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How Nintendo Has Hurt the Smash Community: anonymous insider reveals how Nintendo has actively worked against a Smash eSports scene
- Thread starter Atheerios
- Start date
The problem is that the Melee community already has a public image on the internet that I think is impossible to change now. Before it was the bad smell meme, now they are more serious things. Lots of cool people of all kinds play and enjoy Melee but today it is a game and a community that are viewed with disgust by most of the internet.
Most people just see them as "Those weird guys that when I enjoy Ultimate/Brawl/WiiU come and try to explain that Melee is better." Even if it's not true. It is the image they have.
Most people just see them as "Those weird guys that when I enjoy Ultimate/Brawl/WiiU come and try to explain that Melee is better." Even if it's not true. It is the image they have.
Not really, it's obviously worlds better than what they do for Smash, but it isn't particularly good on its own merits. Players generally dislike the rulesets their tournaments run, whether it's the Japanese turf war only one or the online open ruleset which doesn't run sets and has a strange counterpick system. Players appreciate the fact that it exists but it's clear that they could do better.
Reading the TwitLonger post I sympathise with people who want the Smash scene to be this big huge thing that has wonderful prize money, is televised and makes influencers even more influencey or whatever - but that really does read like a lot of entitlement and over dramatic victimhood.
Nintendo have < 6000 employees, likely have their own tightly run PR plan, and their own priorities. Whinging that the Smash scene should be one of those priorities doesn't make it so. This is akin to YouTubers crying when they can't get review copies. You're not entitled to shit. Are people really surprised that they drag their feet or have unease about third party groups monetising their old games, or even running hacked versions of them, and generally exposing their brand - online or on TV - in a way that they can't control?
The controversies have been brought up a lot in this thread, but seriously, as a mental exercise: imagine their legal and PR teams looking on at what's happening the next time it emerges some insecure incel who happens to be talented at Smash Bros inappropriately propositions someone or actually physically harasses them. Imagine if they'd had their name next to that story in lights, or had already given them prize money or salaried them for something. I honestly don't blame them for being wary. They're the closest thing to Disney in this industry and they're naturally very conservative in what they do and massively protective of their brands. And just to reiterate, even if they wanted to do everything ever - they can't. A lot of those tweets read some kind of malice/mal-intent towards these guys or that they don't care at all, and I bet that's just not the case. In fact, it sounds like on a number of different occasions they've tried to do deals and it just hasn't worked.. the new game came out etc.
Nintendo have < 6000 employees, likely have their own tightly run PR plan, and their own priorities. Whinging that the Smash scene should be one of those priorities doesn't make it so. This is akin to YouTubers crying when they can't get review copies. You're not entitled to shit. Are people really surprised that they drag their feet or have unease about third party groups monetising their old games, or even running hacked versions of them, and generally exposing their brand - online or on TV - in a way that they can't control?
The controversies have been brought up a lot in this thread, but seriously, as a mental exercise: imagine their legal and PR teams looking on at what's happening the next time it emerges some insecure incel who happens to be talented at Smash Bros inappropriately propositions someone or actually physically harasses them. Imagine if they'd had their name next to that story in lights, or had already given them prize money or salaried them for something. I honestly don't blame them for being wary. They're the closest thing to Disney in this industry and they're naturally very conservative in what they do and massively protective of their brands. And just to reiterate, even if they wanted to do everything ever - they can't. A lot of those tweets read some kind of malice/mal-intent towards these guys or that they don't care at all, and I bet that's just not the case. In fact, it sounds like on a number of different occasions they've tried to do deals and it just hasn't worked.. the new game came out etc.
Which leaders of the melee community are you referring to? If you mean D1 then he's not coming back. And they are not the reason Nintendo took this action.... this is something they have always done. This is a very serious topic you're getting into so be fucking specific please?
The Smash name isn't destroyed forever, wtf does that even mean?
"move to Smash Ultimate" .... you realize the majority of the abuse WAS from the Ultimate scene, right?
