Nintendo Cancels Splatoon 2 NA Open Livestream, "Free Melee" Believed To Have Played A Part

"Melee's not dead I swear"

I can't believe people are defending Nintendo over this.

We live in a world with Sonic Mania and Black Mesa. There is NO EXCUSE for Nintendo to not collaborate with fans, or at the very least leave them to their own devices. Working with fans has been a thing since Ms. Pac-Man in the 80s, why is it so hard now?

Nintendo's petty but this would be a new low even for them

Plus it's entirely possible this isn't connected to #FreeMelee and there were actual issues preventing the stream from happening and people are jumping the gun; we really can't know for sure right now

This will probably be a fun comments section

@Noid of course there’s an excuse.

Time and money.

To be fair to Nintendo, if the community keeps throwing tantrums, it isn’t going to encourage them to change their ways, they are more likely to give up on tournaments all together, but acting like adults doesn’t happen much these days, especially online.

Kinda sad to see a large portion of the NL community turn against their fellow Nintendo fans when we could use some support instead.

This all happened like more than 12 hours ago now, but Nintendo's pettiness has literally never been higher than they are RN, and it's a real shame. Next, however, I feel we need VGC people to start nicknaming their Pokémon #freemelee too. The more the message is spread, the more irritated Nintendo will get about it, at the very least...

While we don't exactly know why NIntendo decided to pull the plug on the tournament, if it truly is over the whole Melee situation then that's pretty low of them.

I can just imagine a Nintendo fan going to an interview for a job at Nintendo and when they get to the question “why do you want to work at Nintendo?” The second they mention they are a fan of them the interviewer spits in their eyes flips the table and burns their application form before screaming at them to leave and never return again

"this year's tournament required "illegally copied versions" of Super Smash Bros. Melee"

Isn't it legal if you use your own dump? Unless the tournament itself was stating a specific version of the game (that could only be found online) needed to be used that line sounds a bit misleading.

As a fan of both games this is super dumb for Nintendo.

On one hand, niche fan movements often think they're being more disruptive than they actually are, and it's going to get old really quickly when Nintendo can't alter plans without people assuming it's a response to #freemelee. Dexit was WAY more visible, and that didn't change a thing at Game Freak or Nintendo.

On the other hand, I could see Nintendo not wanting their Splatoon event to be co-opted by a fan crusade, and "unexpected executional challenge" sounds like corporate weasel language more than anything.

So... you guys are aware of the reputation of Smash competitive scene and how much Nintendo has not wanted to be part of it in the past, right? How does something like this come as a surprise to you?

@BlubberWhale I don’t get it either. For whatever reason, a lot of people who are on this website either hold contempt against Smash players or get unreasonably angry that people enjoy an 18 year old video game more than a 2 year old video game.

Nintendo needs to stop being petty but I doubt this movement will change anything, much like Dexit. Maybe the recent allegations in the Smash community has something to do with their recent pettiness but I don't remember them really supporting the scene before the allegations so it could just be a coincidence. I still think that this is a bad decision on Nintendo's part, it's a 18 year old game that Nintendo have done little to none with for the past few years. Let the community continue or do something with the game.

@Tuulenpoika you do realise Nintendo hasn’t ever really supported the smash scene right before any of the allegations from this year came out? In fact most of the allegations were aimed at ultimate players and not melee players anyway so why is this relevant in the slightest?

#FreeSplatoon, I guess?

@BlubberWhale @TheDragonDAFan I think the vast majority of people don’t really care.

The Melee community is small compared to other aspects of the community and it’s seen as a thorn in the side rather than a benefit.

It might be the way the community has behaved rather than a love for Nintendo. Even this news/reaction doesn’t bathe the Melee audience in a good light.

"but some fans want to think they might know what's going on..."[/fixed]

Even this comment section already features garbage like "Nintendo's pettiness" and "no excuse not to collaborate with fans", so there's no substantial news in other fans out there still being fans, too. The whole point of fanship, like any other abusive relationship - it's targeted at someone/something else on paper, but it's really all. About. Us. And everything the victims of our worship do is undoubtedly related to us as well.

That’s just Petty and counter productive

I am very angry, can you people stop with the #freemelee already? I just wanted to watch a splatoon completion. It gets more annoying every time I see it.

Smash fans ruin everything, as always I might add, so nothing really surprising. Going to be fun when the 12 year olds get mad again cause Nintendo does something unrelated to smash yet they see it as a swipe.

Yeah, I like smash, but drop it. Acting like this has passed the “this is why we can’t have nice things” point and it seems the community still refuses to accept that the community is still stained by the pedo house.

Nintendo, just release Super Smash Bros Melee HD for the Switch with full online functionality. Problem solved, and a few extra quid in the coffers. Otherwise leave people alone for modding a game that's nearly 20 years old and which you don't appear to have any interest in selling. And if you do that, get some more GameCube controllers and adapters released while you're at it.

Yep, time to boycott Nintendo, as they are going full evil corporation, now.

Yeah, I don't think these hashtags are serving the purpose people want them to. Unless they just want take digs at Nintendo and don't care about the repercussions.
I honestly don't see why people think that this movement(?) would actually work, not like it ever has before to my knowledge.
And I'm sorry, did someone really suggest someone changes their Pokemon nicknames to #freemelee? Is that satire?
I'm honestly trying to hold back laughter because GAMEFREAK are pretty much the last ones you'd expect to listen to fans. And that's just one reason to laugh.

@PikaPhantom it does feel like transparency when it comes to dealing with fans or the community can often lead to less drama, as you mentioned this could easily be something completely separate from the melee incident but the general vagueness of the reason is why there's speculation which can lead to drama as rumors spiral out of control.

its similar to this year how people suspected the covid19 situation impacted Nintendo maybe more than Nintendo had initially claimed but all people really had to go on was what PR comments they got.

@TG16_IS_BAE Just stop, I want to just watch some splatoon invationals.

@ok1 I’m not the one preventing you from doing that.

that's how you deal with children , they throw a tantrum and you ground them...thanks for ruining another community's event with your whining.

This seems rather petty if true. Wouldn’t surprise me though. It’s like the Blizzard Hong Kong deal except 40 million times less important.

you'd think its not enough to ruin every nintendo direct

The Smash community has some rather -obvious- issues to deal with before they can claim ANY moral highground.

@BlubberWhale because loyalty to the brand is stronger than any sense of morals or ethics.

@TG16_IS_BAE Yeah buddy, go ahead and boycot Nintendo. I'm sure they'll going to weep as they count however billion yen they have in their pockets.

#FreeMelee
Thank you Splatoon community for showing your support. Good luck and have fun with your tourny today.

Which is it going to be, Nintendo?
A flourishing esports community, or rigorous control of product identity?

Because lemme tell you. Counter Strike was a mod, DOTA was a mod, and Brood War is over twenty years old.

@QueenKittenWrite Boycotting them isn’t to hurt their bottom line. Multi-million dollar corporations don’t care if they lose one customer.

But I wouldn’t feel right as a person if I continue to support them, so I’m doing it for me.

@nessisonett Well, it'd resemble the Blizzard thing if they banned people with #freemelee references in their name from competing. Currently, they're just not doing a livestream of the event.

Maybe don't try and play a tournament with pirated software and the company that made the game might not be so heavy handed.

@JustMe I’m very happy to make the personal decision to stop defending and supporting this joke of a company. I don’t care about their bottom line, and I don’t support their actions. I do this for me.

I feel much better about myself knowing I’m no longer going to give money to this company. It’s a personal thing, you wouldn’t understand.

@Ralizah B-But, this is our human right to protest against Daddy Nintendo taking away our toys!!

People trying to brow beat Nintendo again? What a surprise.

Hmmm... yeah it's suspicious but I'm not the type that condemns over accusations. I need hard evidence and frankly we don't have that. I wouldn't be surprised if this was Nintendo being petty or the Melee community whining about nothing.

This is hilarious

@Sissyrobyn996 "if you feel the need to respond in disagreement then you've already proven I've bested you"

This is some preemptive dismissal BS if I ever saw it. You being unwilling to listen to rebuttals or people having a differing opinion to yours, doesn't mean you "beat" them. Jesus.

1 - This is the stupidest theory ever to theory ... for like a billion reasons. It was only the English language stream that went down, the team names and hashtags appear in other promotional material with the hashtag, the rules of the event allow them to force the teams to change their names and censor what they say, ect.

2 - You know how people used to say "everyone should have to work a day of retail"? The new one is "everyone should have to invest a ton of money and time creating something they are proud of only to have idiots steal it from them and claim they are some sort of freedom fighters for STEALING IT.

