Smash Bros, Splatoon and Other Fan Communities Clash With Nintendo

Over the last weekend, multiple fan communities have vocally criticised Nintendo's approach to cancelling events and serving cease-and-desist orders. The cancellation of an official Splatoon tournament livestream, and the blocking of sale for unofficial, charity-focused Joy-Con designs have become the latest flashpoints in the company's increasingly fractious relationship with sections of its own fans. To understand this weekend's reactions, we need to go back to last month, when Nintendo served a cease-and-desist to the Smash Bros. Melee 'Big House' tournament – one of the biggest events on the Smash Bros. competitive scene's calendar. The cease-and-desist – which centred around the tournament's use of the unofficial Slippi mod to make the game playable online – caused Big House to cancel the event outright. In a statement to Polygon, Nintendo explained that the tournament "requires use of illegally copied versions of the game in conjunction with a mod called “Slippi” during their online event. Nintendo therefore contacted the tournament organizers to ask them to stop. They refused, leaving Nintendo no choice but to step in to protect its intellectual property and brands. Nintendo cannot condone or allow piracy of its intellectual property." The wider Smash Bros. community took issue with the decision, particularly as Big House had been forced to cancel its in-person events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making the online solution the only safe way to play out the event. Since that decision, the #freemelee hashtag has been widely used on Twitter and other social media services to protest Nintendo's decision. Cut to this weekend, and the Splatoon 2 North America Open. The official event was due to get a livestream, but the broadcast was cancelled the day before the show was due to go out. On the tournament's official Discord server, an admin explained that the decision was due to "unexpected executional challenges". However, rumours quickly spread regarding the fact that multiple teams competing in the tournament had been entered with names that directly referenced #freemelee, and that this may have resulted in Nintendo pulling the broadcast. Nintendo has not yet released a public statement - IGN's contacted the company for comment.

Kind of funny that they'll sever their own "support" that they love to parade around as something so fantastic, just because the Splatoon community wanted to stand in solidarity with the other scenes that Nintendo outright harms.#freemelee #savesmash pic.twitter.com/3F77b19pDE

— Slimy (@SlimyQuagsire) December 5, 2020

The rumours quickly gained traction, with both #freemelee and #freesplatoon beginning to trend on Twitter, alongside a tidal wave of memes targeting Nintendo's perceived anti-consumer practices. That negative sentiment has brought to light another of Nintendo's recent cease-and-desists. Custom controller designer CptnAlex had created Joy-Con shells themed to commemorate popular YouTuber Etika, who died by suicide last year (with proceeds going to the JED Foundation, a suicide prevention charity). However, the designer was served a cease-and-desist in September, seemingly due to his use of the trademarked term "JoyCon" as part of the design. The story has now been picked up across Reddit and Twitter, causing further criticisms of Nintendo's approach to fan creations and events. In another unfortunate twist for Nintendo, a fan-run Splatoon 2 tournament, The Squid House was subsequently organised, and took donations towards its prize pool. As organisers EndGameTV point out, those donations led to a $25,000 pool, with another $3,000 given to charity - making it reportedly the largest ever prize given for a Splatoon tournament, official or unofficial.

So that community funded Splatoon tourney is now the highest prize pool in the history of the game

Massive L for Nintendo Massive W for the Splatoon community — IntroFestive (@IntroSpecktive) December 6, 2020

This weekend marks the latest in a very long line of fraught interactions between Nintendo and fan communities built around its games and products. Smash Bros. has been a particularly long-standing issue, with tournaments, mod use, and Nintendo's stand-offish nature towards its own fighting game community all provoking criticism. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.