For those OOTL: Nintendo announced yesterday new guidelines about what community tournaments can be held and how. They're extremely restrictive: Link
Smashers cried a lot yesterday (and rightfully) after the news came out. If Ninty does actually try to enforce these rules, it's going to incredibly suck for the big leagues. A lot.
But it's also going to suck for the little leagues too. These guidelines say that any tournament held by an organization, for-profit or not, is considered not a community tournament, and requires a license. That is going to include tournaments held at conventions, that is going to include tournaments held at universities, at libraries, even charities... Everyone's going to have to go through Nintendo's loop. Or at least they're supposed to...
I'm very affected by this matter and it's the reason I'm writing this. I'm the head of my campus's gaming association. Every now and then, we'll host a small bracket, usually during the faculty's big party, we've partnered with the campus's library to host tournaments there, we've partnered with some other local associations to hold tournaments during their events, we've partnered with the university itself... And even though we're just 4 guys, since we're an actual legal entity, we're subject to whatever restrictions they want to impose, to their approval, their bureaucracy, etc...
Now, do I think this is going to really affect us? Not a chance. Like, most people at uni don't know we exist, I don't think big N is going to notice us either. But it's not just us, it's every anime con that runs a small bracket. It's every local library that hosts events from time to time. And it's fucking Nintendo once again shitting on the idea of communities and competition.