3 - Nintendo should stop ALL extras, bonuses and support in NA, period. Just focus on JP where they can run events like this, or simply make games and enforce their creative and legal control over their IPs and fans are like "why thank you so much for making great games, here is some money. Thank you even more for creating such wonderful content" instead of NA babies screaming "YOU BAD EVIL GREEDY FOR MAKING ME FOLLOW THE LAW!!". Not to mention the NA reaction to every game made by Nintendo in the last 10 years is "This game isn't 100% accommodating to all fan feedback and is bad because it's not exactly the same AND bad because it's not different enough from the last game" while in JP everyone is like "I might not agree with this, but I trust your creative vision and understand you owe me exactly nothing for the money I've spent in the past except the games I already bought with that money."

NA doesn't deserve Nintendo, period.

Welcome to real life folks. Nintendo is a giant company. They care about money and protecting their properties. Don’t act entitled when you’re doing and participating in illegal activities with a mega conglomerates properties and they shut you down. The whining and belly aching only makes you look more entitled and also by the way makes it seem like you need a big dose of the real world. You aren’t special. If they let you they’d have to let everyone else and pirating and misuse of properties would be even more rampant than it already is. Sure the argument can be made that Melee is old and this shouldn’t matter. But look at it this way, Ultimate is a new smash with online capabilities and these people are broadcasting that there’s a free online version of a fan favourite game. That can hurt sales of Nintendo’s new IP ultimate. Use your brains.

I don't think the two cases are related. How much money those guys from that "Free Melee" ***** get for all this? I don't think they're doing it for free.

Imagine going with this assumption, and still backing Nintendo in this situation. Would you who are doing that like a drink to wash down that boot you are swallowing, not just licking?

Also, can people stop with the BS "defense" of Nintendo by stating that "Well, they are a company, so what do you expect?" UH, idk, BETTER?? lol. What is the logic in accepting BS BECAUSE its BS? That's like not doing anything about a playground bully because its in the bully's nature to bully lol.

How embarrassing.

@Dizzymario Because actions in one part of the community affect the reputation of the entire community as a whole. The several allegations that have happened recently have only fueled the trash fire that was already there burning bright. This current situation has little to do with what Nintendo's stance in the past would have been, right now it has everything to do with how people who know of the allegations view the Smash community as of now. Which is, in a negative light.

And this latest stunt really didn't help things, as we can now see.

Smash fans are annoying who cares tbh. Just have an unofficial tournament amongst ur selves lol

Meh, I’ve always viewed Melee competitors as elitist to some extent but them saying that losing a tournament because they couldn’t play it in a way they want to will end up killing the game’s competitive scene is just exponentially stupid.

The way I see it is that the Smash competitive scene is in the same situation as the competitive Pokémon TCG scene is. TPCi can’t run IRL events (the preferred method) because of the pandemic but TPCi is running officially sanctioned tournaments on their Pokémon Trading Card Game Online app (A method that has its own bugs and issues that some competitors aren’t fans of). In other words, IRL TCG events = Melee whilst TCGO tournaments = Nintendo’s newest Smash Bros. offering.

So what are IRL TCG event aficionados doing right now? Most are just hunkering down and waiting for everything to boil over and then compete as usual. Will these IRL events be smaller due to the lack of them being held during these trying times? Yes they will and that’s expected, but they’ll continue to grow as the world keeps on spinning.

Wanting to continue with a money making venture even after being told that it would be illegal to do so is called being a Republican, and it’s not okay

@RadioHedgeFund Who’s pirating? You seem to have some information on this, I’m curious. Smh

Hey NL, I know these articles get you clicks, but maybe stop fueling the hate fest?

Why do people care about Melee? Get over it folks.

My god it makes me laugh so hard when people are like "I wOnT SUppORt ThEM nOW, ThEY ArE GOnnA LOSe MONeY!"

Ya know there already IS a NA console developer who does EVERYTHING the community begs for? And I do mean everything ... and more.

Uncensored self publishing for all developers, zero additional censorship, ELUA for all 1st party games includes a licence to stream and reproduce content non-commercially, non-commercial modding of all 1st party games allowed with almost no restrictions, 3rd party developers are incentivised with lower fees and free exposer if they do the same for their games, system is 100% backwards compatible with all pervious generation games, system is 100% backwards compatible with all pervious generation hardware, commitment that current hardware will be compatible with the next generation as well, if a 1st party game is upgraded or remastered the remaster is instantly available to all owners of the original for free, they will add cross platform online support to any game AT NO COST if the developer asks for it, will do the same, again at NO COST to the developer, for cloud save support, buying a game once gives you a copy on every system they make and PC ...

And for giving gamers literally everything they ask for and everything gamers constantly tell Nintendo and Sony they are going to "boycott" them for not having, has Microsoft faced a outpouring of support, goodwill, and sales? HAHA, no, people are still mad at them for windows 95 or something.

This is why no company cares what you think. This is why no company is incentivised to give you what you want. And most importantly, this is why no company will EVER bother to change for the better. There is literally no reason to, whinny babies are still going to hate them for what they did a decade ago, while still supporting the brands that are in vouge regardless of what they do.

You, the consumer ... you are the problem. You could fix this simply by spending your money on the people willing to change, improve, and give you want you want. You choose not to do that. So ... this is 100% on you.

Nintendo has never heard of the Streisand Effect.

If I were Nintendo, instead of being petty enough to close down tournament streams and C & D tournaments surrounding 20 year old games they don't even sell anymore, i'd be going out of my way to get the Slippi folks to help out implement Rollback on Smash Ultimate.

So, you really think Nintendo or any other big company would agree that illegally copied Smash Bro Melee is ok? Did the organizers get with Nintendo to see what options they have? You do realize that Nintendo has a reputation and image that they're trying to protect. Nintendo is known as a family and "clean" company. Also, the main Nintendo company is a Japanese company so they're not an American or European company and we must realize that they are fiercely protective of their image.

Another thing that's dumb is people bringing their "Smash Brother Melee" problem into Splatoon. Instead of crying about not being able to play melee, why doesn't someone become a leader and get with Nintendo and see if there's a way for melee to still happen but in the right way. I mean, you can be a little sheep all your life if you want but all the crying isn't going to do anything till someone stands up. It almost feels like that the internet and social media is just a platform for people to whine and complain to each other like the celebrities do.

Anyway, sorry if I angered anyone with this post. I just thought I would post my thoughts or rather my whining.

@BlubberWhale I thought y'all wanted visibility for your cause? NL is giving #freemelee free advertising.

@nessisonett Imagine if the Americans involved with this were as proactive about protesting against the right-wing authoritarians who are making us look like an unstable third-world country.

@LillianC14

Funny, Nintendo sure cares alot about Melee even though they don't even sell it anymore. Enough to shut down a livestream of a completely unrelated game.

@Ralizah Yeah, like I genuinely love Melee and think some of the arguments presented against it on this website have been dubious at best but at this current moment in time, it doesn’t seem particularly important given everything else going on.

Im not siding with Nintendo on this, but man, the smash community is acting like 3 year olds when they don’t get the two dollar toy from the gas station. Wow they cancelled a online tournament, and half the people that are saying free melee weren’t even going to play in it, so let’s just put an end to this chapter, just like everybody did with the national dex.

@Ralizah I agree on both counts. I appreciate that Nintendo Life didn't claim outright that it was definitely because of this FreeMelee situation. Every other article I've seen has stated it as objective, verified fact rather than fan speculation.

I don't really get why ppl always get so mad at other people for enjoying Melee more than Ultimate? Have you never enjoyed an older game more than a newer game? Is liking Mario World better than New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe a crime? Lol

@nessisonett there are always more important things going on in the world. That doesn't mean you aren't allowed to criticize companies.

@HeadPirate The issue is Microsoft can do all that and more but at the end of the day, they don't have the games many gamers want to play. You can have all the wonderful features and pro-consumer programs you want, but if your product isn't want the public wants to buy, it's virtually meaningless. And to be honest, most of what Microsoft has done in the last 5 years has nothing to do with giving people what they want for any altruistic reason, they were just scrambling to get business by any means necessary. Sometimes that just means being a better business. And no disrespect to them for it, it's a good idea and it has helped some. But gamers have always flocked to systems for the games, not for anything else. That's why EA can still be successful even when they're one of the worst rated companies in the world when it comes to customer satisfaction and support.

