Franchise: Splatoon

On October 24, 2023, Nintendo released a list of "Community Guidelines" for eSports events surrounding their games in Europe and Japan - these rules received major backlash from competitive Smash and Splatoon players and were theorized as being intended to directly stifle Nintendo's competitive communities. With particular criticism going towards:

• Enforcing a maximum player count of 200 per day for in-person tournaments
• Enforcing a cash prize maximum at £9,000 / €10,000 and prohibiting sponsors from funding events
• pre-Switch games (particularly Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros.) not being available for licensing
• Not allowing titles from Nintendo's games to be used in branding, even including shortened variants such as "Splat" or "Smash".
• Banning modified, emulated, or fan-made games - the prior two being essential parts of modern day competitive Melee.
• Food, drink, and merchandise sale being banned from venues
• Arguably most damningly, requiring official licensing for smaller-scale high school charity events.