Nintendo has cancelled Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo and postponed other Japanese esports events after persistent threats were made to both staff and spectators.
It didn't say in the article but why the hell are people sending threats? Knowing the types of gamers that send threats it's probably a really fucking dumb reason, isn't it?
I need to preface this by saying it's really stupid that anyone's sending threats, but I think the reason they're doing it is because Nintendo has made a very hard-line stance against small esport events. You arent allowed to host events without their permission
Gotcha. I can see why people are upset. But threats? I guess I was right in thinking it was a dumb reason. Nintendo can go fuck themselves for sure. But at the same time if you are the type of person to send threats over trivial bullshit you are still a garbage human.
Nintendo is my favorite gaming company, but man, their IP lawyers are absolutely vicious. Granted they're also in Japan, the poster boy for a corporate-owned country (I lived there several years, no joke, if you think big corps run the US you ain't seen nothing yet) which makes American IP law look like Chinese IP law, but even for a Japanese company, they're brutal. What I find rather ironic about it is that a measure they took to protect their image and that of their brands from controversy over bad gamer behavior, led to bad gamer behavior directed at them. But either way, to these idiots sending threats, it's a classic instance of "this is why we can't have nice things", ruining even the fun we were allowed to have for everyone and probably making it even less likely that Nintendo will reverse their policy.
Out of every esports event that could face issues I did not think anyone would be crazy angry about Nintendo. Did someone get blueshelled too many times in Mario Kart? I mean, what would drive people to get intense about Nintendo?
Smash (specially Melee) has always attracted questionable people. So if it had happened there I wouldn't be surprised... but this is for Splatoon of all things.
Nintendo games might be very family friendly, but Nintendo as a company has a well-earned negative reputation in a lot of verticals including esports and community events.
The article doesn't clarify where the threats were coming from, so it may be for different reasons. And obv it doesn't justify harassing and threatening random employees though.
Threats are obviously not justifiable and are not okay but Nintendo has been earning a lot of badwill with gamers recently with their decisions to disallow small esport events. They have also aggressively copyright struck videos in the past that realistically just gave their awesome games free advertising but that's not okay with them, etc
They seem to make a lot of really dumb business and especially community decisions despite making some incredible games. It's not too surprising some people would feel burned with that.
Apparently Nintendo doesn't let small esport competitions to take place. They want to be the only ones. But at the same time that's just as dumb a reason to send threats as what you said lol. There is never a good reason to send threats regardless