I am no longer CEO of Panda. I will no longer be part of the Smash community. I do not wish to return. The community deserves the truth and I’m not afraid to call out the names I have to. The private information of myself and members of Panda have been leaked online. This has gone too far.
If there is anyone who is interested in purchasing my shares of Panda, please reach out to the company. Divesting is a complex process that takes time.
For a quick summary of the actual truth, here is a message after notes I took during a conversation with a TO on April 14th, 2022.
Censored to protect identities.
The events and claims that I will be making are true. Some have evidence, some do not, as most of this is verbal conversations. In those cases, I do my best to recall details from memory and find corroborating evidence from internal chat logs with timestamps. I encourage you to read everything presented as to be better informed to the circumstances surrounding the Smash community currently.
I ask you to read the full statement before coming to any conclusions and do not, under any circumstances, use information here to harass any person(s).
This statement will be broken down as follows:
Intro
SWT / VGBC
Beyond the Summit
TO “strong-arming” and the first 3 weeks
Nintendo
Conclusion
Intro
I’m sorry this took me so long to write. Please consider that SWT Leadership did not release a statement until a week after hearing from Nintendo. These things take time to properly construct. I know people have been waiting to hear from me, but between being blindsided by SWT’s 2022 shutdown, extreme harassment, death threats, and fleeing my own home due to doxxing, it’s been hard to focus. I would never wish this on anyone as I’m currently writing this after filing a 3rd police report.
To the current and former members of Panda:
I’d like to particularly apologize to my team and to Panda as a whole for my initial response. I have no excuses, I froze up. I had panic attacks for the first time in my life and I was paralyzed for the first few days. I let our message go through multiple PR firms instead of crafting it myself. I listened to them telling me not to step down despite my team asking. My hesitation to act, step up and fight back didn’t just hurt me, it hurt you all. I hope you all know how deeply you matter to me, and that I would never want anything like this to happen to anyone I care about.
This is the most transparent public statement in my life.
SWT / VGBC
Some context:
Our negotiations with Nintendo started in 2018 and ramped up in 2019. Getting to the Panda Cup was a long process with plenty of late nights and dozens of iterations. Back in October 2019, I called Justin, owner of Super Smash Con, to talk about Panda Cup negotiations. Justin was one of the first TOs I ever reached out to about the negotiations because I respected him. I told him that it seemed like Nintendo was interested in giving Panda a circuit license and that SSC is an incredible event that I think could become the biggest part of it all. It was a pretty benign conversation.
3 months later I heard that VGBC is starting something called the “Smash World Tour” and discovered Justin was a part of founding it. They never talked to Nintendo about it.
Nintendo caught wind before launch and SWT Leadership was explicitly told to wait until they have approval to announce the SWT in 2020. Justin and VGBC knew this and launched anyway, aware of the consequences.
The SWT was the perfect gambit for VGBC. Information came to us from an anonymous source all the way back in 2020. VGBC was feeling pushed out of the community from losing so much ground to BTS. They wanted something of their own. And so they came up with the SWT gambit:
1. SWT doesn’t get shut down, VGBC gets their own circuit without the years of negotiation with Nintendo
2. SWT uses the threat of social media backlash against Nintendo to pressure Nintendo into giving them a license
3. SWT gets shut down by Nintendo, and now VGBC is the martyr of the community due to Nintendo. Then the community will rally behind their other events to support them.
It’s pretty straightforward logic. VGBC wins no matter what.
VGBC also knew that Nintendo has never issued a license to any event with the name “Smash” in it, nor have they ever licensed a circuit before. VGBC knew both of these and launched the Smash World Tour anyways.
To recap: SWT Leadership had intimate knowledge that Nintendo was working on an officially licensed circuit with Panda months before launching. They were told to wait for approval but announced anyways, and knowingly did multiple things that has prevented Nintendo from issuing licenses to events before.
Fast forward to 2022, when SWT Leadership said they were having positive talks with Nintendo. I entirely believe they were chatting with Nintendo and I’m sure that Nintendo’s statement saying they evaluated SWT for a partnership is true. And I’m sure Nintendo used very purposeful language when talking to SWT Leadership that things are “possible” because anything is “possible” until the evaluation is complete.
Another note is that SWT Leadership knew roughly how long these sorts of licenses realistically take. Between the time of me speaking to Justin in 2019 to 2021 when Panda’s partnership with Nintendo of America was announced, they knew that the process to get an officially licensed circuit should take at LEAST 3 years. And that is how long an exclusively North America circuit took to get off the ground. Yet they were surprised when they were told a license for a worldwide circuit wasn’t issued… within a year? It doesn’t add up.
As for the SWTC 2022 event cancellation, I do not know why SWT Leadership decided to shut the event down. I know Nintendo corroborated to me on several occasions the same thing they said in their public statement, that they verbally told SWT Leadership that they would take no action to shut down SWTC 2022. And I know Nintendo was genuinely surprised behind closed doors when they found out what SWT Leadership did to their own event. I have no doubts in my mind that Nintendo is telling the truth about what they verbally told SWT Leadership.
I’ve been recently informed that the main hotel in San Antonio listed in the SWT discord did not have any pre-existing block or any expectation of large groups this weekend. There was no block canceled, it simply never existed.
