Big House organizer Robin Harn talks Nintendo's rocky relationship with Melee, future of Smash

The Big House is the largest Smash tournament in the Midwest. Even more than that, it’s one of Smash’s longest-running super majors, a tournament that consistently gets so large that it takes on added weight in player rankings, viewership, and raw narrative.

The Big House is a big deal every year, but this year, it’s a big deal because it likely won’t happen.

Robin “Juggleguy” Harn started the tournament in what he calls a “dinky little ballroom on the University of Michigan campus,” in 2011. For nine years straight, or about half the lifespan of competitive Smash, The Big House ran without hitch, even overcoming a global pandemic by shifting to an online tournament.

Until this year.

On 29th October, a representative from Nintendo reached out to Harn to inform him that they weren’t happy with The Big House running Melee. In order to host Melee, Harn needed to run Slippi: a modification that vastly improves Melee’s already modded netplay.

Nintendo has a long history of issues with modifications to its titles and a longstanding issue with Melee being played at all. On 18th November, Harn received a cease and desist order from Nintendo.

After nearly a decade, The Big House had to shut its doors. Not due to money, not due to lack of interest, not due to literal pandemic. But due to the unpredictable whims of a billion-dollar company. Robin Harn tells us the full story and shares the full feeling in the aftermath.

Robin “Juggleguy” Harn is locked in a legal battle with Nintendo (Image via Liquipedia)

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Burnt to a crisp

Can you describe what you felt when you first received the cease and desist letter?

Very, very surprised. Even though I knew it was theoretically possible and somewhat hinted at by the conversation I had with the Nintendo rep, I knew that this had not happened to a Smash event since 2013. I thought we would proceed as planned and the potential for future partnerships might be gone.

That a bridge might be slightly seared. But instead it was burnt to a crisp, all in one letter, one Cease and desist PDF. It was very, very disappointing to me. I’m still surprised that it happened.

Can you walk me through the timeline of the cease and desist?

So, 25th October I announce The Big House Online on social media. 27th October I get an email from a Nintendo person who wants to meet with me on a call.

29th October I have that call and that’s when the conversation of, “Hey, we understand you’re planning to use Slippi* here…” and, dancing around an actual demand to cancel the event but essentially asking me to cancel the event.

In legalese, kind of just spooky, dancing around the actual statement… That’s when I knew there’s some shit going down. I did not get a good feeling coming out of that meeting.

I emailed them back a couple days later, probably 1st November or so, saying, “Hey I understand you gotta do your due diligence, checking in with me but I’m gonna go ahead as planned. This is a matter of survival for our scene, there’s no alternative here during COVID, we have to go online, and Slippi is the only thing the community is going to accept.”

From there it only took them, what, 17 days, till 18th November. That evening I got a cease and desist in my email.

[Editor’s Note: Slippi specifically allows for Melee to run top of the line rollback netcode and have viable online competitions. For more information on rollback, read this article. For more information on Slippi, check out their website]

Do you have any sort of idea on why they avoided just asking directly?

I think it’s because the person I talked to didn’t know what would happen if I refused. The implication was there’s gonna be ramifications, potentially, that we have to escalate to people higher up. I don't know what that meant. There hasn’t been an event - or attempted to get shut down - since EVO 2013.

I was like, okay if this means we don’t partner together in the future, yeah that’s a loss that I’m willing to take because if we don’t host something online we don’t really come back to anything. So what’s the point of trying to skip [events] and play nice for a year? That’s not a thing. What do you want me to do? Cancel the event so I can stay partnered in 2021 or 2022? This might be dead if we don’t host a year of online events.

That’s the part where there’s a huge disconnect between me and the person I talked to.

This liaison that you spoke to. Is this someone that you knew and had a [professional] relationship with at Nintendo? Or is it just a person?

It’s a person who I have emailed before and has essentially stamped their approval, saying: “You’re good to go. Here’s a license agreement. An Evo 2013 situation is not gonna happen to you because of this license agreement.”*

*[Editor’s Note: What happened to The Big House Online is very much what happened to EVO 2013 - except worse. Nintendo relented on EVO, they haven’t on The Big House Online]

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The cost of stopping short

How does something like that [cease and desist] affect you personally, financially?

