Did you hear about Nintendo’s almost-decision to yank the live stream of Evo 2013’s Super Smash Bros. Melee portion from the internet entirely? Were you enraged? Personally, I wasn’t all-too-furious, but I can definitely understand why it ruffled more than a few people’s feathers. Though ultimately the decision was reversed and the live stream restored, it turns out the whole thing could have been much, much worse.
In an appearance on OneMoreGameTV, Evo co-founder Joey Cuellar (apparently his nick-name is “Mr. Wizard,” though I can’t in good conscience condone the use of magic in front of muggles) shared his thoughts on the situation and how it was handled, revealing that Nintendo at one point wanted to shut down the Melee portion of the event entirely.
“They were not only trying to shut down the stream, they were trying to shut down the event; the Smash portion of the event,” Cuellar commented. Apparently Nintendo was not being very clear from the start, as Cuellar claims that initially he was told by the folks at NOA that they “didn’t see a problem” with Melee and Evo joining forces.
He went on to say the following:
It’s their IP, they can do whatever they want, and they didn’t present us with any options to keep it open, they were just ‘Hey, we want to shut you down.’ And we kinda wigwammed our way through it and they were fine with just shutting down the streaming portion of the event. And that was that. And we were not going to press any further. Its their IP, we respect Nintendo’s decision to protect their IP, and we were going to comply with the legal department completely. So at that point it was over.
It’s actually pretty cool that Cuellar was able to keep such a level head – had he gone ballistic (he is a dark wizard after all) and leveraged a nasty internet-assault against Nintendo, he could have simply angered them further or agitated them just as they were about to change their mind. Instead, his calm paid off, the internet took up torches and pitchforks of its own accord, and things somehow settled themselves.
Not to mention, wizard though he may be, I highly doubt that Cuellar could take on Reggie in a real-world melee. So perhaps this is for the best.