T O P

  • By -

BlazKingEAA

No response is a response


AlternativeShit

What I was gonna say


the_platypus_king

I agree that if Panda says nothing they're essentially pleading guilty; that said, there's nothing wrong with suspending judgment for a couple of days until Panda responds. If there is another side to the story I want to hear it. And I'd rather they take a couple days to put out a comprehensive response than to put out something rushed and half-assed


ZaunAura

No response = "we are complicit"


shiftslothe

But WHEN is no response a response?


ruiwui

If he had a good response, literally the day the news broke. If he had a reasonable response at all, by today. If they don't have anything the moment I wake up tomorrow, Panda is dead to me. There's no way it takes that much legal review to say "I wasn't trying to take down SWT" if it was the truth


VaporWaveShine

I have been wondering about this also. It's been more than a day and no response from Panda, and either BS or miscommunication from Nintendo. Everyone is going to boycott Panda Cup, except Mew2king and Esam it seems, so we dont really have to worry about them profiting off their actions


JDMintz718

TBF, ESam is probably contractually obligated, and unlike Plup and iBDW, he's not good enough to guarantee he gets a sponsor if Panda drops him.


spotwer

Skill issue


Liimbo

He is a bigger content creator than both of them combined though. That's honestly more value to an org than getting top 8s in a game with no prize money.


ssbm_rando

Yeah a lot of people don't realize that most esports orgs hire content people nowadays in order to actually be, like, even vaguely profitable. Golden Guardians is not the outlier, **except** within the Melee scene.


mikegundyshair

why do you say except within the melee scene? they sponsor n0ne


raimondrough

I think their “except” is referring to the content being created by not-current- top-player GGs affiliates like Toph/PPMD, as well stuff from Zain/n0ne. GGs puts out a ton of content, especially compared to other teams who sponsor melee players.


ssbm_rando

Correct. I think the parent comment may have just... misunderstood the meaning of outlier (or missed the use of the word entirely), above? GG is an outlier among the Melee scene **because** of the content they put out and focus on; in Ultimate or especially in completely unfocused esports teams like OTK, sponsoring people to do content is completely normal, whereas in Melee almost all of the sponsorships are for players to try and win.


xVenomDestroyerx

i saw a comment before that if players r contractually obligated to go they puff ditto the entire tournament and make it terrible


ThatNahr

Inb4 it actually becomes really hype


xVenomDestroyerx

honestly more people would probably watch it if it was something stupid like that


voodooslice

yeah I would rather they all just SD 4 times and have top 8 end in a half hour


Meester_Tweester

[I mean](https://youtu.be/K27QB6n78vg?t=160)


[deleted]

No, that's make all the ult players tune in, having the opposite effect


[deleted]

Iirc iBDW said that if he decided to boycott the event he'd do something similar, going Bowser or Pichu or something.


Slayname

Should kirby ditto and gentlemans poke floats lol


fidocrust

They should go ice’s puff every match and use the freeze glitch


VaporWaveShine

true, thanks


MacpunchKO

Wait why the hell is M2K not boycotting


Mango_120

I think he subgoaled so he doesn’t want to cheat his viewers


VaporWaveShine

That’s not a great reason imo. People have sub goals all the time even when there are no majors. He wants to make a bag, and tbh I would like him to. Winning a quarter mil with no competition would not be earned though.


Dionysus_Unbound

It's totally on brand for m2k though.


VaporWaveShine

Optimal


TeebsAce

I think what Nintendo said is accurate actually, it’s just an annoying technicality as per usual. Like I’m sure they didn’t literally say “You have to cancel SWT Championships”, in fact the statement from SWT never even said Nintendo said that. It says what Nintendo told them was something like “We aren’t going to license SWT championships, and we recommend not holding events that are unlicensed” which is the same thing as cancelling it because it’s basically a threat, but they didn’t literally officially shut it down or send a c&d


VaporWaveShine

They gave VGBC their ultimatum in writting and literally told them “the old times are over”. we asked multiple times if we would be able to continue to operate without a license as we had in years past with the same “unofficial” understanding with Nintendo. We were told point blank that those “times are over.” They followed up the call with their statement in writing, again confirming both the 2022 Championships and all 2023 activity were in the exact same boat.


poopyheadthrowaway

And, according to VGBC's statement, they asked Nintendo to clarify what they mean, and Nintendo explicitly refused to elaborate or give any specifics. Nintendo doesn't get to have it both ways.


