#panda debacle

Following Panda Global's first statement made regarding the controversy surrounding the Smash World Tour's cancellation and behind-the-scenes operations, over 80% Panda's players and commentators from Smash and the wider fighting game community appear to have resigned from the team so far.

At the time of reporting, top Melee competitors Cody "iBDW" Schwab and Justin "Plup" McGrath as well as Chris "WaDi" Boston, Ryan "Saint Cola" Collins, Zak "Coney" Zeeks, Terrence "TKbreezy" Kershaw, Marine and Victoria "VikkiKitty" Perez have all publicly stated their resignations or intentions to do so.

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This exodus from the company has already dropped Panda's roster of on-screen talent confirmed by more than half with others including Justin Wong, Victor "Punk" Woodley, Keenan "Kizzie Kay" Kizzie, Eduardo "HookGangGod" Deno and Little Z removing mentions of Panda from their Twitter pages — although they've yet to make a formal announcement yet.

The monumental response comes in the aftermath of the Smash World Tour announcing the 2022 championships and entire 2023 season would need to be canceled after Nintendo denied their licensing agreement.

Organizers for the SWT accused Panda and its CEO Alan Bunney of improper conduct in their attempts to recruit major tournaments for their own Panda Cup, which is officially licensed by Nintendo.

Panda's response to the allegations came 3 days later, but did little to quell the backlash from the Smash community and beyond. [...]

Many other top players who aren't sponsored by Panda have announced their intentions to no longer attend the Panda Cup Finale including Liquid|Hungrybox, CLG|SFAT, Tempo|Axe, LG|Maister, Liquid|Dabuz, BC|Magi, Furia|Fatality, GG|Zain, VGBC|aMSa, C9|Mang0, Fiction, GG|n0ne, Wizzrobe, T1|MkLeo, CG|Medz, Pipsqueak, FLY|KoDoRiN, LUM|Ginger and CG|Eddy Mexico.

The Panda Cup Finale has not been canceled and is still scheduled to take place December 16–18 currently, although you generally need to have players to put on a tournament.

Similarly, this leaves the future of the Panda eSports organization in grave peril as well, considering their talent roster outside of the FGC currently consists of only 1 chess player according to their website.

To try and make up for the Smash World Tour 2022 Championships' cancelation, popular streamer Ludwig has announced his intention to host "The Scuffed World Tour" on December 18 with invitations to the top 8 SWT competitors in Smash Ultimate and Melee to help raise money for VGBC and players. 

Nintendo and Panda have both released statements: they're both empty PR statements intended to appease casual viewers while saying "deal with it" to people actually in the scene

Nintendo's statement can be seen here (in this utterly uncritical IGN article)

they deny technically shutting down the Smash World Tour 2022 finale; instead, Nintendo

told SWT that unlicensed tournaments would be shut down

told SWT they would not be receiving a license

so, “we didn't tell you to cancel SWT! we just communicated that we will shut you down if you do try to run it :)”

the only real information here is that they're continuing to back Panda

you can see SWT's response here (via twitter), but again, not really anything to Respond to in the first place

Panda's statement, released shortly after Nintendo's:

They vaguely and briefly allude to how they threatened/harassed BTS (“an interaction between Dr. Alan and Beyond the Summit”) without actually acknowledging the substance of what they did, and while denying that they routinely made the same threats and harassment toward TOs to bully them out of SWT and into Panda Cup

VGBC, BTS, SWT, and many individual TOs, commentators, etc. and others involved in the scene have corroborated each other's accounts. there's no magical twist where Panda or Nintendo actually behaved themselves: even those most cautious about withholding judgment until hearing Panda's/Nintendo's sides are now on board

so, Panda and Nintendo are taking the approach of

(1) nominal empty statements to appease casual viewers who only see headlines and don't pay any attention

(2) force and threats of legal action toward the scene itself, betting that despite their outrage, the Smash scene will eventually just resign itself to Panda having a monopoly on licensed tournaments

the thing is, I don't think (2) will work out for them. everyone is furious with Panda and Nintendo: they are not going to play ball, they are not going to cooperate, they would rather not have major tournaments than just have majors in the Panda Cup. players are openly stating that they will not attend Panda events. Panda's employees and sponsored Smash players had no idea about Panda's actions, and now that they know, they are openly posting about resigning

competitive Smash as "professional", monetized ventures is barely viable in the first place (even more so than esports in general, which is largely a bubble tbh.) the only way it works at all is because of large amounts of unpaid labor by volunteers who really just want the satisfaction of seeing Smash events happen, at great personal effort and expense. Tournaments have thin margins. Even sponsored players who stream often and Do Content are not making huge bucks (with a few notable exceptions)—the majority of top players are not making a Living off of Smash, and most TOs aren't either. the only way "professional" Smash is profitable is with a huge amount of both good will and unpaid labor. Panda Cup will likely fail—even with those players and contractors who are locked in to contracts for upcoming Panda events, those events are likely going to be disasters, and any future events even more so

of course, Nintendo will be fine with Panda Cup failing and competitive Smash being pushed underground: the loss is negligible, and the end result of squashing professionalized Smash competitions (pushing the scene underground, without sponsorships, playing whack-a-mole with streams of locals and regionals, etc.) is worth it to them.

Panda won't be fine. Panda has burned all of their bridges, their employees and sponsored players are openly posting about looking for new jobs, and the entire scene is discussing ways to boycott, sabotage, Maliciously Comply, etc. with Panda events, as well as discussing alternatives for the scene to pursue in a new era of aggression against Unlicensed Majors: e.g. “if Nintendo threatens a stream of a Smash event, turn the stream into discussion-only, no gameplay footage, and keep running the tourney off-air: everyone keeps the stream open for viewership numbers”

btw, since Nintendo is coming after the Melee and Ultimate scenes anyway, this is a great time for Melee and Ult fans to come together with people who play mods of Smash games. suppressing PM/P+ and other modded games won't keep Nintendo from coming after you, and playing with Unfrozen Stadium sucks anyway