Okay, let's start from the beginning:
Nintendo releases the party fighter game Super Smash Bros. Melee. The game has exploits and glitches that were noticed in development but left because it was thought that they would not affect gameplay (and I don't mean something as simple as L-Cancelling because that was in the N64 manual, even). This enabled faster methods of play but required practice and prior knowledge commitments outside of the scope of a casual game. Furthermore, the faster gameplay exacerbated the game's roster balance issues. Yet, it still caused a portion of the player-base to cling to the game due to the time invested into the winning techniques and strategies and being unwilling to change from those, even going as far as to cause some of these players to adopt an elitist attitude. Then came Brawl, with online play, and that portion of the community begins modding the game and their hardware to these same specifications to be played online. This, as opposed to adapting to the new game despite its warts (which Melee also had). Fast forward to the current Smash tournament scene, wherein the majority of Melee-esque variant players are aged well outside of Nintendo's target market. The Melee portion again modifies the game but this time creates a separate online netcoding mechanism from the official one (better or worse) that requires one to use ROMS. Not so bad in and of itself were it isolated, but goes on to have online tournaments and promotes illegal downloading of a current software title which Nintendo has been legally proven to be required to strike down or face legal challenges to future official endeavors. On top of that, the community at-large has been riddled with exploitation-of-minors (again, Nintendo's target market) scandals. Despite all of this and the known toxicity sent towards Nintendo this whole timeframe whether their actions were insignificant or understandably questionable, the Smash tournament scene wants to move on as if there are no issues.

There are a load of issues. I do not blame Nintendo for cancelling a livestream of an official event just to head off negative press from a community that has more than proven its toxicity time and time again, largely stemming from portions of the player-base that want a given thing but won't unify with the rest of the community because the remainder and majority of the player-base understands that the developers are adjusting the gameplay mechanics with each installment to see what works. The larger portion of the player-base does not want to cling to ONLY a past method of play that is inherently damaging to a casual game without even attempting other methods or innovations. I'm not saying Melee gameplay feats aren't technically impressive, they are and require time and work. But hamfisting them into an existing game is or going outside of the scope of casual game requirements is not conducive to Smash's mode of operation as an entertainment product for the masses as-is.

It's not a crime to prefer an older game for valid reasons (objective or subjective) but this level of past-clinging is as self-damaging as being a vinyl record-only snob or internal combustion engine-only extremist — we MUST question your motivations for clinging onto a thing with which you are comfortable when you are standing in the way of forward progress hurting others too.

MOVE ON.

Petty or not, in the end Nintendo was in their right to pull support over illegal copies of the game to be used for the tournament. In most cases, many companies would do the same. If you wanted official support, then use official copies. Two wrongs don't make a right, but in this case the event organizers are to blame.

Adult privilaged toddlers cans grow up. Sorry, but Nintendo has the right to do it wants with its IPz

@HammerKirby Yes I know. I criticise Nintendo all the time, including with this issue. The thing is though, organising such a vast protest just seems a little silly when you look at the widespread attack on democracy and a heap of other protestable issues.

Reminds me of the time when Nintendo was trying to shut down all Nintendo related content creators while wondering why nobody was buying the WiiU...

Nintendo sucks at this.

@Deltath

This is my exact point. If all your care about is the game, every gaming company that ignores your feedback, treats you like garbage, and screws you out of every penny they can with microtransactions or DLC is 100% in the right, because you are flat out lying when you say not being taken advantage of is important to you.

Sony and Nintendo don't read posts about how much the community hates what they do and think about changing. They just laugh their faces off about how FOMO on their games makes you give them money while actively hating them. In fact, I can tell you from experience, when you get a TON of negative feedback on a game that still sold well, the first thing you tell the teams is "how can we make the next game even worse? Where can we still cheap out? Where can we add more microtransactions? What else can we charge for?".

Because people just flat out told you that even if they hate everything you do, they are still going to give you money. That makes you SO powerful, you can literally do whatever you want.

If the #FreeMelee malarky is indeed to blame; then I be remised not to blame The Big House for triggering that 30%, and triggering people into turning the livestream into a cesspool of #SaveSmash and#FreeMelee comments, devaluing the conversation of people’s Splatoon 2 skills.

@Sissyrobyn996

All your last paragraph has done is proven that you are a numpty.

It's a shame, but more than it embarrasses me, but I'm used to it because it's "business as usual."

>Nintendo, as always, with strange attitudes but in some cases understandable and in others, well, I better not think, because it has already been discussed and I don't want to discuss it anymore.
>Fans, since the internet gives them "more freedom", when it is correct to give opinions and protest for something fair, there is a moment when fans become a real pain, not only for the company, but for other fans And worst of all, they think they know, but it is not always like that.

But, ..., oh well, keep up the same old drama, it's the only thing that seems to be more interesting than the games ...

So, some kids are moaning that they should be allowed to use a doctored version of Nintendo's game, their angst spills into another gaming event and the livestream of it gets cancelled...and Nintendo are to blame? Is that a good summary?

@Donnerkebab I’ve never tasted Nintendo’s boots.

I’m quite enjoying this cup of Smash fan tears though.

They are Nintendo’s products, they can do what they like with it in my opinion. Don’t like it, tough really.

Legit question - didn't the Smash controversy start with mass allegations of sexual harassment and abuse by several of the top Melee players? If that's the case, and I hope to be proven wrong, then supporting Melee players is a bad move and the Splatoon 2 event should have been cancelled. Games can't be given priority over that despicable behavior.

As someone who hates the Smash community as well as Nintendo's scummier practices, this is all quite a joy to watch.

Good. Shouldn't be supporting a load of sexual predators.

The Nintendo simps defending this behavior are pathetic and so are the Splatoon players blaming Smash players because it affects their game: not intelligent enough to understand your community could easily be destroyed overnight if Nintendo decided it.

@Ralizah Dexit was kinda funny because I remember telling them Nintendo was probably going to patch in most of the missing Pokemon... and Nintendo did FOR FREE! And odds are the rest will be patched in with the Pokemon 25th Anniversary game that comes out this year (God can we just pretend 2021 has stated so we can forget 2020). So... yeah that solved itself.

I don't think Nintendo is being unreasonable with the Big House situation as they said they could still do Ultimate, but did not support the use of unauthorized mods. And as I pointed out many times now Melee Tournaments will be back in 2021 when they can be done safely. The amount of salt from SaveSmashers is hilarious because none of them have pointed out why Nintendo from a business sense should allow it when they have not sold new copies of Melee in about 15 years. It's not free promotion when it's promoting a product you no longer sell. :/

Cancelling the Splatoon tournament could be seen as petty, but I think has to do with Nintendo just wanting to control the conversation. You can't control what people will say during your tournament and if the Splatoon teams are just going to whine about FreeSmash or SaveSmash during your airtime when you consider the matter done and dusted then why allow them to have the platform? It's on Nintendo's dime and Nintendo's time that these Splatoon tournaments take place so I don't blame them for shutting it down. It sucks and is kinda petty, but makes sense why they did it when you spend a few minutes thinking about it.

Having been to a few fighting game tournaments in my day, this is kinda standard operating procedure for the Smash Community (esp. Melee). They're very large, very loud, and very VERY meme'y. Everything is about Smash at the cost of everything else. "Flood the zone" until people surrender. Most of the rage is memes, most of the enthusiasm is memes. Once live play starts back up in 2021 and people can go back to being pot monsters for top 32 this outrage will shift to a different target.

@HeadPirate I don't disagree with you on any particular point, though I personally don't hate Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft and don't particularly have a problem with how they do business as a whole. I buy the stuff I like and skip the stuff I'm not interested in and I've generally been happy with all my purchases the last few years.

Why is it whenever I read anything about Melee I can't help but think about personal hygiene? I'll get my coat.

@Deltath

And power to ya man. I'm actually the same way; I think my rant might not focus on the point that there is an other option ... just don't cry about it. Nintendo gonna enforce their IPs, Sony is going to leech us dry since we've spent years telling them we don't care what they do we love them unconditionally ... and I mean, they have every right to.

Now shut up, take my money, and give me another splatfest, you evil megacorp, you.

@Noid

The excuse is that by collaborating with these 'fans' they'd be basically saying its okay profit from piracy of their product. Its business 101. The tournament would have been using pirated smash bros games in order to play the game online and the big house would reap the rewards of that.

I love how like Soulja Boy sells pirated nintendo software and you all report his butt to the Big N, but the moment some organization you like does the same thing its not a problem?

Think with your head, No paid online melee tournaments, its as simple as that, don't like it, tough cookies. All the 'free melee' people are being incredibly entitled and tone deaf to how the real world works.

@AngelFox maybe get off that high horse?

@TG16_IS_BAE I think it's really funny that you draw the line at turning off livestreams and cancelling e-sports events but you've bought their products before anyway even though they use slave labour lmao

@Pod You can still buy the original StarCraft or WarCraft III (the Remastered version as the OG is now free on Blizzard's website) from Blizzard so bad comparison, same with Half LIfe 2 from Valve, so you do not need to rely on illegally downloaded iSOs or an unauthorized mod to play them. Nintendo does not sell new copies of Smash Melee... so... These are not good comparisons. Think of it like this if Nintendo was making bank off Melee they might have more reason to budge (or heck they would have implemented online themselves), but it's not a free promotion or beneficial to support a game when Nintendo has not sold new copies of Smash Melee in 15 years! Why does everyone even the sensible members of this community not get that part?