Here is a big question for you: Why now? Why did they NEED and apply for a Nintendo license specifically for SWTC 2022? The SWT leadership team ran quite a few events in 2021, including their championship, without a license. VGBC has run several Glitch events, Double Down, Apex, and Pound, all in 2022 without a license for any of them. So why does their $250,000 prize pool event (with a single sponsor in the middle of cutbacks), that ran unlicensed last year, need a Nintendo license this year? I know sponsors value a Nintendo license highly, and by getting more sponsors, events become more financially sustainable.
Since they were in communication with Nintendo and were verbally told SWTC 2022 could continue, if they were confused with the mixed messages from the email vs verbal conversation, then… why didn’t they just ask for clarification? Just, shoot an email back. Nintendo reps work hard, I guarantee you they’d read and respond to the email over the holiday weekend, as they have for others. I promise you that they would’ve reiterated that while they could not officially approve of the event or issue a license, that they would not take action against it.
I’d like to post a statement here given all of this evidence I’ve linked together: SWT Leadership, Justin and VGBC, absolutely knew from the beginning there was a snowball’s chance of getting a license agreement and from the moment they launched SWT in 2020 they were prepared to get shut down. There are far too many inconsistencies for their statement and their total surprise to be accurate, given the knowledge they had beforehand.
I do not know if they ever planned to run SWTC 2022. I do not know how they were paying for it, or what revenue they expected to make back on it to make the expenses worth it. I am making no claims that they did not intend on running SWTC 2022, I am simply pointing out their own words and available information for the many, many different inconsistencies behind the curtain.
One question for you Gimr: Is partnering with Nintendo really that important to you? You sacrificed PM, now your championship event, and you want to keep trying?
To the public:
You were lied to and your goodwill is being both weaponized and abused.
SWT Leadership juxtaposed their entire relationship with Nintendo against actions they claim I took. Actions, which by the way, are completely irrelevant to them getting shut down or Nintendo’s behavior. How is me telling TOs that SWT would most likely NOT receive a license agreement prove any sort of action undermining SWT’s relationship with Nintendo? How did hundreds of thousands of people make my life a living hell for a week over a false equivalency.
Let me say this here for the 3rd time:
Both Panda and I as the former CEO have done absolutely nothing to harm SWT in any way, nor sabotage any SWT business efforts, license efforts, or otherwise. Period.
From the April 14th, 2022 screenshot shared at the top of this document:
I’ve defended VGBC behind closed doors more times than I can count. I’ve done entire impromptu presentations to Nintendo about VGBC’s importance to the community, their history in the scene, and the good things they’ve done. Explaining that they’re worth working with.
When people told me about the terrible things the VGBC team were saying behind my back about me throughout the year, I looked at those people and told them I have no ill will towards anyone at VGBC or SWT. I considered Justin, Gimr, and Aposl, equal peers and hoped to work together in the future. I even had been asking Nintendo for months to please consider issuing a license to VGBC.
I told a countless number of people that we didn’t feel SWT was a competitor to the Panda Cup. SWT had their own product (which was fantastic, I would always add) and we have a completely different one. They’re doing their own thing and we’re doing ours, and that I wished them the best of luck. This became one of my set phrases I repeated meeting after meeting.
The “exclusivity” of the Panda Cup was because Nintendo originally couldn’t license events that were on an unlicensed circuit, and that we could only work with licensed events. We were able to get this rule lifted 6 weeks into the original Panda Cup negotiations, and events on SWT were able to receive a license agreement.
Our players asked if it’s okay for them to go to SWT events, and we encouraged them to go. Our own player won SWTC 2021! Why would I WANT it canceled? I even encouraged some EVENTS to join SWT because it might help their attendance. I thought SWT was great for the community and did things that the Panda Cup, a North American circuit, COULDN’T do. Plus the storylines of the SWTC and Finale ending the year out back to back? Burnout aside, that was going to be HYPE.
In terms of having prior knowledge of SWTC 2022’s shutdown: We MOVED our Finale, to the weekend before Christmas (a historically TERRIBLE date for travel and events) because SWT took our Finale date after we placed a hold for the date on the Smash calendar. We moved for them. If we really went to shut them down, knowing for sure that there would be no SWTC 2022, then why would we move to a worse date? It doesn’t make sense.
Hey [Redacted]
Lots of feedback on this! We still would like to prioritize pursuing a setup where the Sunday finals are in the theater or arena.
Please note that December is currently a mess for dates. Beyond the Summit has changed the date for Mainstage to the first weekend of December and now the second weekend of December has the SWT Championships event
think we should pursue the 3rd weekend of December.
[Redacted]
I see. So we were on weeks 1 and 3, BTS asked us to swap 1 with 2, we get moved to 2 without confirming, then SWT tries to book over both weeks 1 and 2, and in the end gets 2, again without us confirming. So we end with 3
[Redacted]
If someone mentions the finals date, “well considering we booked first and both BTS and VGBC scheduled over us with no repercussions, perhaps we have a bit of a reason why our date might still be up in the air”
[Redacted 1]
OK
So we had a Panda Invitational no date given for a long time.
BTS asked for December weekend 2 for Smash Summit in November when we received full details of their 2022 roadmap.
On December 11, Panda booked weekend 3. Panda booked weekend 1 on January 14.
The World Tour booked weekends 1 and 2 on January 21. We smell trouble and try to get all three parties to deconflict December.