Nobody wants to move to different games because they don't play similarly. They like what they like.
Ah yes, because these two situations are totally related. It's totally acceptable for Nintendo to act like this because they got to license an old character that they should have owned the rights to from the jump. Lol.
Comparing Smash players, some who've played the game for a DECADE, to youtubers complaining not getting a review copy is a hilariously bad comparison. Like outta this world bad.
What? I hope you take the time to read some of the posts in this thread and reflect on how your post sounds. There have been posters that have been brave enough to share their experiences and have very clearly communicated that this does not reflect their sentiment towards the community as a whole.
I'm not even going to go into the rest of your post regarding Melee and Ultimate. I don't think comparisons between the two are productive at all, and the truth is they are more one community than two. Abuses that happen in one mean change needs to happen in both. That said, the fact that you're presenting this as if Ultimate is totally clean is crazy considering some of the biggest personalities and multiple top 10 players of the game had very serious accusations levied against them. Like I said, it's one community and this means everyone needs to take time to think about how they were complicit, but the way you're presenting it makes me think you're much less informed on the matter than your post suggests.
It's not a good comparison but playing an old video game for a decade doesn't magically earn you entitlements from a company infamous for being conservative, secretive and protectionist with their IP. Nintendo does and doesn't care in equal measure, if that makes sense.
"Smashers" are more than people who play the game competitively. Just because they're not bending over backwards to appease the tournament scene doesn't mean they're totally out of touch with their fanbase, just means they're more concerned about other sections of their market. I brought up Banjo & Kazooie as an example of them listening to another particular section of the fanbase of the same game.
The Twit Longer simply reveals Nintendo aren't that fussed taking things further in regards to the competitive scene, so it's a bit weird to use this to make sweeping statements about their entire management structure - the ones currently overseeing one of their most successful systems one might add.
I do enjoy people using the word "killed" a lot to make it sound far more dramatic than it really is, which is just Nintendo not being bothered with certain proposals brought up to them. Heck, this might not even be true if one re-reads the Twitch section again. They wanted to shift the focus to Ultimate, a game which came out late 2018. So 2019 they may have continued negotiating it, but then 2020 hit (I'm sure I don't have to explain what happened here) and it was put on the back burner cos it wasn't a priority. But saying Nintendo is still in talks with Twitch wouldn't exactly aid this woe is me tale.
People on this site don't seem to even want to play the game with each other and rather post idol character images of 100 varieties though. Its not hard to see which users actually give a shit about each other. Fuck those of us people who really just adore a videogame though, praise Nintendo.
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This forum is probably not the best play yo address this issue, since we are mostly old gamers and from my, and many others, point of view, the smash community is not good PR, but an actual nightmare.
If you have spent years inside those communities then you may have a better perspective.
All in all, I don't see Nintendo making a big push for any competitive scene. They just don't see the money, there is maybe some money, but not enough for them to care.
If you have spent years inside those communities then you may have a better perspective.
All in all, I don't see Nintendo making a big push for any competitive scene. They just don't see the money, there is maybe some money, but not enough for them to care.
Nintendo has been actively hostile to the idea of a competitive smash scene for decades now. Anybody with eyes to see knows this and with enough distance, is never disappointed by that continuing policy.
Maybe it is time to break free from the endless hype cycle feeding a company that makes a game you like, but doesn't like you at all and will never like you.
Maybe it is time to break free from the endless hype cycle feeding a company that makes a game you like, but doesn't like you at all and will never like you.
It's probably too much to ask Smashers to re-examine their priorities on this specific issue because of the victim complex that the scene seems to thrive on. The only valid and productive option is moving on from a scene that will never formally be supported by the parent company. #FreeSmash? lol, how would that even work exactly.
There have been dozens of projects (and there will be more) of "Platform fighter aimed at the competitive Smash audience". None have succeeded because the sad reality is that it is a small niche market.
What are Smashers asking for exactly? "Hey Nintendo! Stop suing us and leave us alone"
That's a reasonable request with the consideration that the community is entirely self funded.