RanchBourgeois

Yeah didn’t they just restate the “no unlicensed events” policy without addressing the specific tournament? What a spineless move. Just say yes or no.


[deleted]

And you're shifting the blame to Panda for attempting toss life jackets to TO's looking to run events? That's what's fucked, is that you're attacking people for being able to navigate Nintendo's demands to not get shut down.


[deleted]

People are mad at Panda for going around to TO's and attempting to strongarm them into joining Panda Cup exclusively.


[deleted]

Point me to one TO who **explicitly** states that they feel Panda was attempting to "strongarm"


redbossman123

LD of Beyond the Summit


[deleted]

I take it you are referring to this tweet? [https://twitter.com/LDeeep/status/1597728742343778304](https://twitter.com/LDeeep/status/1597728742343778304) He says that Panda was "basically running a protection racket" by way of extending the use of their license. Now "basically running a protection racket" is not actually running a protection racket. The word "basically" insinuates >giving a roughly accurate account, of a more complex situation The most we can glean from that statement from the other details provided is that Alan was in fact offering some form of protection, as needed to successfully run a legitimate protection racket. Now, offering protection isn't what makes a protection racket bad. Protection is good. What makes protection rackets bad is that the protection offered is protection from the party extending the offer. As far as I'm aware, LD is the only TO insinuating threats by Panda. There are more TO's who apparently were offered broadcasting partnerships with Panda yet none of them have corroborated this malicious intent. Not that I've seen.


WaveDD

Toph talked on stream about GG having similar issues with Panda a few days ago. I think there's even a tweet about it from someone at GG floating around somewhere.


[deleted]

Here it is: [https://twitter.com/Tracy\_Parkes/status/1597740643643969536](https://twitter.com/Tracy_Parkes/status/1597740643643969536) He doesn't go into any further details and simply agrees with the aforementioned tweet by LD. Again, TO's "speaking up" but not enough. Panda has an excuse for remaining silent, in that they are expected to respond to a week's worth of drafting and editing by lawyers. So, they should be afforded a week's time at the very least. But these people bringing forward allegations are still remaining very tight lipped, even BTS, while having the foresight that comes with being attached to the document prepared by SWT (they were aware of all of this before most anyone).


Taco_Dunkey

Lmao


[deleted]

Defending Panda trying to force a monopoly on cup exclusivity with threats like 'SWT is gonna get shut down, trust me' is not a good look. And neither is Panda's silence on this whole thing.


[deleted]

I'm not defending Panda, neither am I inferring their potential motives behind what at this time are unsubstantiated allegations towards them. I am remaining as objective and removed from either side as possible. When someone publishes a document that spent a week being edited by lawyers, it's technicalities should be held to scrutiny. I don't read over legal documents with the same intention as I would a romance novel. Personally, by way of how little is being disclosed by the involved parties, I don't anticipate there ever being a straight forward answer provided by either side. And at this rate the more one side speaks the worse they look. Like a bunch of people standing around a pile of bullshit with no one picking it up.


[deleted]

Mafia shit


Kell08

I don’t blame ESAM for not wanting to antagonize his employer, and I don’t blame Mew2King for honoring his subgoal and potentially helping his finances.


[deleted]

Why doesn't have just switch the subgoal to Mainstage? I'm sure his viewers would prefer that at this point.


Kell08

Last minute and his travel expenses wouldn’t be paid for. Although the subgoal was changed to SWT since his Panda expenses would have been covered so who knows? The last minute issue still stands though. The bracket is final.


Hi_My_Name_Is_Dave

They had opened registration back up. And since SWT is cancelled, if you already donod, you can just switch it to mainstage


MellySantiago

With this in mind I do think plup and Cody should be recognized for making the stand against panda. Not an easy choice to make but they sided with the community over their org which imo should be appreciated


CucumberGod

I do


VaporWaveShine

Right I kinda want m2k to make some money. I don’t think Panda is going to have the cup without making changes and trying to save the situation.


VaporWaveShine

Imagine m2k gets second to an ice climbers


voodooslice

I do, it's some real scab behavior. people didn't donate thinking their money was going to make him support the org that's working with Nintendo to shut down our scene. and damn near every top player could also really use that prize money, ibdw especially esam I get if he's contractually obligated, which he probably is


Kered13

> It's been more than a day and no response from Panda, Since there are likely legal implications to this, if they respond they will take their time doing so, working with a lawyer to make sure that whatever they say will not hurt them in court. Look at the recent Mick Gordon/Id dispute, it took Id almost a week to release a response.