Smash Summit and Mainstage move to their present slots on February 9 to resolve the Miami conflict. SWT goes down to one weekend, weekend 2. [Redacted] was a bit confused as to whether you still had two events but figured it out.
[Redacted 2] [Date] 11:58PM
I do not know why Mainstage was in on December.
[Redacted] would as he handled part of it.
[Redacted 1] [Date] 12:00AM The question here is probably “why did Mainstage need that weekend”? I assume it is a venue issue
Now in terms of motive: We have known since day 1 that the biggest risk to the Panda Cup would be if the SWT gets shut down. We’ve known if that ever happened then Panda would be caught in the explosion as a bystander, simply due to our partnership with Nintendo. Panda Cup has had incredible momentum this year with 5 major sponsors in 5 months, nearly every major NA Smash tournament joining the circuit from the time we launched, and successful metrics all around.
With everything going this well for us, then why would I want SWT to be shut down when I knew that would be the biggest risk and harm to the Panda Cup.
Again, it makes no sense.
I do not have any theories as to why SWT’s Leadership team decided to drag ME personally in their statement. I do not know why they tried to create a false equivalency to convince the public I had anything to do with their situation. I do not know why they gave a massive platform to lies, rumors, hearsay, misunderstandings, or misconstrued statements about me. I do not know if they think I actually had anything to do with their denial of license (though I sincerely doubt they do). And I do not know why everyone believed them.
One thing I do know is: The SWT leadership team stood to gain the most out of anyone by tarnishing Panda’s reputation and dragging the Panda Cup down.
To SWT Leadership: Justin, Gimr, and Aposl:
You and your team have without a doubt played a critical role in the development and growth of the Smash community over the years. No one can ever take that away from you. But you have caused damage to hundreds of people in or associated with Panda, damage to me, damage to your own people, extreme harassment of my family and friends without any SHRED of remorse… To parties COMPLETELY irrelevant to what happened. This is the last thing I have to say to you, likely for the rest of our lives: You do not and will never deserve the position of community dominance that you keep clawing for.
I hope it was worth it to you.
Beyond the Summit
Sidebar: I’ve been told that someone named LD is claiming I said things. I don’t know who LD is nor do I care. As far as I’m aware I’ve never talked to them, never seen them, and never met them in my life.
Here is the background of my 2 whole personal interactions this year with BTS, or more specifically with one of the most unsavory individuals I’ve ever had the displeasure of interacting with, Ken Chen aka Hotbid.
In 2022, when we first talked to a few TOs with our packages, the original version 1 design of the Panda Cup backend featured a concept where we would provide unique co-streams of some events, or be the main stream, depending on the event along with the packages we offered. We wanted to start building a channel that can be a destination for purely competitive Smash in the future. Some early TOs said they were in…depending on what BTS said as they already had an arrangement with them. I said no problem! I was confident that I could figure out some sort of win-win solution that helps BTS and us at the same time.
SWT claims that I targeted BTS events that already had deals made, wanting to poach the broadcast rights from BTS. They claimed that I wanted them for free, and directly threatened BTS with Nintendo action if they did not comply. So let’s talk about that.
First of all, it’s not a coincidence that most of the first few events I reached out to had deals with BTS… they were some of the biggest events of the year. Of COURSE they were streaming on BTS. But I didn’t even know who they were with when I first reached out. Here is a screenshot of me asking some of the earliest TOs.
to Aaron, Trey
Hey guys,
Did you say you signed a contract with BTS for LTC and Riptide for 2022?
(Email) Trey March 12, 2022, 12:09PM
Alan,
Yes, I did sign a contract with BTS for Low Tide City 2022, right after you told us there was not going to be a Panda Cup a couple of months ago.
(he is referring to the Omicron surge delaying the Panda Cup to an indeterminate start date)
Onto the initial conversation with BTS where I met with Ken Chen (and in this first meeting he was joined by one other person). I went into the conversation with Ken loaded with ideas, around 4–5, of different ways we could accomplish our goals while collaborating with BTS. Ranging from making a jointly-owned channel where the revenue went to BTS, to doing a side stream where we’d give them ALL the revenue from our channel. We wanted to build a circuit that could be collaborative alongside them wherever they were, and why wouldn’t I? BTS is a pillar of the community and sets new standards for high quality production in Smash all the time. So if we could forge a relationship that accomplished both of our goals then we’d both stand to win. I was doing my best to be cooperative, collaborative, and receptive to their feedback and thoughts. The response I got, unfortunately, was the exact opposite.
I was met with, in the simplest terms, stonewalling by Ken. Rejection after rejection, no other ideas or possibilities brought up. Nothing I could say was possible and there were no alternatives suggested, just Ken raising his voice at me and being mad that I would even DARE to suggest half the things I did. To say the least, it was a frustrating call, but I didn’t give up and still wanted to figure out a way to work with them. Even brainstorming with Nintendo about different variations of working WITH BTS before we had our second call.
Ken: I’ll have to read them and see but sure
Alan: alright I’ll shoot it over. They’re pretty basic catch-all NDAs
Alan: Hey Ken, so I put my head together with Nintendo over the weekend and we’re trying to figure some things out that could work. But they did mention that broadcast rights here are a gray area and wanted to get in touch with you all while they look into it. I shot him your email; anyone else I should send as well?