PS you know why Bethesda allows mods like Skywind and Skyblivion? Because they require a legally purchased copy of the original game and DLC + Skyrim which Bethesda still sells. That and Bethesda and the mod authors have an agreement that these mods need to be made from scratch and cannot use any of the assets of the original game (Morrowind and Oblivion). And Bethesda has the right to end these projects at any time for any reason.

Please start holding Nintendo accountable for all the scum they produce. It's time to take them off the pedestal and treat them like any other game company that wants your money.

@VexingInsanity I’ve been keeping away from their products for some time. I’ve never heard anything about slave labor from Nintendo, so you’ll have to enlighten me.

So they decided not to give people a platform to bash their company? Seems like a no-brainer to me. It will be a quickly forgotten Twitter hashtag by a tiny vocal minority and the decision will affect neither their bottom-line nor the quality of the software they release.

I think this is this lashing out over melee is the result of nintendo treating there fans like crap, They never do a thing people ask, they make the most stupidest decision I have ever seen, and no mater how much people ask for something to change nintendo just says "we will just stick with are guns" Get mad at me if you want but I think nintendo doesn't treat there fans well and i think thats no secret, They do something and were expected to fall in line.

@Noid I agree to the max bro.

Nintendo is a business period. If you like the company’s product and aren’t turned off by the company’s practices then buy their products, if not then don’t give them your money. Nintendo isn’t your friend, and couldn’t care less about your opinions as long as they are making a profit.

It’s like you’re a fan of a musician, and you go to meet them for an autograph. Instead of handing him his new album to sign... you hand him his old album burned on a CD. Then tell him how much you and your friends copied that CD and partied to it. But its okay, you might have bought the old album legitimately at one point, right?

Have a happy Sunday everyone.

@Noid they shouldn't use pirated and emulated copies of the game then and Nitnendo will support them 100%.

You have to work with Nitnendo and they'll work with you. You can't do what you want and expect them to just agree with you

Thanks #FreeMelee for ruining the enjoyment of another game I like. These “communities” are simply the worst.

@Wexter Having a healthy competitive scene for Smash Melee still promotes the Smash series as a whole, not just Melee itself. It’s exposure to the series, which can in turn make people want to just play Smash in general and make them pick up a copy of the new one.

As an anecdotal fact, years ago I bought a Wii U with Brawl while waiting for Smash 4 and to get back into the Nintendo ecosystem after skipping the Gamecube and the Wii... because I played Melee on emulator for a summer, took notice of the big community behind it and that reminded me how awesome Nintendo games are. I’ve spent a lot of money on Nintendo since then.

But hey Melee is old so it doesn’t have any value and celebrating a game celebrating tons of Nintendo IPs obviously does not bring exposure to those other series at all right?

So Nintendo does something they have to do legally and then they are a bad company? Ya'll need to grow up.

People in these comments, please grow up.
You're no better if you're throwing shade over this.

Nintendo should hire Fizzi to implement rollback netcode into Smash Ultimate and start working on an official Melee HD. Won’t happen but that’d be nice.

What's friggin hilarious is how many people, especially on this site, are so against piracy....but have done a complete 180 and are suddenly all for piracy now because this one community thinks it's entitled.

@Merry_Blind Except for the fact that Smash Ultimate has outsold Melee by a factor of three... the same brands in Melee are also in Ultimate. So, Nintendo should be focusing on the game they are currently selling which brings in sales that go directly to them and drives interest in brands they are currently promoting (i.e. Xenoblade, Bayonetta and Animal Crossing which is not in Melee and brings attention to more modern incarnations of their brands like Zelda, Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Kirby, and Mario). And you pointed it out yourself you played Melee on an emulator, not on Nintendo hardware so Nintendo did not see a sale or income from that experience. And people can argue that Melee is actually taking attention away from Nintendo's current product and promotes a market place Nintendo does not profit from. Why would it make sense for Nintendo to bend on their anti-piracy stance for a game they have not sold in 15 years? It makes no logical business sense.

The easy answer here is Nintendo could re-release Melee, but Sakurai is dissatisfied with the game and will want to tweak it. But, it's a lose-lose situation as I guarantee Melee fans will be upset if Nintendo patches out their beloved glitches... I mean features. Or if Nintendo keeps the game as is in the current broken state they will complain that it's the same pool of characters they have played the past 20 years i.e. Falco, Fox and Marth and the online is not fun for casual fans.

Do you see why this is more complicated than you make it out to be? And once again Nintendo did not say they could not have Ultimate at the tournament, but not Melee if they promote the use of illegally downloaded iSOs and unauthorized online mods. This does not help Nintendo sell Smash Ultimate and promotes people to get Melee through unofficial channels and Nintendo sees no income from that market and is against piracy. Do, people not see this issue or am I just the crazy one in this room?

@Wexter Oh of course this is complicated. I’m not saying this is an easy situation to deal with.

Sure Nintendo didn’t get a cent from me emulating Melee years ago, but they did get hundreds from me over the years because I was “exposed” to Melee in the first place. I’m not saying Nintendo are making money directly from Melee copies, I mean they get money indirectly because exposure is exposure.

Nintendo also used Melee competitors to promote both Smash 4 and Ultimate so there’s that too.

@Merry_Blind Yeah they had them promote their current brand. And after the recent scandals, pro-players had do you think Nintendo is as keen on doing that again? Also, the thing is you pointed at anecdotal evidence that some will buy newer Nintendo products through seeing someone play Melee, but not concrete numbers. We had this same argument about Let's Plays a few years ago where sure there are people who will buy the game thanks to a Let's Play, but others will have their fill and move on and not buy the game? Some people will just want to play Melee and pirate it and some may buy Ultimate... see the problem here with that kind of argument?

Nintendo is a business so they are not swayed by anecdotal evidence they see that an organizer they sponsored actively promotes the usage of illegal iSOs and an unauthorized mod. When that organizer said to bite their rear Nintendo used their C&D powers. I don't see how this situation in general is so complicated. It's actually pretty simple why Nintendo said no and no one has given any real reasons why Nintendo should bend on Melee when they allowed Ultimate a game they are currently selling and promoting.

As many have already commented, it is Nintendo's ip. They have every right to do with it whatever they choose, including not re-releasing it.

If people do not like the company, and/or their products enough, then ok, no problem. No one is forced to buy games. Realistically, no one is entitled to anything from any company. If I like a game, and/or other Nintendo product, I buy it. Nintendo gets my money, & I get a copy of their product. It's a one time transaction. Otherwise, I don't. Gaming is not a necessity to live.

If someone wanted to argue entitlement from companies, I would say that no device, or game last forever, and that when we purchase devices, and games, they will eventually, in some form, or another, be considered by the manufacturer, and/or current standards, to be obsolete. So at most, entitlement from a company, to me at least, entails maybe a basic warranty, and the knowledge that said company will still be offering maintenance, and/or upgrades to a specific product for the reasonable, and/or commercial lifespan of said device, or game. However, co.s make their own rules on those things, mostly, so as a consumer, you factor that into a product buying decision.

Edit: If the pokemon players are openly using the platform to talk down about Nintendo's decisions, of course Nintendo would be wise to just forget about the whole thing. However, at this point, it's just assuming the two are related.

Edit 2: For the record, I dislike a lot of Nintendo's business practices, but for me, those practices have not gotten to the point of me being done with Nintendo.

I'd side with Nintendo over a mob of angry, entitled "fans" in a heartbeat.

Self described "fans" have been responsible for some of the worst experiences I've ever had online over the years. Whereas Nintendo has given me literal decades of fun.

That doesn't mean I agree with everything Nintendo does, but Nintendo has a lot more stock in my book than any stupid outrage culture "movement".

@Ralizah Dexit was WAY more visible, and that didn't change a thing at Game Freak or Nintendo.

I thought that they had added in more Pokemon with updates and expansions?

Emulation is not piracy if you own the game. Most of us have purchased Melee multiple times over the past decade or two.

@Kienda Can you imagine a world where adults... act like adults online?!?

@Capt_N Realistically, no one is entitled to anything from any company.

Is that so? You buy a console and it doesn't work, aren't you entitled to a replacement? Your second paragraph seems to contradict this statement where you seem to agree that warranty's should exist.

If I like a game, and/or other Nintendo product, I buy it.

Interesting thing about that, absent a demo you have to buy it BEFORE you can really know if you like it.

@Wexter Well I never pretended what I said was anything more than anecdotal. It was just an example of what I mean by exposure provided by Melee still being a thing after all these years.