So why they bothered with an ultimate tournament anyway? Just because of Nintendo?
Rivals of Aether is 500k - 1Million sales on Steam which is significant for an indie competitive platform fighter.
You build a scene around someone else's stuff, you're gonna have to deal with that person or entity in some capacity. That's the reality. Nailing your theses to the door of the internet or paying for your own tournament pots isn't going to change that.
Small market or market where there are 2 well-established incumbents with beloved IP that are hard to compete with for a share? I'm curious how you were able to make that distinction
As lvl 99 Pixel pointed out, Rivals of Aether has sold very well on Steam
We know. You don't need to continue stating the obvious. The issue here is its only Nintendo really doing this so they're a real outlier in the industry. Only other instance I can even think of is the Dragon Ball FIghterz situation with Toei (?).
They are good numbers considering the context. Personally, I don't know how much you can enjoy Rivals of Aether as a party game, I only know it from the competitive one.
Nintendo doesn't want to deal with them. So the choices are: raging and hashtagging on twitter which means effectively nothing or using the influence of a community to boost an indie smash-style game that does not have the chains of IP. Which is more productive, I think we know the answer.
Definitely. It is hard to blame Nintendo here. They took so long to start supporting the competitive scene, and when they started hesitantly all the pedophilia came out. Now it is time to go back into the Koopa shell.
Blame the community that didn't speak up and protect the vulnerable sooner.
EDIT: I have read more through this thread and see that my last sentence blaming the community is misguided and far too generalized. I reacted out of the frustration of one around young children that look up to these games and communities, only to see that "100" list earlier. I am sorry to those that are indeed calling them out and those that have been victimized by them. I hope a way forward, where parents can be comfortable sending their kids to these events, and Nintendo better supports the events themselves becomes clear someday.
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The issue with that is that Melee is such a good game, some of which is because of the characters everyone loves and having Nintendo's talent and money behind it. Rivals of Aether etc will get people playing them, but never as the primary game.
Understandable, but when I see how games like Fortnite and Call of Duty embrace their competitive scenes, while Smash Bros. barely gets a quarter of that attention on Twitch, it bothers me. Obviously these are different game genres, but I think Nintendo not doing anything to encourage these communities to continue to grow will damage the relationship between these communities and the brand. Why would any young aspiring esports kid want to dedicate their career to playing a Nintendo game where there's no real opportunity for growth for them?
Of course getting Banjo in Smash is fantastic. I'm forever grateful. But on the flip side, it probably means they're never going to go out of their way to acquire the rights to the franchise. Microsoft owns a nice chunk of the N64 catalog. Hindsight is 20/20 of course but in this digital era having content is so important. Hate them or love them, Rare IP were a nice break from Nintendo's usual outings. I see Microsoft and Sony acquiring studios while Nintendo is all nope, we're good on that! Let's watch our ex-partners go bankrupt and all the competitors snatch up the IP. Woo!
Still no folders, friend invites, or basic messaging on Switch. The drip feeding of classic titles, because god forbid playing Donkey Kong Country 3 for an hour takes playing time away from Pikmin 3 Deluxe, that you already bought on Wii U. I'm not having fun being a Nintendo fan these days. I think there's plenty of valid reasons to be unhappy with Nintendo's management imo.
Or Nintendo for wasting their 15 year lead. Nintendo shouldn't have waited this long to support the community.
User Banned (5 days): Hostility; prior infraction for antagonizing other users
Then your community will continue to live in a state of perpetual victimhood that is ignored and tacitly despised by the company who makes the game. Enjoy, I guess.
They are not ignored by Nintendo, this is the issue here. That would be preferable.
lvl 99 Pixel clearly explained why this is an unusual situation to be in for a competitive game (many others do not actively receive support from the developer, that is not what Melee wants. It simply wants to be able to exist without active disruption from the developer, which is much more uncommon). Your replies seem to suggest this isn't a valid desire / is indicative of a "victim complex", which I think is pretty unfair even if you don't personally share that desire.