Ken: no thats great! happy to talk to them
Alan: Also please shoot me over that quote for a remote analyst desk when you have a moment! That would be very helpful. We’re figuring out different ways to possibly work with y’all. Let me know if there are other services BTS provides that we should know about as well, will add it to the list
From SWT’s statement:
Does my conversation with Ken after our first call sound like I was threatening to have Nintendo attack them or get free broadcasting rights? Also as you can see, I directly connected Ken to Nintendo as well. Nintendo is not a weapon I can wield, they take their own actions and are their own company. Why people would think that a multi-trillion dollar global company would jump when I snap my fingers, I have no idea.
Going into the second conversation with Ken, I had some new ideas. One of my ideas required me talking to Twitch, prompting Ken to explode at me for suggesting I would talk to Twitch and I had to reassure him I wouldn’t do that without permission (a promise I kept). Another idea I had was to enter a multi-year agreement where we’d hire BTS to be our official remote analyst desk at every single stream we did in exchange for being able to stream 3 events this year but that too was rejected. Basically, I presented a handful of new ideas that were designed to give BTS additional short and long-term revenue.
I was met with more stonewalling. More obtuseness. More of Ken’s yelling at me.
Between the two calls, a legal issue was flagged by someone else that had (and currently still has) significant implications for the revenue of most major events in the community. And by adamantly refusing to do ANYTHING with any other 3rd party (not just us) in any way, shape or form, Ken would be forcing scrutiny of this legal issue to escalate. I was desperate to make that NOT happen. Escalation is devastating for our entire community. I begged Ken in the middle of the second call, “PLEASE can we figure out SOME way of working together even a LITTLE so we can stop that can of worms from opening.” I was asking him for his help, for his cooperation. Ken’s response? He yelled, “LET IT HAPPEN, LET THE CAN OF WORMS OPEN”, actively embracing the idea of legal trouble that could only end badly for the community. He was openly saying “I dare you” when it wasn’t in my control (which I made clear this was not in my hands). Ken was willing to jeopardize the entire Smash community with reckless abandon and it would have happened had I not figured out how to stop the escalation without him. Given what I’ve seen of his character and heard about his reputation in other communities, this type of behavior from Ken was not unusual.
And let me be crystal clear: I am not expanding on the legal issue because even though I’m leaving, I still don’t want to hurt the community. Smash doesn’t deserve that.
Ya well Ken 100% would rather watch the world burn than give up the cash cow he has
Alan Bunney March 26, 1:34PM
Yup
Ken would essentially cause the world to burn because of what he’s doing.
But we’ll cross that bridge later etc
[Redacted] March 26, 1:36PM
Yep but if that happens its cuz of Ken not us lol
Alan Bunney March 26, 1:36PM
No, it will be because of us
Ken can easily convince events of that with no evidence of such whatsoever
That second call was perhaps one of the most frustrating conversations I’ve had, where every attempt at collaboration or strategizing was met with stonewalling, refusal, or outright hostility. The only time I raised my voice (I think that may have been the first time I’ve done so in a business call) was in this conversation where I yelled something to the effect of, “WHY WON’T YOU WORK WITH ME” (i.e. work to brainstorm a collaborative strategy). I raised my voice at that time, regret doing it, and own up to the fact that I did.
Near the end of that hour and a half call, Ken FINALLY reveals to me that they have already sold sponsorships across primarily BTS streams in 2022 (which I later found out was Papa Johns) and that’s why none of the concepts I put forward worked, because it may impact that sponsor deal. Despite him yelling at me and treating me incredibly poorly for the entire discussion, I actually ended the call by thanking him for his time and for helping me understand his perspective better. The way he ends? “You were kind of hostile.” …I believe I was too shocked to even retort.
Also, SWT Leadership claims that I threatened to shut down BTS’ 2023 operations. I believe they were referring to this particular interaction in that second call that I remember distinctly because of how pedantic and bizarre it was.
Also of note in that second call with Ken, I had come up with the idea of giving them a multi-year deal as the official analyst desk (done remotely) of the Panda Cup. So that every single stream we do, we’d hire them for $40,000 (which I don’t think he let me even tell him the number).
I recall we had an exchange that sounded something like this =
Ken: “Why don’t you offer your deal to events for 2023? It’s stupid good, they’ll all take it. Hell even we’d consider it because it’s so good. Just leave the events in 2022 alone.”
Me: “…We could do that sure but let me clarify something with you. According to you, every event we offer this to in 2023 will sign with us, right?”
Ken: “Right”
Me: “Okay… so in this hypothetical situation if they’ll all sign with us next year, then BTS would be making less revenue in 2023 and possibly 2024 if we keep this up, right?”
Ken: “Yeah”
Me: “So if BTS took a multi-year contract as the analyst desk of the Panda Cup starting in 2022, BTS would make MORE MONEY than if they streamed every event in 2022.”
Ken: “Probably yeah”
Me: “So why doesn’t making more money work for you?”
Ken: “Because that’s not what we want”
Following that call with Ken, I brainstormed for days to figure out any way I could prevent escalating that legal issue any further until I finally figured it out: Change everything we’ve been doing up to this point. I worked on incorporating feedback from TOs and BTS, and spent a full 2 weeks completely re-organizing the back-end of the Panda Cup into version 2, doing financial modeling, getting approvals, and iterating on it. This completely new system was designed for 2 main purposes:
- To allow an option for events to have as much freedom as possible, which was a common thread in our early conversations with TOs.
