Nintendo shut down a worldwide tournament, Smash World Tour, with a cease and desist letter, but with questionable motives as to why. Nintendo has been known for shutting down various Super Smash Bros tournaments for the past 20 years, so it came as a surprise when they partnered up with Panda, a fighting game community, to make an official high level Smash tournament. Nintendo should not have shut down Smash World Tour when they were about to finish their season.

Though some may say that it is understandable that World Tour was shut down because Nintendo now has an official tournament of their own, that isn’t the clear cut case. In World Tour’s official statement released on Nov. 29, they stated that they had been in communication with Nintendo and had been given the OK to do their tournament. This surprised the community and getting a cease and desist right before their finale was sudden and seemed to come out of nowhere.

Later in their statement it became evident that the cancellation was Panda’s decision to shut down World Tour, not Nintendo’s. Panda’s CEO, Alan Bunnay, has been shown to be the one responsible for the shutdown. Bunnay had been going to other events to get Nintendo to join Panda, specifically ones that were not connected to the World Tour. “At first, Panda targeted events that were not on the Smash World Tour (including those who did not join because of the aforementioned warnings),” World Tour said in a statement.

To defend themselves, Nintendo later released a statement of their own. In their statement, they mentioned that World Tour was never officially licensed, but they did tell them that it was alright to run the tournament. They also mentioned that World Tour did not meet Nintendo’s health and safety regulations.

However, Nintendo telling World Tour that it was alright to run the tournament is incredibly misleading and contradicting their previous statements. Nintendo’s reasoning was for health and safety regulations, but that does not make sense because the World Tour’s area was similar to Panda’s area.

Following Nintendo’s response, Panda released one as well. Throughout the response, Panda had put the blame on Bunnay, claiming that he had acted out rage and had not followed Nintendo’s or Panda’s standards. However, they did not show any clarity on how much they were involved with the shut down of the World Tour. This has caused many popular Panda players to leave Panda and go elsewhere.

The Smash community has reacted negatively to Panda since the shutdown of World Tour and some creators have even banded together to make an unofficial finale on their own. The cease and desist said to have been led by Bunnay has only brought down his company and reflected negatively upon Nintendo’s reputation.