In less than two weeks, Nintendo has come at odds with its fanbase again. As previously covered, in late November, Nintendo issued a cease and desist against the Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament organizing group, The Big House, who were attempting to use emulated copies of the 2001 Gamecube game and a fan made rollback netcode system to effectively run the event online, as live tournaments aren't feasible.

In the past, Nintendo simply overlooked the events ran by The Big House, but saw the use of pirated copies of Super Smash Bros. Melee as an egregious overstepping of boundaries. This could be simplified if Nintendo made their back catalog of beloved and popular titles like Melee accessible through their service, but that's a different matter altogether.

As it turns out, and unsurprisingly, Nintendo fans did not like this and showed solidarity, using #FreeMelee in social media. Plans to hold a Splatoon 2 North American Open were cancelled as 30% of the competing teams sported names that showed support for the Melee community. Nintendo cited "unexpected executional challenges" as reasons for nixing the stream. Splatoon and Smash tournament organizer SlimyQuagsire verified that this was decision was Nintendo's.

So the Splatoon community, in support of the Smash community, has 30% of the top teams in this weekend's Spl2 NA Open with Team names in support of Melee and Smash.
So what does @NintendoAmerica @NintendoVS do in response?
They cancelled their livestream for tomorrow's Finals.

— Slimy (@SlimyQuagsire) December 5, 2020

A public statement has not been issued by Nintendo regarding the stream cancellation, but a message was shared via Discord announcing the changes made

The relationship Nintendo has with its community in regards to tournaments and presentation either teeter between overly business oriented or tone deaf. As of this writing, the teams disqualified from the NA Open held a separate tournament with a 25k pot that was raised through donations.