— To not interfere with or harm existing business relationships with BTS.
And now that I figured out how to avoid harming BTS or overlapping with them in any way, I was able to successfully stop the legal issue from escalating by stepping around them. The legal issue is still there, just won’t be the center of attention for a long time (or ever) hopefully. Plus the added bonus was that the new version fit even easier into the current Smash ecosystem. So I wanted to invite BTS’ Mainstage onto the Panda Cup and to take that opportunity to apologize for the second call being so rough, to give any additional clarity for my words, and to show them how we redesigned the Panda Cup based on their feedback in the calls. I believe I made at least 4 attempts to reach out to various members of BTS in order to have that discussion. I did not hear back from them.
Alan: Hey Ken, just finished figuring out some stuff on our end today and looks like Mainstage may be possible for the Panda Cup now! Let me know if you’d be interested in having a conversation about what that could look like and I’ll shoot you out all the detailed documentation for you to read over, would be great to have you all on board
(Twitter) Ken Chen April 14, 2022, 12:22PM
Alan: Hey Ken, just wanted to check back up on this! I know we’d love to work with you guys in some capacity and the Minor Package was designed to hopefully allow complete freedom on your end with minimal intervention on our end (plus still helping financially!) for the best of both worlds. Let me know if you have any interest, Mainstage being the final event on the Panda Cup this year would be really cool! Both [Redacted] and I feel that way at least! :)
Mikey: Hi, sorry about the calendar mixup we had a conversation with Cagt today and let him know that the date swap scenario was what would work best for us, but it seems like we each believed that the other had talked to you guys about it? lol
Just wanted to clarify whether that was still an option for you.
Alan (February 10, 2022, 12:42AM): LOL I figured some wires got crossed. It’s most certainly an option on the table for us while we explore more potential venues, and I’ll emphasize not taking the first weekend. Will do my best!
Alan (August 23, 2022, 8:34PM): Hey Mikey! Long time since we last chatted :). Hope you’re the right person to go to about this since I’ve seen you super active in the community about BTS Smash events recently. We’ve been SUPER hard at work with Nintendo to open things up for the Panda Cup to be as simple and seamless as possible for events to join the circuit quickly and easily without all the hassle from before. Now that things are much more straightforward, we were hoping to see if BTS would be open to Mainstage joining the Panda Cup! Would love to have a chat to go over what that entails if you have the time! Like I said its a super easy process now and I think we have ample time to help y’all promote the heck out of it :)
Alan: (August 24, 2022, 3:44PM): (BTW so sorry I sent this yesterday I had no idea summit voting was ending 😓)
Alan (September 20, 2022, 10:48AM): Hey Mikey! Amazing work with Summit last weekend, was a great show! Just wanted to bump this up, would love to work with y’all for this year or even next!
Here are some screenshots of me discussing the 2nd call with Ken with a colleague:
BTS concerns are:
Any sort of deal where they aren’t the main stream is a no (I offered a multi year 3rd party production deal with them even and they straight said no they don’t want the money)
They would “not sell us the rebroadcast rights” because there is no way our broadcast could be made so differently as to be a different product than the BTS main stream. They only sell rebroadcast rights to streams that won’t compete with theirs like alternative language or streamers like ludwig.
BTS has an “overarching strategy” with the Smash community that is incongruous with any strategy we put forward. There is no deal we can make with them that will make them happy unless they are the stream for these events in 2022. They also refuse to discuss hypothetical situations.
They also don’t care what happens in 2023.
Note though, we did end up working with BTS multiple times this year. For example, at a Panda Cup event where Panda was in charge of the broadcast, we completed their sponsor deliverables for Papa Johns to ensure the sponsorship was executed correctly. The broadcast team did everything they needed for the event to get paid in full.
To Beyond The Summit:
While my intention had no malice or ill-intent in my conversation with Ken, perception is what truly matters. I will own up to that publicly and I truly apologize to the BTS staff (except Ken) that my conversation with Ken was perceived in the manner it was. I wish you accepted any of my multiple attempts to make peace, explain myself, or apologize but I hope you now understand that I have not now nor ever had any intent of harming you or “siccing” Nintendo on you.
Additionally, after we heard some wild rumors spreading from my 1 on 1 conversation with Ken, we did everything we could to dispel the rumors and we internally decided to always speak with TOs in groups of 3 to make sure we can corroborate anything said in case of misconceptions or misunderstandings. That has been our procedure for the last 4–5 months now.
However let me also say this publically: Along with SWT, BTS stands to gain quite a bit by taking Panda and the Panda Cup down, especially after you lost your contract with DOTA. Many major events in 2023 that are normally streaming on BTS have already confirmed to us that they’d stream on Panda’s channels because the package we offered was better for them with up-front guaranteed sponsorships. A position we were pushed into by Ken’s refusal to collaborate or work together from day 1. BTS was standing to lose a lot of money next year from community streams, and you knew that. Plus with Panda’s sales team landing deals in every major category, you wouldn’t be able to sell against events again next year because the categories will have been filled first. Don’t pretend for a second like you are a casual outside observer of the whole situation.
One more thing:
I looked the other way when I heard Ken was trying to get TOs to turn on us.
I turned the other cheek when I found out BTS was threatening to pull Papa John’s sponsorship from events that worked with us. A Papa John’s sponsorship which, by the way, Nintendo never had any issues with.