I feel most of this is accurate.
The biggest discrepancy is the PM/P+ details. While Nintendo may have put the pressure to not air them, only the top PM devs know the truth, nobody else. I don't think this source is a PM developer.
Coincidentally other PM-based mods have mysteriously vanished and removed their site/downloads with similar wordings.
In any case, I'll stick by a statement I previously said that Nintendo supporting the community in the most nominal of ways would help prevent abusers from becoming more entrenched in the community and setting up a better standard of conduct.
The biggest discrepancy is the PM/P+ details. While Nintendo may have put the pressure to not air them, only the top PM devs know the truth, nobody else. I don't think this source is a PM developer.
Coincidentally other PM-based mods have mysteriously vanished and removed their site/downloads with similar wordings.
In any case, I'll stick by a statement I previously said that Nintendo supporting the community in the most nominal of ways would help prevent abusers from becoming more entrenched in the community and setting up a better standard of conduct.
That's the sting isn't it. Nintendo can ignore them when it's convenient and interfere when it's convenient. That's my point really, building a fan community where the entity ultimately in charge is uncooperative and conservative is not tenable and should be abandoned.
I think the closer comparison would be to someone like Atlus blocking YouTube uploads or Twitch streams. This issue is somewhere between that and Capcom's response to the netcode mods that attempted to fix SFV (with poor results for console players). My view is that certain Japanese publishers simply don't understand the modern era where streaming, online play and live competitive events (in person or otherwise) are a key aspect of a wide range of games.
It might be worthwhile to point out that Capcom have apparently made some behind-the-scenes wrangling after their own online services have been criticised in the past few years. This hasn't resulted in events being cancelled or streamers being banned from Twitch or YouTube but it seems there's been some effort to stimy those who have been publicly critical of the netcode in Street Fighter Five and other games.
Nintendo are (however you may feel about it) entitled to block public performance of their games for any reason they might want to. For whatever reason they've picked this time to make an issue of it rather than other events that are taking place or blocking people streaming Slippi sets on Twitch, but again it would seem that they are entitled to do that if they so wish.
When something like this last happened the Melee community responded and they were successful in making Nintendo change their approach. I am doubtful that this situation will end in a similar way.
The Scene is always bigger than the individuals. This forum in general has always had it out for the FGC. Nintendo's been an asshole when it comes to smash and there's no other way around it. If they didn't want to be associated with a problematic community they could've just said so instead of dipping their toes when it benefits them.
Brawlhalla is the most played fighter on Steam by large (around 17K average when the 2d best, Tekken 7 is around 4K average at best) and got a healthy competitive scene. Last week end tournament peaked at around 150K viewers on Twitch.
Worst case scenario people end up playing the game without the streaming aspect. You'll have to trust me that people will not stop playing this game.
There's a new documentary airing in a few weeks that's a direct followup to the first Smash Documentary that caused a second wind in the playerbase.
Completely forgot how successful Brawlhalla was. Good netcode too.
True, Brawlhalla is a good example of what happens when a game with a sizable community is well supported by its publisher. Just imagine how much bigger Smash would be if Nintendo supported it like Ubisoft supports Brawlhalla
This community should probably work on repairing it's image after this summer. People were already getting tired of them thinking they're entitled to Nintendo making games or events just to cater to them. As if Smash wouldn't sell without them lol.
That was some pretty disgusting stuff brought to the light. Not a lot of people gonna care when you have a community that was housing pedos and rapists. And imagine being shocked why Nintendo of all companies who never takes risks on these type of things would care to want after you validate a lot of the reasons why they don't.
Instead of proving them wrong y'all proved them right.
That was some pretty disgusting stuff brought to the light. Not a lot of people gonna care when you have a community that was housing pedos and rapists. And imagine being shocked why Nintendo of all companies who never takes risks on these type of things would care to want after you validate a lot of the reasons why they don't.
Instead of proving them wrong y'all proved them right.