Whatever happened with the sexual scandals, the fact remains that Nintendo also found value in competitive Melee being a thing.

can't believe how much you guys would shill for nintendo. spouting off about "smash tears" thats so pathetic. I dont play melee so it doesn't affect me, but how tf are you seriously gonna look at nintendo needlessly attacking these tournaments and still think they're in the right? I love their games as much as anybody but that doesn't mean you have to defend their practices.

they could easily turn a blind eye to this, but they specifically set out on banning melee's tournament "because of illegal copies." if they really cared about that, they could request that everyone at the tournament own a legal copy. but they didnt and shut it down. and are you people really blaming smash fans for this being taken down? really? this is entirely nintendo's fault. All of it. nothing like this would be happening if they had an actually good relationship with their fans and let them play an old game in peace.

@Merry_Blind Different context for the time. When Smash 4 was being revealed it was not a hidden secret that while Brawl was financially successful that fans were not as pleased with the mechanics and unbalanced roster (the irony) so they had pro-Melee players help promote the game as a way to say "hey we fixed the problems with Brawl." Different context.

Also, companies do not like anecdotal. And that is the point I've been making no one has really pointed out why supporting Melee makes sense in the context of Big House during a rather unorthodox year where even pro-sports are struggling with how to present their products in a safe way. Things will be normal in 2021 and Nintendo knows that so they are just letting this blow over. It makes the most business sense.

@CowCatcher braindead

@whateverdude "can't believe how much you guys would shill for nintendo. spouting off about "smash tears" thats so pathetic"

So are comments about licking Nintendo's boots because we can understand why they wouldn't want to encourage and be involved in piracy of their games (especially when the organisers could've just used Ultimate instead and played it legally) It's a shame an immature stunt has ruined things for the rest of the Splatoon community.

Can anyone who's angry give a legit reason why they're mad? Nintendo gave them a deal and terms to follow. They broke said terms and now made it into something else to deflect blame from them.

Smash Melee fans being immature brats and the people blindly hating on Nintendo don't even know the full story or just ignoring it cause Nintendo should let them do whatever they with Nintendo's stuff

Grow up

@LillianC14
“Why do people care about games they enjoy? Get over it folks”

@HeadPirate
Excuse me, can you play Smash on Xbox?

@Yorumi yes let people have fun. But these guys chose to have fun their own way while breaking the rules Nintendo gave them.

You can't do whatever you want and expect people to just let you do.

It's quite frustrating to see an issue like this leech onto other games. I was hoping the Smash issues stay within the Smash community and Smash games, but this has caused Splatoon to be just another platform for fans to try to communicate to Nintendo in what's unnecessarily an aggressive way, although ironically it's the only way to be heard by Nintendo.

Creating ROMs with a purchased copy of the game is perfectly legal and I can easily understand where the frustration from the Smash community stems from, but there's also the distribution factor to note. There's nothing to guard ROMs from being distributed until AFTER they've been uploaded publicly, and for that reason, I think Nintendo steps in the moment they hear "ROM" because it's at a point where they could easily control it, whereas if it was distributed, "damage" is already done at that point.

These C&Ds come through a long line of what I believe is Nintendo's continuing attempts to prevent another industry crash. They established the rules, they keep enforcing the rules, in an environment where if they stop, no one would take their place.

@Clyde_Radcliffe listen to me. it's not necessarily illegal to play a game on emulation. if someone legally owns that copy - it is legal. and they don't have to be involved - they could have easily turned away and this wouldn't be happening. it doesn't harm Nintendo and it doesnt stop people from emulating games. I'm sure this has had the opposite effect and has caused MORE people to play Nintendo illegally if anything

"unexpected executional challenges"

This happened about 24 hours ago now, any word from Nintendo? Or whoever said that originally?

"unexpected executional challenges" is a lot of big words for Nintendo to just say "We're not livestreaming Splatoon today, please understand."

Whether you're pro Nintendo anti-piracy or pro #freemelee nobody should be standing up for a company blaming their policy decisions on technical difficulties. Take the responsibility for your decisions, don't hide behind a lie.

Which is why I'm not sure it wasn't technical difficulties, bc/ I don't want to believe Nintendo would be that shameless as to cancel a Splatoon livestream b/c of a hashtag for another game. A FREAKING HASHTAG?!?!? Be better, tell it like it is.

@JSDude1
If your country’s law required you to kill yourself would you say “ the government has the right to do whatever with the law”?

@whateverdude Yes. They should turn a blind eye to what they were doing. Doing would let them believe they can do anything they want cause Ninty should just ignore it and turn a blind eye to it.

Such entitled thinking

Nintendo has made it clear that they are against the use of 3rd party emulators and ROM hacks, and nothing - including #hashtags - will change that.

@Wexter
For free? Is that a joke?

@liljmoore how is it entitled to think a company based on the idea of having fun and being all nice would respect that people want to play melee through online means. valve put their fan creations into the game. sega turned a fan game into a reality. they might be in the right but this is anti consumer af, how can you not see that? it isn't even a good business move, they don't benefit from bad press.

@Noid Nintendo is extremely protective of their IP because they've been burned quite a few times in their history. It's only the past few years they've started letting reigns loose on collaborating with other professionals, and those professionals have a proven track record.

Plus, Nintendo is a Japanese company, so they have extremely different rules for intellectual property than we do. Fair use doesn't exist, and the tournament also requires pirated software. This isn't a "change everything mod" like CS or TF. It's a "make tiny changes so this is still the same game pretty much mod." Cross-cultural interpretations of IP make one hell of a situation that isn't simple enough to sort out.

@whateverdude How is it anit consumer when Ninty gave them rules to follow. Big house broke the rules and now believe they should do whatever they want. It don't work like that sorry it don't work like that

@HeadPirate Word.

@liljmoore
They Slippi IS NOT ILLEGAL and are Nintendo giving people a way to play this game online? No, of course they don’t. You have to realize, it’s not the fans that are in the wrong, it’s Nintendo. If they did not cancel a big tournament with no reason whatsoever this would not have happened.

@Tommy-and-Timmy don’t be ridiculous, it’s a looooooooooooooooong logical jump for me to correctly point out Nintendo can do what it wishes with its IP, and you talking about forced suicide by the government.

@Tommy-and-Timmy Wow. What a crazy logic leap. If the government forced its citizens to commit suicide, I'm sure that's a law worth fighting back against. But if you think INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS where citizens of this country have the RIGHT to exercise control over something THEY created is a law you want to fight and it's an unjust law on par with FORCED SUICIDE, then there's no point in even trying to have a conversation because you're too far off the deep end.

The laws in place that let Nintendo do this are the same laws that protect indie developers, individuals, writers, etc who create something and don't want it stolen or tampered with. People just think it's their inalienable right to do whatever they want with something after it's a decade or two old if it's something owned by a corporation. Nintendo isn't hurting and doesn't have to do this and maybe it would be better for the community if they did do it, but denying that they have the right and legitimate reason for doing so is crazy.

Never change Smash/Melee fans as it just makes you live up to you toxic sweat smelly image you have, i've said this before but i can't stand the Smash scene and they taint the image of Smash. They are entitled sh*ts what think Nintendo should bow to them, considering they are infested with kiddy molesters they should be wanting to clean up their image instead of making more mockery of themselves.

Always a riot when people want to tell a company like Nintendo what they should do. Nintendo has always been fiercely protective of their property and litigious to a fault (Game Genie comes to mind). They've also outlasted their competition, have a brand recognition of Disney-like magnitude, and sit on massive coffers of cash. They didn't get this far by kowtowing to an emotionally charged tiny fraction of their consumers. The Nintendo is Doomed joke is a joke because of people like this.

Good, let 'em. The Melee brats are awful human beings behaving like entitled, egotistical, whiny mantoddlers. Melee is 19 years old and they were caught using mods for the game, and thus, shut down. They need to move onto new games and get over themselves and cease being toxic. "#FreeMelee" is a JOKE. Get over it. The game is 19 years old. A handful of your "crowd" was BUSTED over the summer for creepy nonsense and yet, here you idiots are, standing and defending the community that was (indirectly?) caught in the summer. So you chose "#FreeMelee" to be your "hashtag"? LMAO how about no, you foolish, childish, creepy, egotistical manbabies? Melee is 20 years old, let it die. Let it go.

"#FreeMelee"? Don't make me laugh, you absolutely whiny mantoddlers. You're just mad as hell that Nintendo busted you for using mods for a 19-year-old game. Get over yourselves and move on so the game can rightfully, finally, die like it should have.

There is nothing a fan of Nintendo hates more than Nintendo and other fans of Nintendo.

@Wexter The Splatoon Tournament did NOT get cancelled, only the livestream did. And they still all whine about it.