And despite ALL of that, I was STILL trying to work with you, extending olive branch after olive branch. And for what? For BTS’s current leadership— who again I have never met or spoken to — publicly condemning me and speaking in terms like they were personally involved. You could’ve had a single, civilized, adult conversation with me.
And Ken? Even though he’s no longer with BTS, he’s still trying to poison the well from afar. I’ve been told he tweeted that Panda’s NDAs are about real estate and don’t provide any protection. Turns out, after double checking specifically Ken’s NDA with multiple lawyers, he just didn’t read past the first line. The NDA is standard, perfectly normal, and legally sound. Ken has been encouraging people to violate a solid NDA, without harming himself in any way. Encouraging people to break NDA is irresponsible and reckless.
It is a generally over road NDA that deals with real property as well as IP and other intangible property, the definition of what confidential information includes is:
“Confidential Information specifically includes any information labeled “confidential” or otherwise placed in a file share and/or data room controlled and maintained by Disclosing Party (or Disclosing Party’s Agents) and to which Receiving Party is granted access. Confidential Information further includes, without limitations, corporate organizational and governance documents; professional service, employment, vendor, independent contractor, and other contracts; taxes and tax information, rental histories, owner and/or prior tenants, rates and agreements; Identity of referral sources, computer programs and files, devices, methods, techniques, protocols, policies, procedures, job descriptions, know-how, research and development; business data (includes cost data and profit and loss data); strategies, methods, prospects, plans and opportunities, past and present employee, contractor, customer, vendor, and vendor lists, marketing and/or development plans, specifications, financial information, environmental assessments and/or reports, studies, and/or analysis, site plans, surveys, title reports, intellectual property, products and services owned or provided by Disclosing Party, information concerning this nature, mode, methods, processes, and aspects of the services Disclosing Party provides, contact information, identities; Communications that are of a confidential, private, or proprietary nature, including correspondence with owners, attorneys, accountants, agents, suppliers, manufactures, developers, contractors, sales representatives, government agencies and departments; and any other information, tangible or intangible provided by Disclosing Party to Receiving Party in contemplation of the Business Relationship.”
Ken has been both publically and privately turning people against Panda for months.
Is it crazy to think that the official competition for a game should be run through a team org, let alone one that is actually competing in the event itself?
Any TO with actual tournament or organizational experience is a better option.
Ken Chen @Hot_Bid Oct 7
regardless of whether there is actual bias, a team org should not have control over the schedule, format, funding, seeding, etc of their own players in the biggest events of the year
no pro league or circuit that cares about competitive integrity (in anything) can justify this
I truly believe the people and staff at BTS are not malicious and all of their misconceptions stem from Ken. In fact I feel like a large number of misconceptions even beyond BTS about my or Panda’s intentions are due to Ken. Nobody I’ve ever met at BTS has misinterpreted my words or have been anything but professional and kind, except Ken, so I am not looking to condemn their staff members whatsoever.
TO “Strong-Arming” and the first 3 weeks.
More than any other time period of the Panda Cup, I’m sure that this is when any misunderstandings could have arisen. When we first got the green light in March 2022 to begin preparation to launch the Panda Cup (when omicron let up), I was beyond excited to finally talk about something I had been working on for 4 years. The same day we got approval I set meetings with the first few TOs thinking they would see me, and Panda, as a collaborative partner and as an ally of the community. As a cooperator looking out for their best interest. I thought our track record spoke for itself.
This was not the case. TOs by nature are a careful bunch and many of them have been burned by others before, so it turns out they’re constantly looking behind themselves for an ambush even when there isn’t one coming.
Things were moving fast behind the scenes, I was new to TO negotiations (it’s a specific skill set unique from any other I found out), and I was overly excited to get things going. I know my intent was always to be honest and truthful but with things changing so quickly, my passion overflowing, I may have given off the wrong impression to a handful in those early talks. For example, I heard at one point that when I made changes to my pitch based on feedback given to me by TO 1, and then talked to TO 2, TO 1 found out and felt I had lied to them… because I didn’t have time yet to update them on the changes I made for them!
After those first 3 weeks I slowed down with the help of some of our staff members, and I started figuring out how to approach TOs in a more clear and concise manner that (I hope) made it way harder to have any misunderstandings or miscommunications. Due to the fluctuant nature of things back then, I promised these early TOs that I would back up my commitments with my personal finances so that even if things didn’t pan out the way I said they would, I would do right by them. I’ve even said the same thing to our internal teams (and I’ve put my own personal funds into our hardware division on multiple occasions this year alone to keep the lights on). I did everything I could to reassure the TOs that I AM looking out for their best interest. That there is NO ambush behind them. That Panda is for real.
I didn’t receive any feedback from TOs, directly or to my staff at that time, that I did or said things that made them uncomfortable. In fact, the feedback that I received was glowingly positive so I figured everything was going well. For every single discussion with TOs for 2023, I had 2 other team members along with me to listen in and help me, even sending me messages mid-meeting to make sure I clarify things so there was no confusion. I went back and asked those team members again over the last few days and they reiterated to me that they never once heard me say anything that could be misconstrued as threats or strong-arming.
In conversations for 2023 not a single TO we reached out to said they would not want to talk or listen to us. In fact, of our early negotiations only 2 out of 14 events we spoke to declined joining us after the initial pitch. Every TO we’ve talked with has been polite and straightforward.