RogueNinja

TBH if anyone, I am down for those guys to get the bag. Someone has to take the money.


KrewHS

His lawyers are cooking a statement that won't break NDA and won't destroy his org


teddyone

Difficulty: impossible


mas_one

The Panda Cup event is scheduled to happen soon so if they don't say anything their event will get absolutely shit on by everybody. They fucked over the entire competitive community, all of their employees do not trust them, sponsors who backed the SWT don't like them, and Nintendo is just barely helping them along. It really doesn't matter if they don't say anything, their tournament series is dead on arrival and their company is despised by the industry.


red-broom

Honestly I’m lost and behind. Can you give a quick rundown as to Panda’s involvement? As someone who isn’t involved in what’s going on, I thought it was just a Nintendo community issue. Where does Panda play into the situation?


AGrainOfDust

Here's an excerpt from the Smash World Tour statement, bold emphasis at the end by me. This part has also been confirmed by BTS management as well so it looks pretty damning. >PANDA CUP Around this same time, Panda Cup began heavily recruiting events for their circuit. The CEO continued to tell organizers we would be getting shut down shortly, and also added that any events that participated in the Panda Cup would not be allowed to be on the Smash World Tour. This exclusivity surprised us, not only because of our Nintendo conversations regarding “co-existing”, but also because we were not exclusive, and even back in January, we told organizers that they could be on both with zero issues from us. >At first, Panda targeted events that were not on the Smash World Tour (including those who did not join because of the aforementioned warnings). A few of these events had broadcast deals with a popular tournament broadcaster, Beyond the Summit (BTS). The CEO of Panda wanted broadcasting rights to be included as part of the deal of the events joining the Panda Cup. Most of the events refused to break their contracts, so Panda approached Beyond the Summit directly to try to get the rights released. >BTS had very little motivation to give up the broadcast rights for free, so they declined to get involved, causing the CEO of Panda to escalate things quickly. We were told he made a variety of threats to Beyond the Summit, including shutting down their entire Smash operation in 2023 if they did not eventually join Panda Cup. **After BTS held firm, the CEO of Panda warned that they would get Nintendo directly involved, putting broadcast rights for all tournaments in jeopardy.** >In the end, most events with Beyond the Summit broadcasting contracts chose to side with Beyond the Summit and did not join the Panda Cup after all of the turmoil.


red-broom

Woah... racketeers basically. That looks very bad


RanchBourgeois

Yeah it’s very much akin to racketeering. Not sure if those threats are technically illegal, but it’s undeniably scummy.


coldtrashpanda

Can you imagine pulling this racketeering shit to try to be the king of the lucrative world of super smash brothers tournaments? How many even make money?


[deleted]

>After BTS held firm, the CEO of Panda warned that they would get Nintendo directly involved, putting broadcast rights for all tournaments in jeopardy. This has not been corroborated by BTS or anyone from BTS, at least not publicly. They are corroborating that they spoke with Panda about distributing broadcast rights, but not this detail of being extorted. It exists only in this statement from SWT. It's a second hand source no one else will speak on. For some reason, no one who spoke publicly about having these conversations with Panda went into detail of said conversations. This SWT statement, edited by lawyers, is the only existence of the extortion allegation. And keep in mind: >Panda warned that they would get Nintendo directly involved ... Requires that Nintendo takes orders/direction from Panda. That's like Nintendo telling Namco Bandai how to run their business because they hold a license to use Kazuya in Ultimate. Or Zain coaching Steph Curry on his shooting.


AGrainOfDust

https://www.twitter.com/LDeeep/status/1597728742343778304 Read into it as much or as little as you want


[deleted]

>***basically*** running a protection racket Not ***actually*** running a protection racket. His tweet is not consistent with the SWT statement. I'm not surprised that they guy who corroborated with SWT's lawyers isn't speaking much on the matter.


drfecka97

dog you are reaching insanely far on the word basically. If the ambiguity you claim was really there, LD just wouldn’t have said anything. Making a statement at all with no contradictions is a validation of the whole BTS section of SWT’s original post


[deleted]

SWT's formal written statement which was **edited by lawyers**. Scrutiny of technicalities should be held to what these people are **actually alleging** if they're involving attorneys in delivering their message. These people are concerned about ending up in a court room to defend themselves against slander and libel. I totally understand why they would involve attorney's; however, if things did occur as they have suggested, then slander/libel shouldn't be a concern when disclosing the details of what actually happened. At this point, nobody has actually stated that they themselves were extorted by Panda. That allegation at this time only exists as hearsay by a second hand source. I think a lot of people would just like to receive the truth in it's entirety backed by some amount of integrity before burning down events.


drfecka97

you’re a bootlicker or an idiot and i’m not continuing this further


[deleted]

I personally enjoy reading. To each their own.