@Tommy-and-Timmy They used ILLEGAL copies of Melee for that tournament and got warned by Nintendo but ignored it and got shut down. Nintendo was in the full right to do it. The Splatoon tournament didn't even get cancelled, only the livestream did get cancelled. It is a long strech do deduce that they did it because of Smash, since the tournament still happened. It's only entitled Smash bratts that think everything revolves arround them. Nintendo did not cancel anything without any reason.

@Crono1973 “ You buy a console and it doesn't work, aren't you entitled to a replacement?”
No, you’re not.

Nintendo does do dumb stuff sometimes. Not sure if this is one of them. This is a super boring scandal and I couldn't finish reading the whole thing. Also I purchased Melee the day it came out, and it was great, but people need to move on.

This is a new low of pettiness, even for Nintendo.

Either way, someone's throwing an unnecessary tantrum.

Back to Melee though, how hard would it be to port that to Switch or add a Melee mode to Ultimate that makes all the applicable characters play like they did in Melee including its speed?

@BTB20 No, the finals no longer happened, as the TOP 8 teams dropped out of the torunament because of this.

@idrawrobots No, you’re not.

You buy a Switch and it's broken out of the box, you believe that you are entitled to nothing, not a refund and not even a replacement? You wanna elaborate on that a little more?

@BowtieShyGuy Actually, fans held their own Splatoon tournament finale, raised TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS as the cash prize, and created the most-viewed event in the history of Splatoon. Google Endgametv, the streamer for the event.

Now fans are hyped for the future of the Splatoon competitive scene after collaborating with Smash fans and showed that Nintendo's influence isn't needed for the community to thrive. Why the hell isn't NintendoLife covering THAT!?

Some of you are absolutely delusional, holy crap.

Does Nintendo have the right to shut down both the live stream for the Splatoon tournament, as well as the Smash tournament? Yes, of course, however, this is not at all a black and white situation like most of you are making it out to be.

The reason why The Big House was going to use Slippi in the first place, for those unaware, is because it was impossible to do an in-person tournament due to obvious real-world events happening right now. There is nothing illegal inherently about Slippi itself. It does not need Smash in order to operate, although, it was made with Smash in mind. Now obviously, the problem mostly comes down to the use of pirated or ripped copies of Melee being used in conjunction with Slippi for the tournament.

It's worth remembering that Nintendo is not required to send DMCA strikes to anyone that uses their brand in a way that could warrant it. Considering the fact that the tournament is not able to run in-person in the first place this year, this should have been the one time Nintendo made an exception. There's nothing legally wrong with Nintendo striking the tournament, but it sure is freaking lame and a massive let down that they refused to recognize this.

I've seen a lot of people here and elsewhere saying the game should "just die already" too, and I couldn't disagree more. People are free to enjoy whatever game or other types of media they like. Do you all really just stop playing a game after you get your initial fill from the first few weeks, or at the end of the console it belongs to's lifetime? I highly doubt it, especially considering how well Super Mario 3D All-Stars has done, or with how so many of you beg for more Nintendo Switch Online classic games.

I'm constantly seeing people crap all over the smash community too, which I can understand given its history and recent controversies, however, the bad people in the community don't even remotely represent the majority. Part of the problem that comes with properly policing such a community too is that it is entirely grass roots, and doesn't have any sort of support from Nintendo or other brands, which is part of the reason why people are suddenly striking against them with #FreeMelee and the like. You can call them entitled, but I can assure you from my experience, and with the people I have talked to, it is far from it.

Obviously, the Splatoon tournament getting its live stream shut down was damage control on Nintendo's part, and I can't exactly blame them for that, although, it also shows they are completely aware of the situation, but choose to still ignore what is going on. It has come out too that Nintendo has actively shut down competitive Smash events in the past, despite companies ranging from Red Bull and Twitch willing to do most of the work to get them up and running, but Nintendo simply never following through with the deals and talks they were making.

The whole #FreeMelee controversy really stems from Nintendo's refusal for Smash to become a true and relevant eSport. If Nintendo was willing to just support it a little bit, or at the very least not actively shut down tournaments, Smash could potentially become the biggest eSport in the world. But Nintendo doesn't want that, which is also their right, but it isn't exactly very morally right when they constantly string along the community, thinking they're making gains when they're really not.

Nintendo just keeps making themselves look worse lol
Also I love how people here get so angry at a 19 year old game for no reason

Interesting that the Splatoon competitive scene would want to support the Smash competitive scene after what recently came out about them (likely one of the reasons Nintendo would want to keep their distance).

Birds of a feather perhaps?

@BlubberWhale It's a signs you're in a cult when you defend Nintendo for the indefensible. Heck, the majority of the "journalists" here are just a bunch of sycophants that are willing to set their integrity on fire in support of a company that has nothing but disdain for the people that have made them popular.

@Zebetite Because lap dogs.

@Crono1973 if a company is consistently selling product that under-performs or doesn’t perform at all, that company will lose customers and will go out of business. Generally companies want to stay in business. In an open market there is healthy competition for consumers money. It is that competition that makes manufacturers and retailers provide warranties, returns, and refunds.
Sometimes there are scams out there. Buyer beware. If you feel that Nintendo is scamming you because your Melee disk no longer works or your Pokemon game doesn’t have Shaymin or your joycon moves as if possessed by deoman, then by all means spend your money elsewhere. Ideally we are all free to make those decisions.

Well if this keeps up, Nintendo will be painfully reminded who pays their bills.

Keep antagonising your customer base like this and they'll quickly find themselves in Wii U like dark days again.

I remember they went on TV basically begging people to try their console. If they keep this up maybe in a few years they'll be on TV begging people to buy their games again.

The customer is the hand that feeds you, you'd do well not to keep biting it.

We've had a rubbish year from them and when some fans try to do something interesting with their IPs they start attacking anything that moves, this'll start hurting them sooner than later.

@idrawrobots This discussion will obviously have political responses. If you don't want to read it, go and draw more robots, perhaps?

@RadioHedgeFund

Ah, now there's a thought. Too bad something so simple seems to be hard for some to understand. And that's before you even get into the issues with the perverts in the community that would have any company or folks with a moral compass or common sense wanting to keep their distance. What gets me almost everytime though is the entitlement of some of these whiney @## people for real? Some with the gall to say things like let others do what they want with someone else's creation/IP or whatever because they're not doing something with it. Like that's how the real world works.

And hey, you could maybe forgive the 12 year olds or so that will spout such ignorant & foolish nonsense, but some of them are frigging flat out adults. Which is the saddest part of it all. The funny thing is that we know darn well that if many of these same whiners were ever able to create something as valuable as these IP's that they'd be pretty particular with it as well. So much easier to talk about what others should do with theirs when it isn't yours or you don't have ish to bring to the siscussion/table. Using their logic, I guess that they'd be just as eager & okay letting us strangers walk into their houses/lives & take whatever we want out of & from them eh?

I mean it's cool & okay if you're not doing anything with it, right? Like hey, you never use that TV in the spare bedroom, so I'll take it with me. Also noticed that the wife/GF has been neglected for a while. Would ya mind if we making a few changes there? Oh and how about that money in that account you have not touched in years? You've done nothing with it, so I'll take that off your hands & do with it as I please, yeah? Whether you believe it to be heavy-handed, Petty or not, they have the right to do it. I can understand the frustration with it, but I can also respect their right to do what they want with their properties. Don't you feel that way when it's something that belongs to you? Or are others allowed to dictate and control what you do with your creations and/or owned products?

@Jayofmaya of course because only Republicans support Nintendo’s actions and only Democrats support the Melee players. There is no room for any nuance and Nintendo Life is definitely the place to state these honest truths.

@Omarzy no its more like a student complaining about getting detention for disrupting the class.

These kids think they can use #FreeMelee propaganda in a Splatoon tournament and get away with it......

😂😂😂😂

@Tommy-and-Timmy Yes the added returning Pokemon into Pokemon Sword and Shield was free DLC. If you already caught these Pokemon in the previous games you could import them through your Pokemon Home app. This is common knowledge dude like come on Google it, it's not that hard.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pokemon-sword-and-shield-will-add-over-200-old-pok/1100-6472623/

@BTB20 In that case that is even more hilarious! Ahhh SaveSmashers give me a good gut chuckle every night before bed!

@Razer Ultimates sold over 21 million copies. I'm not saying a lot of people compassionate about their scene dont feel alienated or whatever, but none of this affects me and not something I'd boycott Smash about, and guessing a majority of those 21m customers feel the same. I don't have a set philosophy about it so it's interesting to hear both sides, but after a stressful workday I wouldnt not play Smash because of incidents like these. Now if Sakurai is idk like big donor to oppressing political party I'm down, but not over this, I havent been convinced. Just my thought and not trying to belittle or anything, promise

@Crono1973:

I would be able to replace a faulty console I purchased, only if the company that manufacturted the console chose to replace it, or they are required to by the laws of wherever said company is operating, and laws regarding said company's specific industry. Different areas of the world have different laws for different industries. For some companies, offering a warranty is not a requirement of law. As such, there are cases where buying a faulty product, and/or service simply means the consumer is stuck. Companies can make their own rules for a lot of things, and if warranties are not possible, then that is a very anti-consumer practice.