If this was a normal year and this was in-person at an actual venue that cost thousands and thousands of dollars, this would have been much more disastrous.*

But since it was online a lot of the costs weren’t as frontloaded and they were just contracted people who were gonna work that event. So it was more of a matter of talking to them and being like, “I’m so sorry that we’re not working that weekend anymore but this shit just came at me fast.”

[Editor’s note: See what happened to the tournament CEO for an example of how disastrous last-minute major event cancellations can be]

What do the contractors look like?

Mostly the stream broadcasters. That is a big one because production value is very important to me and it’s not cheap to create a good looking broadcast. TOs that help me run the actual event. Commentators.* Those are the main three. [...]

On a more personal level, I think we have some sunk costs here so we’re probably gonna still do something on that weekend that was originally filled by Big House. Whether it’s a rebroadcast or some sort of other game that involves Smash personalities. I’m not sure yet, but I think we’re gonna be trying to raise some money there. So stay tuned for that.*

*[Editor’s Notes: Popular Smash commentator and content creator Kristopher “Toph” Aldenderfer spoke briefly to the money troubles of COVID and of working full-time in an already under-funded Smash scene.

**Follow the Big House on twitter for more information on what’s to come.]

Do you think that this is gonna make it harder to get sponsors?

It might, it’s just too hard to say right now. I think there are some organizations like Beyond the Summit, that have had really good success getting sponsors because they have actual sales people on their team - even without Nintendo support! BTS has never had a Nintendo-partnered license agreement and I don’t think they’re seeking it.

They know who they are, they have a good identity, and I think other Melee TOs have to own that as well instead of trying to skirt the line.

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They don’t have their feet on the factory floor

How do you feel about Nintendo’s understanding of the competitive Smash scene as a whole?

I think there may be various people who understand what the community needs and understand that it’s not good to stifle content and innovation but it’s very clear that the decision makers and the legal department, those two entities are out of touch with what’s best for the community.

Is it common to see anybody from Nintendo, especially higher up within the company, come to an event?

I've never seen the Nintendo rep I spoke to attend a Smash event, as far as I know. It's very rare to see someone from Nintendo (especially higher ups) attend a competitive Smash event.

Is there any real way, even for insiders in the Smash world, to know Nintendo’s intention or Nintendo’s plan behind these things?

I don’t think there’s a reliable way to know anything with what Nintendo’s gonna do. The reason for that is the people at Nintendo who talk to the Melee TOs directly, I don’t think they even know.

They’ve gotta escalate to somebody higher up and then that person’s gonna have to escalate it to somebody in legal or someone even higher up than that. By that point there’s so many degrees of separation from the actual community leaders and TOs that that decision maker at the top doesn’t know what’s happening.

They don’t have their feet on the factory floor, they can’t really relate to what’s happening. So various decisions might be made on legal grounds, but morally they’re just completely backwards from where we need to be as a community. [...]

I think there’s a lot of moving parts, especially at a company like Nintendo, and I think the people who actually understand what the community needs... I don’t think they are the decision makers, at the end of the day. That’s kind of the root of the problem, I see. [...] I’m not particularly upset at any individual person. It’s just, I’m saddened at the situation as a whole.

I have heard many rumors of TOs making tough decisions so Nintendo wouldn’t have to tank PR and so the relationship would be preserved. Have you had any moments like that in your career?

I absolutely have. Nintendo requires certain things to be in place at an event for them to sign off on a license agreement for that event. [...] A lot of Melee TOs like myself we’ve had to make decisions on the format of our events on what to include and not include in our event to be compliant with what Nintendo requires.

