Nintendo Competitive Rules Controversy

Overview

Nintendo Competitive Rules Controversy refers to the fallout from Nintendo releasing rules for hosting competitive tournaments for its games, causing much frustration and anxiety among the Super Smash Brothers community. Rules laid out by Nintendo include a limit on the sizes of events, a limit on the sizes of prize pools, and forbidding the sale of food and drink at a tournament. However, some suggested the anxiety was overblown, as the rules apply to "non-profit" tournaments, and many of the established tournament series would be unaffected, particularly as reports came in that Nintendo was replying to license applications relatively quickly.

Background

On October 24th, 2023, Nintendo released guidelines in Japan, the UK, and North America^[1] over the course of several hours that strictly limited what people could do with regards to organizing competitive tournaments of Nintendo games, such as Super Smash Brothers, Splatoon,, etc. Key restrictions in the guidelines include limiting the number of attendees of an event to 200 people unless there is express consent given by Nintendo, limiting prize pools to $5,000, forbidding sponsors, and forbidding the sale of food and beverages. Bigger tournaments would need to gain a license from Nintendo to operate.

Developments

Many harshly criticized the new rules laid out by Nintendo, fearing that, if enforced, they would kill the competitive scenes in games like Smash, Splatoon, Mario Kart, etc. Top Super Smash Bros. Melee player Armada^[2] criticized the guidelines, saying Nintendo was like "a 5-year-old screaming for attention," gaining over 180 retweets and 2,000 likes on one day. Melee player Cody^[3] posted similar criticism, calling the guidelines "tonedeaf," gaining over 50 retweets and 1,400 likes in the same time frame (shown below).

Hungrybox streamed that day and discussed the changes, joking that the Smash community should form a church to use the privileges that come with being a religious organization in order to skirt Nintendo's rules.

Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr^[4] chimed in on the controversy, harshly criticizing Nintendo for attempting to impose rules on consumers who purchased their product, comparing it to Bicycle playing cards enforcing rules about how to play poker.

After a wave of gloom from the competitive Smash community surrounding the guidelines, there was some optimism that the guidelines may not be as harsh as initially thought. This was buoyed by the news that Japanese Smash regional Sumabato was able to quickly obtain a license from Nintendo to run ten tournaments (shown below, left).^[5] User @Jebailey^[6] expressed that guidelines may simply make it easier to get a license for a tournament, particularly if the tournament is already established (shown below, right).

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External References