The current Smash World Tour is canceled and the events in 2023 will not take place either. The organizers and Nintendo comment on the reasons in statements. Issues with the official licensing of the event seem to have played a major role.
What is the Smash World Tour? The Smash World Tour (also SWT) is one of the largest tour events in eSports worldwide with huge prize pools. For 2023, a total prize money of over $350,000 was planned.
However, on November 29, 2022, the organizers announced on Twitter that the tour in 2023 and all events in 2022 were canceled.
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What do the organizers say about it? The Twitter post refers to an official statement on the American publishing website Medium. There, the organizers explain in detail how the collaboration with Nintendo went and why the Smash World Tour was interrupted.
Regarding the surprising cancellation, they write:
Without warning, we received the message from Nintendo the night before Thanksgiving that we could no longer proceed. This was particularly shocking considering how we negotiated with Nintendo over the past twelve months. Since then, we have been working around the clock to take the right logistical steps and prepare this statement with the right legal support.
Smash World Tour via Medium
The organizers also write that they will lose “hundreds of thousands of dollars” due to the cancellation of the events.
The statement also addresses the collaboration of the esports company “Panda” (which is now conducting official Smash Bros. events) with Nintendo, and the organizers shed light on how they have been in constant communication with Nintendo regarding this matter.
What is Nintendo’s response? Nintendo has only officially commented on the matter to Kotaku so far. It states:
Unfortunately, after multiple discussions with the Smash World Tour and after a thorough review, as we do with every potential partner, we were unable to reach an agreement with SWT for a full season in 2023. Considering the negative impact on players who had already planned to participate, Nintendo has not requested any changes or the cancelation of the remaining events in 2022, including the championship event in 2022.
Nintendo spokesperson via Kotaku
Subsequently, the organizers also spoke to Kotaku and responded to Nintendo’s statement. According to their statement, they had inquired multiple times with Nintendo whether they had considered the consequences of canceling the events in 2022 and the tour in 2023, which Nintendo allegedly confirmed.
Furthermore, the organizers had received a message from Nintendo stating that a license was necessary to conduct commercial events with their games. Smash World Tour did not meet the conditions regarding health and safety regulations and violated internal partner guidelines, which is why no license would be granted to the event organizers.
The organizers contradict this and state that they had not yet submitted an application for 2023: When they asked Nintendo whether they could continue to work “without a license,” this was apparently denied.
What does the future hold for Smash Bros events? While the collaboration with the Smash World Tour organizing team has ended, Nintendo announced on Twitter on November 18, 2022, the partnership with Panda.
Together, they already held the first official licensed championship in Super Smash Bros in North America this year. It is likely that events will continue to be held with this partner in the future.
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