments.
Notice that Q14 still allows for commercial tournaments but only if they acquire a license first. This is something Nintendo has been pushing since at least last year. That’s the debacle that killed Smash World Tour and the hill that Panda Global died on.
Not saying I agree with it. In fact, it’s so stupid, but there is still a path forward for now if Nintendo continues to give out those licenses. The real question is, what absurd rules will TOs need to adhere to in order to get a license?
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Well, looks like they have finally succeeded in killing off the tournament scene. There will probably still be some holdouts trying to adhere to the ridiculous rules, but this is effectively the end.
It probably is legal, and if it isn’t no one has the resources possible to fight against Nintendo. At least, no one who would be interested in taking that fight.
My prediction- someone’s going to try running a major tournament, and we’ll see if Nintendo is serious about policing things then (they probably will be, unfortunately). It does mean that any outside investment coming into Melee will be nil from here on out, so it’s effectively capped the growth of Melee forever.
These rules blow but I’m wondering if any of these rules apply to bigger tournaments or if larger tournaments are just simply forbidden.
“Hey bro are you going to join the Splatoon tournament?”
“Don’t you mean the Child Squid Showdown?”
Does this apply only to the EU? The definitions on the site give UK/EU-specific limitations in terms of currency and applicable regions, and I cannot seem find a comparable release on the NA site.
Edit: Did a bit more digging online and found a North American version of these terms as well, not posted in their news section but is listed in the customer support site.
If anything, they are too afraid of litigation in any way. I know protecting your IP is important for running your business and controlling your brand, and I respect Nintendo’s hands-off stance on any sort of outside issues and not wanting to be associated with anything that could damage it, but Nintendo’s IP attorneys really need to learn to chill a bit. You have to get permission to stream the tournament for spectators and can’t even use the game’s name or logo in tournament publications? Really? You can hold a tournament but can’t even tell other people what game it’s for without permission?
That said, I would guess that the scandals/fiascos that hit the Smash Bros tournament scene a few years ago were the big impetus for this (on top of wanting $). As mentioned above, Nintendo is notorious for guarding its image and avoiding any sort of outside controversy whatsoever, to the point that they’re even willing to kill off any kind of grassroots tourney scene to avoid it. Many of their execs still see Nintendo as a kids’ toy company and run it as such.
I think it’s related to the rules for display of media. E.g., you can turn on the TV and show a baseball game you receive from an antenna at your home. But if you are a sports bar and try to do the same thing, the MLB will come calling asking for license payments.
Actually, MLB has fucked that up too, you only get local teams over cable, even if you shell out money for their official app.
Notice that Q14 still allows for commercial tournaments but only if they acquire a license first. This is something Nintendo has been pushing since at least last year. That’s the debacle that killed Smash World Tour and the hill that Panda Global died on.
Not saying I agree with it. In fact, it’s so stupid, but there is still a path forward for now if Nintendo continues to give out those licenses. The real question is, what absurd rules will TOs need to adhere to in order to get a license?
They could’ve just said “stop playing our games”, it would’ve been shorter.