Asmongold isn’t necessarily an expert when it comes to fighting games. But this week, he was quick to dish out criticism to all parties involved in the Nintendo Super Smash Bros. tournament debacle.
While watching a video that Ludwig posted to his YouTube channel Mogul Mail, Asmon and his viewers got updated on the latest surrounding licensing issues that large Smash tournaments were having with Nintendo.
According to Ludwig’s analysis, Nintendo forcing the cancellation of unlicensed events is dire enough that it could result in the end of competitive Smash as we know it. In response, Asmon was quick to express his displeasure with the power publishers have.
“If you put something out, and you release it to the public, there’s a certain amount of agency that you lose,” he said. “If you want something to be out in the public and be in the public space and make money in it and everything like that, I think that you have to give up a little bit of agency.”
Technically speaking, even when it comes to a basic Twitch stream or YouTube video, gaming publishers have the right to call for a takedown of content that involves their games. But publishers typically understand the value of streaming in publicizing games, and instead, they work with content creators as a marketing ploy.
That isn’t always the case with gaming tournaments, however, as Ludwig points out in his video. And for Asmongold, this creates a restrictive environment that holds everyone back.
“Intellectual property in the way that it exists in our culture is way too overreaching,” he said. “It functions more as a barrier to innovation rather than as an enabler. … Intellectual property laws in this country are massively fucking overreaching, and it’s ridiculous. It’s reductive.”
Despite his disdain for the way Nintendo is treating its IP, Asmongold was able to compartmentalize the situation in a way that made him frustrated with Smash tournament organizers as well.
He pointed out that it’s difficult to be empathetic toward organizers that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on events when they don’t have the licensing rights to the game they’re organizing an event for.
While he disagreed with Nintendo’s practices, he acknowledged that coordinators of Smash events put themselves in that situation knowing the risk that they were taking. Ideally, tournament organizers wouldn’t need to get permission from Nintendo. But as Asmon points out, we don’t live in ideal conditions.
“That’s not the world that we live in,” he said. “And in the world that we live in, you should have looked for a fucking license.”
