Nintendo is stripping their latest Splatoon 3 2024 World Champion team of their win and prize.
Nintendo shared this message on their Nintendo Versus account on Twitter:
“It has come to our attention that certain members of team Jackpot, the team that recently won the Splatoon 3 World Championship, acted in a manner that is not in line with our Community Guidelines while playing the Splatoon 3 game.
As a result, team Jackpot’s win will be considered vacated, and the team will not receive trophies associated with the event.
Additionally, the in-game Splashtag banner commemorating their win will be adjusted via an upcoming software update. Nintendo cares deeply about our players and our community, and we take our responsibility to uphold our Community Guidelines seriously.”
The Splatoon 3 World Championships were held last April 13 and 14 in Japan. Jackpot competed against Splatoon player teams from around the world, such as KaiZer from Germany, Smart Roast Chickens from Taiwan, and Jackpot’s opponent in the finals, Phantom Thief of the Heart, from Nintendo’s native Japan.
For now, it isn’t clear if the Splatoon 3 2024 World Championships will now be awarded to Phantom Thief of the Heart, though that would seem to be the logical course of action.
Video Games Chronicles reports that Jackpot’s members were recently caught making racist remarks, and these are believed to be the violated Community Guidelines that led to them losing their win. This may seem like a bad move on Nintendo’s part for some observers, but it’s a strong precedent the company is making in their esports initiative.
Esports has a real problem with community management. In too many fields, including fighting games and team shooters, players who have been caught in bad behavior, and failing to punish them or banish them from their esports.
As a result, a lot of these games and leagues have built bad reputations. Splatoon is a relatively fresh game to enter esports, with 2024 marking on the second world championships. Arguably, Nintendo doesn’t really need to be involved in the esports for their games; their games are catered to casual players and they see great success on that end just fine.
This decision also reinforces that Nintendo is committed to their esports initiative, and that they want to do it right. They have certainly had struggles with their player communities in the past, but if they can keep Splatoon’s esports clean, they can really make a family friendly place for their fans in this popular, but very messy, side of the video game community.
