Before you call people idiots get all the facts, they didn't block the Etika thing they told the creator to alter the design to not have their official trademarks from the product because they never sort permission for it doesn't matter what the cause is everything needs to be licensed otherwise if something goes wrong with the product buyers will be contacting Nintendo over it.

Secondly all companies can block emulation as the latter is stated to be for personal use only and a tournament is not personal use especially when you're downloading a iso of somebody else's copy can't go to tournaments because of covid well too bad that's life many people can't go work, bars and so on, when MVC2 had a tournament earlier this year in January they didn't use an emulator because of this reason because ultimately you give people an inch they take the whole country, PS5 controllers are also experiencing drift issues as well they use the same tech as JCs it's an issue in the tech itself which belongs to a company other than Sony and Nintendo.

Whether we like it or not and for better or worse Nintendo is at least consistent on all their stances and the fact Melee players thought they were going to get special treatment is mind boggling especially when they supported Nintendo doing the same thing to Project M.

Do people not realize that the Big House tournament was using illegally copied versions of the game? 

“Unfortunately, the upcoming Big House tournament announced plans to host an online tournament for Super Smash Bros. Melee that requires use of illegally copied versions of the game in conjunction with a mod called ‘Slippi’ during their online event. Nintendo therefore contacted the tournament organizers to ask them to stop. They refused, leaving Nintendo no choice but to step in to protect its intellectual property and brands. Nintendo cannot condone or allow piracy of its intellectual property.”

It's amazing to me that most people don't pay attention to this kind of stuff or even know about it, and it's entirely because of The Big House's control of the publicity of this particular situation. They immediately came out and said that Nintendo's primary reason was because of the use of a mod made for online play, when as far as I can tell Nintendo never said that was the primary reason and in fact even listed the illegally copied versions as the first major offense. It makes The Big House look incredibly disingenuous. 

Not only that, but on the subject of the JOYCONBOYZ shells, the indiegogo campaign that funded them for charity already shipped the shells promised to the backers months ago. The only thing that's being stopped is the reselling of the product, as Nintendo never agreed with the use of their trademark to begin with. In other words, Nintendo actually already let a lot of those charity sales slip through anyways, months ago. Not to mention that the original creator only sounded upset about the ordeal right after the Smash Melee scandal, even though Nintendo not allowing for resale has been going for a while now, since September in fact. He's even edited the Joycon shellz, got them to be backed again, and is now selling them again edited, just without the word JOYCON. Yep, that's right, all he had to do was edit his shell slightly, but Nintendo is big bad for this. He even used the event as a publicity stunt for his business ( https://twitter.com/Cptn_Alex/status/1335963031180881920?s=20 ). 

And on the subject of cancelling the Splatoon 2 livestream .... really ... when 30% of your major players are sponsoring the illegaly copying of your games (probably unintentionally), why would you keep the livestream up? It's not like they cancelled the event anyways, they just cancelled the livestream. Big whoop. 

I don't mind people illegaly downloading old games, especially games where there is no convenient way to access them. But at the same time, I wouldn't try to get that illegal transaction sponsored by the company that's allowing me to hold an event. What the fuck logic does that make? What's dumbest of all is that, these pro players already have their own copies of the game. And ROM dumping is legal. 

BS the Melee mob were laughing and happy about the PM situation this is why Ultimate and Brawl players right now have little sympathy over the situation please be out as you just proved Curl's posts right.

Did you even read my post? I literally acknowledged that playing Melee on Dolphin doesn't require an illegal copy of the game here: "What's dumbest of all is that, these pro players already have their own copies of the game. And ROM dumping is legal. " What did you think I was suggesting here, if not that Melee on Dolphin can be perfectly legal?

Or are you saying that, because perfectly legal sources exist to play Melee legally on an emulator, that MUST be the process that The Big House was using? Because clearly, that wasn't the case, it's basically the entire reason the event was shut down. What, are you going to argue that, you know something Nintendo doesn't? The company that actually shut down the event? 

No one even said Slippi was a Melee mod (or at least I didn't), just that it was a scapegoat for The Big House. Which ... it was. 

You can call people shills but the fact is that I'm not really against piracy against old games; in other words my stance is very different from Nintendo's. I'm not inherently pro-corporation or anything. It's just that, you can't expect trademark violations, or doing something as dumb as what The Big House did, not to be noticed. 

Pretty much, most people here have a different stance to Nintendo the only difference is that they acknowledge why Nintendo has their particular stance even if it's not what they'd prefer.

Listen, I feel everyone is and should be welcome to voice their thoughts, praise, and criticism against or about Nintendo here. I think that's only fair as this thread is about Nintendo and not intended in any way to be an echo chamber of praise (I find that to be boring, frankly). That said however, I don't feel that it is in good faith or fair to initiate any one of those types of discussions by making sweeping statements like this right from the outset, as it not only incites people against you because they feel wrongfully lumped into an opinion they either don't share or is being misinterpreted, but it also takes away from the points you intend to make afterwards. 