To the TOs:
If I did do something to you where I seemed to be mean, threatening, strong-arming, or otherwise seemingly out to hurt your event, I implore you to please let me know (by email since I’m not using Twitter anymore) what I said or did to make you feel that way. I want to know how I screwed up so I can never do that again in whatever I explore after this. I do not understand how I could have caused that impression when I tried my best to be professional, honest, and straightforward in my interactions with each one of you and I had no indication from any of our interactions that this was the case. I truly believe that if there are TOs out there that do feel this way that it’s a misunderstanding and I hope even though I’m no longer involved with Panda that I can at least clarify those interactions for you to clear my own conscience.
So how do I prove I didn’t strongarm or threaten events that didn’t want to join us?
Well, here is a dump of screenshots to show you examples of my interactions with TOs that declined joining the Panda Cup this year and some that accepted so you can have a perspective of my conduct and communications. I am including these to show that I have been active in correcting possible miscommunication long before any of this was made publicly available.
Shi (TO of Shine): https://imgur.com/a/GFcR8yJ
Aaron (TO of Riptide): https://imgur.com/a/jpD2N1S
TO of Collision:
Sheridan and Boback (TO’s of Genesis):
Here’s another email I sent to a Riptide’s TO who politely declined to join us this year, note the line where I say “and if you choose not to opt-in this year that’s okay. I’d love to know if we were missing anything crucial or if there is anything we can enhance for next year to further support your event’s future continued success.”
Here is an internal message I sent to my staff members (“who” = events) where I reassure them that it’s fine if events don’t want to join us because we can’t sweeten the deal enough for them (the carrots).
Also, SWT Leadership claims that I was trying to monopolize license agreements. Easily disproved, there were at least 4 Nintendo licensed tournaments that did not go through us to obtain the license agreements this year and were NOT on the Panda Cup. Genesis, Low Tide City, Shine, and Riptide. The TOs told us about their licensing themselves. In fact, Genesis has been licensed for every one of their events since Genesis 3 in 2016.
One more claim to disprove, that I prevented TOs from contacting Nintendo. Here is an email of me connecting two TOs directly to Nintendo. Both of those events ended up going on to get license agreements but were not on the Panda Cup 2022.
Here is another email I sent to Nintendo regarding the status of events in our pre-launch negotiations. The claim that I had to “threaten” events to join doesn’t make sense when we ended up doing far better than anticipated in our first year. And also shows that there was never any request made of Nintendo to take down events that said no, they were on board with what events joined or did not join.
One final point towards a lack of motive to threaten events. The offer we gave most events was really good. They saved TONS of money for infrastructure, had their broadcasts upgraded, casters paid for, sponsors brought on, etc. Off the top of my head we spent over $90,000 supporting one event and $50,000 on another. We sent staff to help them with setup and tear down, film interviews with their attendees to put a face to the event, and much more. There were some bumps along the way while we figured out our footing, hence why the deal was so good, but they were minor and we executed well. There’s no reason to threaten someone to take a deal like that. It just doesn’t make sense.
In my talks with TOs, I’ve reiterated many, many times to them that Panda does not want “the full pie.” We want “10% of a much, much bigger pie” where we ALL end up with more pie than otherwise. Everyone gets to eat more and that’s what Panda is all about. I’ve said this in more conversations than I can count.
I will maintain, again, that I did not strong-arm, threaten, or otherwise try to pressure events to join us, and that any perception otherwise is a misunderstanding that I would love to have the chance to clarify with the involved parties.
Nintendo
A big question we got all the time is “What is Nintendo providing that makes this partnership worth it?” Nintendo supports events in different ways, every way about helping them save money and become more stable. Commentary support, setups, production at times, staffing, shipping, etc. I’ve seen Nintendo spend more money on the Smash community (to help save events money) this year than any other organization in the world outside of the Panda Cup. Every penny they spend is towards the community. They can’t help every event but they truly tried their best to help prop them up. Anyone who thinks Nintendo only gave their blessing or gave us a license and a thumbs up has no idea how much they’ve done behind the scenes.
Working with Nintendo is challenging. They have high standards for their partners and care deeply about how their IPs are used. There’s a lot of red tape to navigate, even for people used to red tape. The design of the Panda Cup was to help simplify that process and made it MUCH easier for events to obtain licenses (with or without Panda) within a reasonable timeframe.
Every single competitive video game in the world that is the size of Smash has publisher regulations in order to do major commercial activity, and that’s a fact. Smash just never really had meaningful, major commercial activity in it. And that’s part of the problem. Because if Smash never has that major commercial activity, then it’ll never be able to sustain full time careers for more than a handful of people. The community would continue to see the most passionate and the most talented people leave to pursue jobs where they can actually raise a family or make a long term career. But the worry is that if Smash had publisher regulations and commercial licensing without proper community oversight, then we risk losing the identity of the Smash community, which wouldn’t be worth it in the end.
So this became the cornerstone of the Panda Cup. We’d take the red tape, the corporate limitations, the months and years of approvals… In exchange for the rest of the community having freedom. Keeping their identity while being able to do major commercial activity. Helping to take events from barely breaking even to profitable, so they can support the dedicated people who make them a reality, and that careers would begin to pop up throughout the community.
We didn’t want the whole pie and never have.
