Gaming’s biggest controversies of 2020
2020 was a wild year. We recap some of the most polarizing and controversial times in the gaming industry that happened this year.
2020 was the year that the world actually went still. There was so much that went on that made it just feel like a lifetime. It feels like I aged a lot more in one year than I have in the past four years. From diplomatic turmoil, unexpected and tragic celebrity deaths, to of course a pandemic that has killed and ruined the lives of millions, it seemed like everywhere we turned to, something new was brewing. Fortunately, video games helped many gamers at least have some avenue to turn to when things got rough, but there were also times where the rough would follow. Here are some of the more prominent controversies that went down in the year of 2020 for gaming:
Smash Bros. C&D for Slippi (#FreeMelee)
COVID-19 really put a damper on things for the fighting game community, halting all tournaments for the foreseeable future. Tournaments for all other major games became completely virtual, but specifically for the Smash community, things were much worse. The only game supported by Nintendo was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the online netcode for the game is not reliable, even if all involved parties are using a LAN cable for netplay.
What happened was that the Melee community, backing a small group of developers, ended up having a resurgence in a time of distress. Super Smash Bros. Melee is considered to be the best game of the series, and it was brought online via a mod for the Dolphin Emulator named Slippi.
The game was fully playable with a reliable netcode through an emulator, and Nintendo is very protective of their properties, even if they don’t make money from some of their older titles anymore. A Slippi tournament held by The Big House was cancelled by Nintendo. All people involved fortunately were reimbursed their expenses, but fans have since then spread the viral #FreeMelee hashtag.
— The Big House 11 (@TheBigHouseSSB) November 19, 2020
Sure, Nintendo had every legal right to send a cease and desist to this organization, but it was not a wise PR move by them. There are other fighting games played through Parsec and other third party programs that strengthen the netcodes of games with faulty ones. The companies whose games are played through these third party apps actually support these tournaments, or at the least, don’t take them down.
Since the #FreeMelee hashtag was born, basically every Nintendo announcement will have some people posting it just to get their message across. Even if it’s something really big and mostly liked such as the Smash Bros. Sephiroth trailer or the Nintendo World direct, you will see it. I say, power to these people, because the C&D’s Nintendo has been dishing out since Slippi also included the cancellation of a Splatoon 2 tournament event because some major players showed their solidarity with the Melee community by putting something related to the hashtag in their nicknames.