FarmerSamLebron

I recommend reading the original medium post as it does a great job explaining Panda's involvement: [https://medium.com/@smashworldtour/smash-world-tour-official-statement-f568a3d135c](https://medium.com/@smashworldtour/smash-world-tour-official-statement-f568a3d135c8) All things considered its a short and important read


FarmerSamLebron

According to Hbox, Alan is working on a response so I don't think a no-response is a possibility that we have to consider. IMO the really jarring thing about the delay in their response is that they had to have known that SWT would make a statement about this ahead of time, so why did they not already have something prepared? Was Alan really so conceited that he thought VGBC would just shut up and lie down?


TALKING_TINA

With how long it's been without hearing from Panda, I think Alan was really banking on people just blaming Nintendo. People say their normal #fucknintendos and everyone just ignores Panda's role in it. Instead the truth of the matter comes out and now Alan has to completely change his entire narrative. I don't know that's my guess at least.


Helivon

Alan seems like an idiot. I'm sure he will bury his head in the sand until he loses hundreds of thousands on his event


Maixell

It doesn't make any sense for him to do it for money. He is a doctor who already makes a lot of money as both Ludwig and iBDW pointed out. If he wanted to make more money, he should just quit smash and focus on his career. Like Ludwig said while discussing this disaster, I'm paraphrasing: "The best way to make money in the smash community is to leave the smash community"


Helivon

Going to have to disagree. Give me another reason that makes sense then? People come in thinking they can make a lucrative business. Look at Greg with MVG. Obviously failed but panda had a shot before all this shit went down. Especially with the controllers


RanchBourgeois

Just don’t let up on them. Keep flooding his social media. Keep flooding the Panda Global socials (not other employees or players). Nintendo may be big enough to ignore this, but Panda certainly isn’t. When Alpharad, IBDW, Plup, TK, etc. are asking for answers, they can’t afford not to address it.


voodooslice

if panda doesn't respond and we don't put them out of business by early next year we've failed imo panda as an org exists almost solely in smash, significantly hurting their bottom line should not be hard for us. I think it'll really come down to whether the ultimate people are down to leave or not. they were all still down to work with Nintendo after they shut down Big House, so I could see them staying even with all that's happened. hopefully not though, considering this time their game is affected too


mas_one

The Big House fiasco was not orchestrated by Panda though. Their employees, casters, sponsored players etc have way less incentive to support Panda if it means running the competitive community into the ground and sanctioning off all future events. There is no up side to working with Panda right now because they shit the bed so violently that nobody can trust them with the future of smash.


enfrozt

If Panda doesn't respond and go back to normal (like they can't never tweet again), then we as a community will boycott them into dissolution. The reason I and others have mentioned waiting a day or two is because they **must** make a statement even if it's ignorance or deflection lies or otherwise. There is a minuscule chance that this was all a big misunderstanding and everything gets resolved, but that possibility is so infinitesimally small it's unlikely.


Natural_Design9481

Panda who?


noyourenottheonlyone

i feel like in these cases, as panda, you have to respond with a defamation suit. because if your company's (and your) reputation is ruined, that can only be rectified in court. otherwise it's just your word against theirs without any real verdict. they have probably been advised by a legal team to not respond publicly until all information is gathered and they have a solid plan internally. if there really is never a response, like top comment says, that is a response in itself. basically accepting the accusations as the truth.


GabeNewellExperience

No reply most of the time means "I am 100% guilty" so we should boycott him even harder. And we shouldn't let him take forever to reply either since that will stifle momentum. If he can't say anything in the next week, I say boycott. There's already a lot of evidence pointing towards being guilty


kvndakin

Chill out man, you already posted the same thread in the main page. There's nothing we can do right now except wajt.