Pertaining to numerous video games, a person can usually find plenty of information offline, and online. It's not impossible, but typically unlikely that for any certain video game, information can't be found somewhere on, or offline. That said, the only way to tell for 100% certainty that a person will enjoy a video game is to be able to actually play it somewhere. I agree with you, there. My point was, like I mentioned in my original comment, a simple transaction between myself, and the game company. I get their product, and/or service. They get my money.

@Noid Ms. Pac-Man? You mean the game where even 30 years from release multiple companies are fighting over who has the rights to the game and caused a lawsuit before release?

@idrawrobots You are really saying that if you buy a console and it doesn't work out of the box, that you do NOT feel entitled to a replacement with a working console?

@Zebetite Because the original author is Australian and the biggest part of the site is UK. This all happened outside of their working hours (it all happened in the last few hours).

Great job ppl. Force Nintendo to give you what you want! You're the paying customer right? Demand your right to get additional services for something you already paid for that's decades old! Nintendo doesn't need to sell any new games! They just need to let you have the old ones and DLC the heck outta it!

Matter fact I'm gonna start a #freeZelda tag because BOTW2 is underway and they didn't give me the Mirror Shield in BOTW which is my favorite shield! Screw a new Zelda! Put more content in BOTW!

The logic of spoiled brats that don't know the first thing about profitability and base everything on half-@$$3d information they picked up along the way. Listening to complainers like you is the reason Sega will NEVER make a comeback.

@Noid Interesting, I looked up Black Mesa

#1 They had permission from Valve...since they are charging for it, not sure if Valve gets some of the money...

#2 Have you seen the Black Mesa EULA? check it out at https://store.steampowered.com//eula/362890_eula_0

I am sure Nintendo is not easy to work with...and I'm sure people throwing tantrums will not make Nintendo more likely to work with them, with some of the most valuable IP in the world.

The logic of immature children and internet rumor speculation becoming an article in a website called NintendoLife.

This is another example of "yellow journalism" and the usual suspect is the writer called @LiamDoolan

It’s their IP and can do whatever they please. Simple. Also, Melee is ancient now. It’s time to move on... at this point it’s like the washed up 40 year old who never moved past his glory days as the high school quarterback.

I find it funny that Nintendo hates this game when about all they have is nostalgia.

The worst community taints another, good work #FreeMelee / #SaveSmash.

To be fair Nintendo probably knew the live chat was gonna be infested with #SaveSmash and #FreeMelee stans and livestreams are kind of a pain in the ass to moderate

@Razer
LOL at the doomposting 😄

The people who are most angered by the Big House situation (i.e. those who want to play a 19 year-old game online via a 3rd-party mod) most likely bought a Wii U and will be among the first people to buy the Switch 2 to play the next Smash Bros game.

Wow good thing I came across this post. I couldn’t find anything worth watching on Netflix.... I need more popcorn!

Nintendo doesn't and can't endorse piracy. It's very simple.

I don't understand the reaction. Nintendo cancelled the Splatoon livestream, right? It wasn't the Smash community.

I don't play a lot of Smash, so I'm not an expert, but I don't understand why Nintendo capitalises on Melee more. Apparently there is a thriving community that is willing to play a 20-year old game. They should embrace it. Thinking that it impact that current day business in any way is silly. It's just an incredibly easy way to please your fanbase. Now we've ended up with this ''Melee vs everyone else'' mentality, and people are blaming Melee fans for a cancelled Splatoon event.

I don’t really get how you can defend Nintendo in this case. The people defending it sound like stormtroopers attacking their own community to protect the empire. Nintendo doesn’t have to endorse piracy, ,theycan just lookthe other way with The Big House. A adult solution for sitution like this.

You know, at first I wanted to think "okay, maybe the Nintendrones won't defend them this time".

Should've known better. At this point, Nintendo could send a virus via an "update" to every Switch and brick them...there would still be defenders.

@Crono1973 I try not to act like I’m entitled to much of anything.

All this for a game they have stopped supporting, it is stupid.
Nintendo should just grow up and let the Melee community do what they want with it.

@Heavyarms55 As usual your spot on there.

At this point it's pure speculation if Nintendo really shut down the stream because of the free Melee stuff, albeit a reasonable one. To be fair, it's the only thing Nintendo could have done in this situation.

Ppl., it's as easy as that. Nintendo is a company that protects it's IPs, as they are legally obliged to. Copyright, like any other right, is a right you have to defend in order to keep it's value. Period. If you want support from Nintendo, and that is the essential point here, you need to literally play by their rules. That is not unreasonable, that is just normal. Nintendo will never support promoting piracy, because it is against their business interest and against their values. And that is exactly what the whole "free melee" movement is all about.

You can't seriously expect Nintendo to promote a movement that outright calls for pirating their games. What's wrong with you.

@Xiovanni If you're just playing GC games you don't need the GC Bios. You can see that being explained here: https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=GameCube_Main_Menu

@Razer The hardcore Melee fanboys and hardcore Splatoon fans are not the people who pay the bills for Nintendo, the majority of people who buy Smash and Splatoon don't give two f**ks about of this. You're an idiot if you think some whiny fanbase is what keeps Nintendo alive and lets be honest all the crybabies who are threatning to boycott Nintendo over this won't because as soon as Nintendo releases something they want they will be all over it.

@Noid Do you have any idea about the reaction of the press if Nintendo used fan content to sell for profits? Huge backslash and boycott campaign. The anti Nintendo bias is real.

@WallyWest and you're an idiot if you think this is about one single issue.

This isn't one single issue and you are very narrow minded if you believe it is,this is an amalgamation of various issues. This is just one layer of a cake that Nintendo are currently baking.

You could say their shoddy internet infrastructure is another layer, lack of VC is one too, over priced Wii U ports with little improvement is adding to it, lack of any meaningful games in the entirety of 2020, attacking any fan with a desire to get creative with their IP and of course, attacking local group tournaments like this.

I won't even bother getting into Joy Con drift, but if you think that is a small group of people then you are seriously wrong on so many levels

You see, they are not alienating a single small group, but many many small groups.

Who eventually amount to a sizeable group.

I can't be bothered to reply to everyone who replied to me.

The above comment applies to you all.

For those that are uninformed, Nintendo has been screwing over the smash community for years. Multiple 3rd party sources have brought tons of money to the table to try and get an official circuit started for every game after 64. Every single time Nintendo shuts it down, even when they do not have to supply any money. After the allegations that came out, Tournament Organizers agreed to kick all of the abusers out and change how tournaments are run. However, due to the pandemic, we haven't been able to show these changes since we can't have in person tourneys anymore. We've taken the steps to making the community better. So after Nintendo gave a cease and desist to The Big House over one of the longest running smash tournaments by effectively shutting them down, other esports communities have come in to show their support. Nintendo of America simply does not care about competitive smash because the scene is the best free advertisement they could possibly ask for. So many people have bought consoles, games, controllers, etc because of competitive smash bros. At this point we know that they're not going to support us at all, so we just want them to stay out of it and let us go back to running everything ourselves.(Also The Big House is not in the wrong they've bought hundreds of copies of Smash bros Melee and Gamecubes so running through Slippi would actually be perfectly legal because emulation is legal in the US) Huge thank you to the splatoon fans who are being absolute homies and standing alongside us, and for those of you who aren't, I'm sorry that nintendo shut down the stream (the tournament still happened, it was just streamed by someone else).

@TheDragonDAFan I often have to remind myself that the people whose comments I'm reading likely don't share my experiences or viewpoint. Many (most?) of the users on this site are young and frequently don't fully understand what they're talking about.

@Ralizah Does Ninendo ever not speak in corporate weasel language even when they're not weaseling anything, though?

Please understand.

@Wexter
My reason for comparing them was exactly the point you make. That other creators have realised that you need to embrace the games that the fans want to play.

Nintendo can't be big on eSports at the same time as they crack down hard on Melee players and the people that support them.

Honestly It's not shocking they always do this.

@idrawrobots Consumers have to have standards. You are entitled to a working console for your $300.

I really hope this childish made-up drama blows over quickly, it's getting tiresome.