So how much did Nintendo directly pay Panda to do this? $0. How much did Panda pay Nintendo? $0. They supported Panda on the backend, are partners with Panda, and help facilitate the Panda Cup. Despite popular belief that they’d get in the way, they never once said no to a sponsorship opportunity for the Panda Cup. Within 5 months the Cup signed more than $2 million in sponsorships and counting. Every single sponsor said they wouldn’t have come in if Nintendo wasn’t supporting us in the way they were doing. This is year 0. Panda Cup spent all that money on the Panda Cup and Panda Cup Finale event. The Finale was going to go BIG. Panda paid for the LACC and Novo without outside support because we thought the Smash community needed to see what Panda could do for them when things actually worked out. The Finale had hundreds of setups, arcade games, a carnival section, gacha machines and crane games. Completely free to enter. A Finale that Panda had to postpone because of death threats to our staff and even contractors, player boycotts, and dropouts, all thanks to the lies from BTS and the SWT Leadership team.
People have been questioning the value of everything we’ve done this year, so here it is, now I laid it all out for you.
Conclusion
I’ve been part of the Smash community since 2007. I’ve served as a volunteer moderator for the original boards, a backroom member helping discuss rulesets, a TO, a commentator, an event organizer, a community leader, and many other roles over the years. Even when I supposedly “retired” from Smash when I went to graduate school, I found myself returning after I finished, going to my local tournaments straight out of work still in my work clothes. The foundation of Panda was for the goal of helping those around us, treating people fairly, and growing the community that I’ve been proud to be a part of for so many years.
Over these last 9 years, I’ve worked incredibly hard to make a company with the goal of creating career opportunities in the space where there were none before. To allow people to go full-time to support Smash and fighting games, to pour their passions into a sustainable, long-term effort. I made sure that any success that Panda had seen, any investment we’ve ever received, and every time we’ve done something great, the end result was the same: Put all of it back into the community.
I remember reading a funny tweet once that said the esports industry is a losing racket and the only respect-worthy people are the ones that take VC money and give it to their homies. I laughed mostly because it made me realize I built a company that never took VC money yet still poured millions of dollars into the homies and was sustainable. Supporting everyone that worked incredibly hard that I will always be grateful to have called my team and my friends. I’m pretty proud of that.
But now the mob mentality has dragged me down to the point that even my closest friends can’t defend me publicly without backlash.
If you skipped to the end, please don’t, but since you are here:
- I’m no longer the CEO of Panda. Thanks to lies, falsehoods, and bandwagon character attacks. My life and the lives of my family are at risk. My team was harassed to the point of resigning, many in tears, and they may never have a chance to pursue a full time career in Smash again.
- SWT Leadership organized and coordinated a lie about the circumstances surrounding their status of license agreement, making up a villain to blame it all on and come out as the heroes on top. Past and present BTS leadership chose to corroborate it publicly for unknown reasons but definitely benefit from it as well.
- A former BTS Leader took every opportunity to stonewall and obfuscate any efforts to come to an agreement, going so far as to dare legal action (not by Panda or me) that would harm the community, on top of even threatening to revoke sponsorships from events that considered working with the Panda Cup. In spite of this I still tried to make every effort to work with BTS.
- The goal of the Panda Cup was always about growing the entire Smash community and was never about my personal aspirations. Our model always shared revenue with everyone even outside of Panda including events, casters, players, production, staffing, and more.
98% of the staff of Panda were people from the Smash and fighting game communities. A monolith of our scenes that truly and honestly had the best interest of the community at heart. Born from grassroots yet professional and elevated in output. And that very same community tore it down in a matter of days. This cannot be who the Smash community becomes. Regardless of what my statement says, I do not want the same thing to happen to BTS, to VGBC, or to anyone. Please do not harass any groups, do not dox anyone, and do not attack whomever you perceive to be the villain of the hour. Smash has to change. Smash has to be better than this.
I’ve given almost 9 years of my life to serving this community. I’ve dedicated thousands of hours, worked every weekend, put aside starting a family, and stepped away from a successful career that took 10 years to achieve. I think my longest real vacation in 9 years was 1 week. And over those 9 years of Panda, I have never paid myself or taken a dime. Just to make Smash into a stable, growing, community and a Tier 1 esport. I truly believed in it.
Money isn’t why I did this. I started Panda and became a CEO for only one reason: Give players careers in a field they’re truly passionate about. And I’m proud to say I did that.
But now I’m the villain. The greedy corporate pig that wants to line his own pockets. The enemy of the community that I’ve sacrificed some of the best years of my life for. I’m so evil now that people are attacking my very home. I was able to create dozens of full time jobs in one of the smallest niches of competitive gaming, an accomplishment only Panda has achieved at that scale. And despite that, I spent the weekend telling my friends and family to call the police to increase patrols at their homes.
All over lies, false character attacks, and a concerted harassment campaign started from people who directly profit by destroying the careers of over a hundred people from their own community.
This community was my life. Its success is all I’ve ever wanted. I can sleep soundly at night knowing that I spent the last 9 years doing everything in my power to help, not hurt, those around me. But I cannot stand by while bad-faith actors continue to poison the well and celebrate the destruction of what the Panda team has worked on for years. If I can’t do it, I trust the people after me to do it. The incredible members of Panda and the greater Smash community who love this more than life itself. The future is in your hands.
Keep Going.