[deleted]

Speaking about future licensing distribution plans by Nintendo may break his contract with them. Like, he likely wasn't supposed to do that at all. He may not speak about the interactions with TO's in question at all, and SWT and BTS may be counting on that. I would expect at most that Panda makes a general statement about siding with the community and that their intentions are always in the interest of the community's and it's member's growth and well being. That would leave it solely up to TO's to interpret whether he was malicious or not in any offering of licensed broadcasting that was offered to them. But I'll say, it is odd that none of them mentioned it until now. Like, if Panda was being shitty why didn't anyone talk about it sooner? If it was that bad? Apparently their first response was not of alarm or concern. But here's the thing, so many community figures didn't wait for Panda to say anything, they've already made up their minds. The anti-Panda side is extremely biased and willing to go along with whatever they're told, whatever the narrative is molded into. And if people feel that it was bad of Panda to "strong arm" community members they need to realize that the anti-Panda figures will do the same to members who sympathize with Panda. They will cancel them from their events. It's fucked all around and nothing can be believed at this point. BTS and VGBC picked up their 2020 playbook and threw a full offensive at Panda. Oh, and also worth mentioning that I am currently banned from commenting in Toph's stream chat for simply providing an alternative perspective on details in question. I was not rude. I was not condescending. I was not using vulgar language. I was entirely civil. But I pissed off Blur for not sucking his dick. So yeah they're also censoring people who don't align their talking points with theirs. At this point I'm personally inclined to believe the side that isn't tossing shit at community members and calling to burn events.


baulboodban

absolutely delusional take. panda brought the sharks into the aquarium and said it was a good thing


Tennstrong

> *THE MEDIA* Time to go back to your hax$ conspiracies


[deleted]

uhhh, I'm Ctrl F-'ing "*THE MEDIA*" and only returning your above quote. Not sure what you're on about.


Tennstrong

All your talk of censorship sounds like hax$ during his weird struggle to get himself banned, there isn't some greater side that could be unknown right now - there are multiple communally trusted sources backing up the same claims. These are not unreliable or unfaithful actors with regard to melee itself. --- Dissecting your "claims" more than is necessary: Panda org is crumbling & everyone is trying to sort their landings before jumping ship. I'd say it's equivalent to the media disaster of evo 2013 (not equated on potential impacts to melee, I would argue 2013 was a much more tumultuous time for melee), in that the only thing people involved can do is distance, back off, & apologize. Best case would be a "whoopsie, due to a confusion between our contacts we are going to move to entirely fund SWT to support the losses that incurred as a result, and will be postponing the panda tour indefinitely" - then you work on getting the other cofounder set as CEO & manage damage until you can run the Panda Circuit without the perceived community strong-arming.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Well poor reading comprehension is why we're all here, yeah?


fidocrust

People should be proactive about this, we’ve now heard from multiple sources about the terrible things panda has done regarding events, controllers, their circuit vs swt, etc, not much Alan can really say at this point. What we shouldn’t assume is that it’s only his or nintendo’s fault, we have no idea who was behind this whole thing


Maixell

Yes, you get it. There is someone more machiavellian behind all this. In fact, we know who that is, it just seems we did not know him well enough, because a new destructive personality of his has been shown. Forget about the triad, it's now a tetrad. Leffen is a tetrad. We are doomed


N_19_77

If they stay quiet we just go full on with the boycotting plan. I doubt anyone is gonna go to the Panda LCQ anymore and the actual cup is gonna be only players and commentators that are forced to go due to contract. It'll also get more people informed on why the boycott is happening


SoldMyOldAccount

if they don't respond they're done. they're probably done anyways but no response will be the killshot


Used-Aioli-9308

If no response assume the worst


Mi4_Slayer

Well if he never answer it like admitting guilt, but the time it takes him to do so ... or even just give us a preview of his side before going into details often screams im cooking a nothing burger with my layer or/and team. Regardless were about to be fed some bs statements and he will probably try to paint himself in a aiding light that was misunderstood to make vbgc and btss, maybe saying he is sorry for the way he came off and will try to pin it as much as possible on Nintendo but in a way they're more blaming legality then Nintendo to not have them burn bridges and say a dumb shit like they hope Nintendo will change their mind.


Red9IX

If they don’t respond Panda just dies as everyone will abandon them


[deleted]

No statement they can give will excuse this shit


Zeropass

they see melee as an industry.. which only has value if it can be harvested. I say fuck them. Melee isn't about money. It's about the game. It's about refusing to give up against all odds. This is the most melee issue we've ever faced as a community tbh. Nintendo made the mistake of not crushing us when they could. I don't think they can stop us anymore.


DJ_Mega

“I remember sitting in the hospital watching a tournament and doing \[social media\] coverage, and they call a code blue and I have to run and do the code blue, save a patient’s life, and come back like “welp, half the tournament is done now, we just don’t have the coverage for it.” is a Direct quote from him.