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At risk of sounding like a shill however, I echo some of the same points brought up from earlier users. Much of this controversy seems to be built upon an emotional appeal from people on social media that misrepresents the two situations with the attempt to create an overarching narrative about Nintendo's engagement with fans. There's definitely some details that are arguably heavier-handed than they need to be, but I don't feel like Nintendo has made any overtly unreasonable requests in terms of protecting it's trademarks, which in the system we have they have to do or risk losing them. 

Also to be completely honest, in regards to charitable giving, I'm not understanding why it's imperative that people get some sort of material reward at all. If the intent was to raise money for charity, then advertise the charity in the person's name and people should be giving money without the expectation of getting something in return. The whole Smash thing is the typical argument about copyright protection, but the charity controversy especially rubbed me the wrong way because it felt intentionally manipulative on the part of people trying to use a sadly deceased person's memory to push their own agendas regarding Nintendo's fan engagement instead of trying to spread awareness about what the charity was meant to accomplish in the first place. Meanwhile, the guy who made the Joy-Cons sure made out well by getting all the free publicity for his business despite the legal decision being made back in September. The only thing that made his story suddenly relevant was the Smash situation. 

CptnAlex the person behind the Etika joycons is shady as hell and you should probably not buy anything from this guy : smashbros (reddit.com)

What a surprise! The person making a charity event out of his personal business is a fucking piece of shit! Shocking! Not as if bringing up a C&D from months ago just as the #freemelee event hit it's stride was shady enough to clue you in on the kind of person this guy is, or anything ....  

Colour me not at all surprised. 

If people actually want to make a donation to mental health charities in Etika's name, Nintendo is not stopping them. It's frankly disrespectful to the deceased and his family to use his death as to weaponise a community the way this guy is.

A fool is someone who does the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result each time. And right now, there is no bigger batch of fools than the Melee and Splatoon communities. Specifically the members of said community who are apart of the #FreeMelee/#FreeSplatoon/#SaveSmash "movement”spearheaded by Big House.

How to sum up the Melee/Splatoon situation in the simplest way possible:

- Man sees bear.

- Sign says "Don't poke the bear."

- Man proceeds to poke bear anyway.

- Bear gets angry; Bear claws man's face in.

- Man gets angry and upset over bear doing what bears do when you poke them. 

The bear is Nintendo; The Man is the Big House and the #FreeMelee/Splatoon/Smash crowd.

You poke the bear, you get your face carved up like a piece of wood. You poke a shark in the eye, you get swallowed whole. You dance around Nintendo's IP, copyrights, and trademarks, ESPECIALLY when what you’re doing is illegal and risks them losing said IPs, copyrights, and trademarks - They will hit you with a C&D faster than you can blink.

What the fuck did these people honestly think was going to happen? Especially after Nintendo told them to stop. If the bear tells you to stop poking it, what do you think you should probably do?

What makes me laugh my ass off is whenever I run into comments saying "Iwata is rolling in his grave!" "Iwata would be ashamed and disgusted." "What happened to the cool Nintendo with Iwata, Reggie, and Miyamoto around?" "Reggie would never let things like this happen!"

Where the hell have these people been the past 10, 15, 20 years? Nintendo's been doing this since Yamauchi was president, let alone Iwata. The mental gymnastics and revisionist history that these people go through to justify their anger and hatred towards Nintendo for simply doing what they are legally required to do in order to protect their Intellectual Properties is astounding.

Do they go overboard sometimes? Yeah, they do.
Does it seem unfair? Perhaps.
Are they legally within their right to do it? Yes, they are. And they WILL exercise that right within their legal confines to the most of their abilities. Everyone knows this. 

Whether or not you disagree with Nintendo's stance, you know exactly what their stance is. You know where they draw the line and what will happen if you cross it. If you continue to insist on crossing it even after that. You are not deserving of sympathy, ESPECIALLY if you cry foul and kick & scream like a child after you get caught.

And as far as the entire Etika/JoyCon situation is concerned:
If donating to charity and raising awareness for mental health issues such as depression and suicide is truly THAT important to them. Why do they need Nintendo for that? There is absolutely nothing stopping them from donating and supporting them directly. And now that we know the real deal behind those Etika joycons "Etikons" as they are called. This just tells me that these people don't really give a shit about charity, mental health, or Etika himself, God rest his soul, they just wanted something else to latch onto in order to support their anti-Nintendo agenda. Perhaps that is harsh and I don't doubt that some of those people genuinely do care. But that's the impression I get based on this reaction. And while we're at it, fuck the dude who saw this as an opportunity to use the backlash to his advantage and profit off a dead man's name. 

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/12/nintendo_switch_sold_more_than_1_3_million_units_in_china_this_year