Here’s an excerpt of what the organizers wrote in a Medium post: The Smash World Tour is a competitive circuit composed of over 6,400 global live events with hundreds of thousands of audiences in attendance. Prior to the cancelation, the pot for this year’s championship, $250,000, would’ have set a new record for competitive Smash Bros. Without any warning, we received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate. This was especially shocking given our discourse with Nintendo the past twelve months. Since then, we have been working around the clock to take the proper steps logistically, as well as to prepare this statement with proper legal guidance. Nintendo has had a long and contentious history with third-party events and tournaments that use Super Smash Bros. However, the Smash World Tour surprisingly met with minimal issues in its first run last year. The organizers expected things to go just as smoothly this year as well, as it had moved from online tournaments to an offline setting. Unfortunately, this was not the case. But, in a statement sent to IGN, Nintendo clarified that it “did not request any changes to or cancellation of remaining events in 2022”, adding that the company thought of the “negative impact on the players who were already planning to participate.” The organizers disputed this in their aforementioned blog, saying that they received a notice, in writing, saying otherwise. Either way, the Smash World Tour organizers will take the brunt of the financial loss due to the cancelation. Despite this unlikely turn of events, the organizers promise to refund all of the attendees. Speaking of Super Smash Bros., Nintendo pulled the game from the EVO 2022 lineup. It’s worth noting that Sony acquired EVO last year.
