Nintendo Went After Ludwig Because Of Smash Tournament

Nintendo is very protective of its intellectual property and threatened Ludwig with a baby cease and desist, for a smash tournament he hosted earlier this year.

Ludwig ernst
Nintendo send Ludwig a baby cease and desist | © Ludwig

You don't want to mess around and find out with Nintendo. YouTuber and former Twitch streamer Ludwig found that out the hard way, when Nintendo came after him with a Notice of Infringement of Intellectual Property, because of a tournament he hosted back in July. Nintendo took issue with him possibly modifying a certain map, so there's less luck involved in the competition.

Who is Ludwig? Ludwig Ahgren, is a prominent internet personality who first became successful on Twitch, but has since moved exclusively to YouTube. He gained fame by adding special challenges to his streams and for hosting various events, particularly "Super Smash Bros. Melee" tournaments. His streams offer diverse content, including a large variety of different games, game shows, and participating in other online communities.

Ludwig Got “Sued” By Nintendo,

The reason Ludwig decided to bring up him getting “sued” by Nintendo is closely related to the new Community Tournament Guidelines the company released not too long ago, trying to again gain control over their own Intellectual Property.

Just so you don't get this wrong: Ludwig didn't actually get sued! Nintendo sent him a Notice of Infringement of Intellectual Property, which is pretty much a baby cease and desist. With this, Ludwig was still able to host his Smash tournament, but had to make sure to follow Nintendo's rules of not modifying a certain map in the game.

So yeah, Nintendo took legal action, prohibiting the YouTuber from modifying their game, but they didn't really take offense at what he was doing. As a matter of fact, Ludwig states that their newest statement might be them trying to gain back control over their game, by putting tournament hosts on a leash. This would fall in line with the Notice of Infringement of Intellectual Property that he got for his tournament.

In that case, Nintendo isn't simply trying to kill the esports scene for their games, you just need to get your event licensed by the company first. Ludwig also states how in the conversation between his team and Nintendo, the company has been pretty open to letting them run events. So maybe the community outrage that followed Nintendo's announcement was a bit of an over-reaction, but we'll have to wait and see.

Robert Bachhuber

As a master graduate of sociology who wrote his thesis about Twitch, Robert knows a fair share about streaming. Adding to that, he loves binge-watching TV shows, so he got entertainment covered....