@Pod I generally disagree with the logic but understand the sentiment. I don't think I've communicated properly that I'm not against eSports and do believe Nintendo should be more pro-active. This entire controversy is around the usage of potentially illegally obtained iSOs (they're different from ROMs, but I understand why people refer to them as ROMS) and an unauthorized mod. Which is in Nintendo's right to not allow as they are not making any money from Melee, but also did allow the usage of Ultimate (which has a built-in online mode and tournament features). Nintendo's logic for this makes sense as Nintendo is the holder of the IP and is not making money off Melee so it is not a priority to make special exceptions as things will be back to normal in 2021 and open a potentially pandora's box for future cases.

The reason I also used Skywind and Skybilivion as examples is that the mod authors of those games have agreements with Bethesda about how they are allowed and not allowed to use those engines and assets in their mods. That and Bethesda holds the right to shut down the project whenever they wish and the mod authors understand that. Hence why I feel it's important to communicate the difference between authorized and unauthorized mods as one has a TOS attached and an agreement with the developer/publisher and the other does not. Slippi does not have an agreement with Nintendo about interfacing with their products and requires a 3rd party emulator which we know requires the usage of iSOs which are normally pirated iSOs (remember emulators are legal, but downloaded iSOs off the internet are not) compared to most Bethesda, Blizzard and Valve game mods which interface with legally obtained copies of the game on PC which those mod authors explicitly state they will support, but pirated copies they will not!

But, this is also why I feel it is important to also point out that Nintendo does not sell new copies of Melee (and haven't for15 years) compared to Bethesda, Blizzard and Valve who still have those games that those mods require retally available on PC storefronts. This I feel is a very important aspect to communicate that most seem to neglect when pointing to either of the three major publishers who support mods.

I'm sure someone has already made this comment, but has Nintendo ever heard of the Streisand effect?

The more they try to censor people talking about "Free Melee" or whatever, the more attention it will get, and the louder and more extreme lengths people will go to make their voices heard.

@yuwarite if they haven't before now, they soon will.

All this Tournaments and special events and stuff that Nintendo does for us in NA are not obligatory, they are privileges and if the community continues down this childish immature toxic path of destruction they might end up costing all of Nintendo fans the privileges of having any tournaments in NA...
Seriously is just Melee, #SaveSmash is a joke for there is nothing wrong with Smash and #FreeMelee is a bigger joke cause Melee is a relic of the past and no one in Nintendo's actual relevant targeted audience cares (nor even know much about Melee to begin with)

@Wexter
Oh sure, that's the crux of the issue.
Blizzard kept selling Starcraft, and eventually remastered it for modern systems and esports settings, and Valve fully embraced Counter Strike as being a thing of its own, rather than just a mod running on pirated copies of Half-Life.

Meanwhile, Nintendo seems to believe that selling official copies of Melee might hurt sales and value perception of Ultimate. Which could be true, but it's a stance that is at odds with wanting to support the esports community.
Nintendo seems to have the approach that they want to get in on esports, but everything has to happen on their terms.

I am fully aware that they need to crack down on distribution of unlicensed Melee copies. But with canceling the Splatoon tournament, they're moving into silencing and deplatforming, in order to avoid a discussion about content availability. And that just doesn't seem viable in the long run, if they're building an esports environment that is supposed to be for the fans.

Perhaps they count on their new fans to not worry too much about it.

@CowCatcher nothing even remotely new here. Such an awful fan base

@Pod I don't agree with Nintendo not reselling Melee, but based on Nintendo's track record of remasters and Sakurai's vocal disappointment with Melee... I'm not sure it will turn out exactly how fans want it to be. Counter-Strike is an exception where Valve owns that mod now so they do make a profit off it. DOTA was an example where Blizzard assumed they owned the rights, but ummm... legal mess and amended their TOS with the re-release of WarCraft III... I'm sure Nintendo is not keen on that kind of situation.

The thing is the examples we are pointing to are PC games which generally can be sold... forever provided there is a storefront to host them and they run on the latest Windows or Mac OS. Console games require to be ported and based on comments I've read here compared to PC communities are less willing to spend money on them when they are available depending on how old they are. The number of times I've read they gamers don't want to spend $10-15 for a quote "20-year-old game" when they can play it for "free on PC" so I am always skeptical of the claim that if Nintendo releases it people will buy it. But, hey I can be proven wrong on this and I want to be proven wrong on this because I love the NSO setup with paying a cup of coffee a month and getting some of the best games ever made with a click of a button. That and I also want to see more classic ports to the Switch so I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong.

I'm sure there is a market for Melee, but I point this fact out because I think Nintendo's willingness to budge on allowing things like Slippi is it may contradict their own plans for Melee or it promotes piracy which they obviously won't want in case they ever plan to sell Melee again or could devalue their market of ports of older games. That and they are not selling new copies of it anyway so it's not like allowing this special exception helps their bottom line directly. You gotta give Nintendo something to get something in return as that is how business work.

#freemelee

And now also...

#freepslatoon2

It's funny how I don't see a follow-up article from NL mentioning how the Smash & Splatoon communities raised $25,000 for the prize pool (the cap), $3,000 for charity, and had 7,000 viewers on Twitch watching the tournament finals, making this the biggest Splatoon tournament ever.

Yeah, I find that very interesting. Almost like there is a bias afoot. But that couldn't be true, right?

Have fun arguing in the comments why it's okay to for Nintendo to shut down #freemelee and #freesplatoon.

@Razer good point I hear ya, Nintendo really needs to adapt to the times for sure, just because I'm in the clear I know theres some amazing gaming experiences people are missing out on w/o Nintendo support, and I personally dont think it's too tall an order. Heres hoping for the best (or better) going forward

This is some Winnie Pooh level of pettiness.

Amount of bootlicking and misinformation in this topic is disgusting. Like grooming drama, which was exclusively Ultimate-related. But now suddenly passed on Melee, because it fits commenter's narrative.

Oh, and if people should move from 20 year old game, how come that there are NES games on Switch. And VC on older sustems, and ports, and remakes, and constant references to thing from older games. It seems like Nintendo doesn't want you to move on.

@Wexter
Totally agree. We can't expect from Nintendo that they keep selling older versions of their games. And we can't make a convincing argument that they'd make a lot of money from doing it either.
I certainly wouldn't try to do that.

But for the Melee tournament people, paying for a digital re-release of Melee would be a no-brainer, if it allowed them to host and enter virtual tournaments legally.

Even if Nintendo went and released something like that however, the next issue is that the community are the ones that have been setting the rules on which stages, characters, and moves are legal for tournament play.
It'd be a pain in the butt to accomodate for that in any official way.

Personally I'm leaning towards a position where I just think the Melee players are being unreasonable in their demands, and Nintendo are being unreasonable with their expectations. This could possibly all be reconciled with cooperation, but no-one will truly suffer if it isn't, and right now no-one is cooperating.

I hope people realize that being totally okay with Nintendo shutting a tournament down because of "illegal or doctored copies" of a game opens the floodgates again for Nintendo to shut down all sorts of other things, including massive amounts of Youtube content.

Though, it is funny how Nintendo apparently despises the idea of Melee tournaments but does nothing against things like broadcasted speedruns of Link to the Past randomized or anything similar.

Regardless of what one things about the Smash community and all of the stuff going on around it, Nintendo is no saint and never will be. They are a giant, soulless corporation like any other and they show that time after time again, yet people still treat them like the christ of gaming.

Also I adore one comment earlier that was like "Yeah sure Microsoft has been WAY more pro-consumer than Nintendo in every single regard for a while now, but they have no games that anyone wants so BLEH who cares."

Speak for yourself. Xbox and Nintendo are my two main systems and I can safely say that it certainly feels better that Microsoft, even as a fellow giant corporation, at least treats its consumers with a bit of respect. Nintendo doesn't know that concept. That comment was such a massive jostling of Nintendo's balls.

@Pod Glad we can agree on this! I think the entire SaveSmash movement is one of the biggest parades of nonsense I have read on this site in a long time with few legitimate arguments. I do think there'd be a market for a Melee port, but I'm not sure if the end product would satisfy the hardcore as I'm sure some glitch will get patched that changes the "features" that make the game so beloved. In principle, Melee is a broken mess and knowing Nintendo they'd probably want to patch up the seems and that could anger a lot of Melee diehards and if they don't casuals will get upset because of the "hacks" online.

But, for the most part, I agree Nintendo is for sure being unreasonable (to an extent), but it is their right to do so and for rather valid reasons. And for the most part, this entire issue will be forgotten about when tournaments are back on for 2021. I just hope at some point in the future both parties can get somewhere in the middle for a more permanent solution.

These Melee fans are so friggin' cringe. They should be politely pushing for a back-compat version of Melee, not whining and having a temper tantrum. I'm glad Nintendo shut down these crybabies. I'm not glad that Nintendo doesn't have backwards-compatibility down like Microsoft currently does. They really need to step up their game in that arena.

@Facelord
What is whining to you?