And honestly, a lot of that was in the hopes of a future where we are more actively working with Nintendo to grow the scene even beyond our imaginations. That is, theoretically, the next step to making Smash get to the next level in terms of accessibility and exposure. Now the pendulum has swung, and it’s been enough years…

You know, Big House was Nintendo partnered for four years, and there’s been no real payoff. There’s been no circuit sponsored by Nintendo. No real, actual financial support. So I think a lot of Melee TOs like myself have finally realized it’s time to move on from those hopes that we had and that at this point, we’re just better off on our own.

The problem is Nintendo, throughout the years, they have tried, however slowly that they do things at the Nintendo pace, they’ve tried by creating a competitive play department full of people who can talk to these Melee TOs. And they are required to do their due diligence and check in with partnered events. Because of that, there’s an open dialogue.

So when I say something like, “Yeah we plan to use Slippi.” They might hear that and be like, “Well now I have to go tell that to the higher up and escalate to legal!” And that’s unfortunate.

We’re in a situation where they are watching some tournaments but not supporting them in a way that’s best for the community. People like myself might get punished for having an open dialogue with those Nintendo reps.

Right, rather than just brush it under the rug.

Yeah, exactly. Theoretically, we might have been better off four years ago if we had never answered those initial emails and never even partnered. But hindsight is 20/20. I don’t know if anybody could have foreseen that.

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A fight for the life of an entire esport

Why is it vital for Smash as an esport to keep up content and tournaments?

We live in a content-driven world where consumers' attention is essentially the most valuable currency. When an esport goes months without the content that gets people talking and drives home a narrative, interest can peter out quickly, and it's hard to sustain.

This is especially true for competitive Smash, which gets no media promotion from its publisher/developer.

Why do you think Nintendo tends to target events like Big House or EVO?

The TOs are the trendsetters, so without the TO running the event there is no content for the event, the players can’t go, the spectators can’t watch. If you’re trying to eradicate an area of the scene - like let’s say that Nintendo doesn’t want Melee to be a thing - they should start with the TOs because that would bottleneck everything else.

And you’re right, no grassroots TO could ever potentially stand up to a lawsuit. We don’t have the money or resources.

That extends to all of the Twitch DMCA stuff too. How could a twitch streamer possibly fork over not just the money but the time off of streaming while they’re under scrutiny to fight a potential lawsuit? There’s just no way and that’s the broader issue that we’re fighting for right now. The stifling of content creation.

What can fans of Smash Melee and the Big House do to help out right now?

I think a couple things: One is sharing the news and helping inform people who are kind of tangentially related to understand the situation. That’s the first step, kind of like education. The second is, support the events that share the values that you have as an attendee and spectator. The only way we’ll find out what the precedent was [that was] just set or if this was a one-off thing, is for the next big Melee event to have support from the community.*

[Editor’s Note: Streamer Ludwig Ahgren is planning to run a charity Melee tournament with top competitors in attendance. All Twitch donations to him will go to the prize pot of the tournament, which will in turn go to the winner’s charity of choice. Fizzi, the creator of Slippi, has pledged to donate $2,500 to the charity of the runner-up’s choice]

Does Melee survive if it can’t run online events through the entire COVID era?

Honestly I don’t think Melee survives if it can’t run online events during COVID. It is too important to keep putting out content and keep getting eyeballs on the scene.

If this means more cease and desists are dropped, that will be, in my opinion, an existential threat to the Melee scene. That’s why anybody who cares about watching Melee or playing Melee should be part of this movement.

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Postscript: Levity

I’ve heard that Michigan has been struggling in the college football department recently.

Oh big time.

Do you think it’s time to ask Ohio State to settle it in Smash?

[Laughter] I don’t… I don’t know what that means!

Is it time to bring this rivalry up to the next level, to put this rivalry in Melee and Ultimate?

Okay, listen. If there’s gonna be something to decide the fate of the universe and it’s Michigan vs. Ohio State… [Laughs] we’re a lost cause in football. I have much more hope in our Smash ability.

And I think it’s only fair that if you guys beat Ohio State you guys should also get Toledo back.

[Laughs] Dude, Jim Harbaugh and Urban Meyer, I believe were born in Toledo! That’s a crazy coincidence.