Nintendo of Europe has recently caused a bit of commotion, allegedly leaving many countries out of what is intended to be a tournament for the entire European region.
Nintendo’s European branch recently revealed plans for a Splatoon 2 tournament that is set to begin on January 13. One Russian Nintendo fan posted on Reddit saying that their country, which is in fact a country found in Europe, was excluded from the tournament. They also said that any questions that were asked about Russia or other countries being excluded from the tournament were deleted from Nintendo of Europe’s Discord chat room.
This appears to be a misunderstanding rather than NOE intentionally excluding countries from participating. The problem lies within the registration form: while countries such as Spain, United Kingdom, Denmark and Finland are represented, other prominent European countries such as Russia are not listed, hence the concern.
Nintendo of Europe eventually had to ease concerned players on Twitter, saying that people from those countries could still play in the tournament, but would have to put “Other European country” as their place of residence.
Tournaments are open to all European players! If your country isn’t listed in the registration form yet, please use “Other European countries” for now.
— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) January 9, 2019
Nintendo’s Russian branch does appear to have issues that other branches don’t. Nintendo games do get released in the country, but often don’t get a Russian translation, and the ones that do end up getting translated were due to an ex-PR manager who has since left the company.
Problems also seem to lie with Nintendo of Russia’s CEO Yasha Haddaji. A livestream event from last year was plagued with issues, a lot of them due to Haddaji going off during Mario Kart 8 Deluxe gameplay, audibly screaming and using expletives while streamers were attempting to play. They tried to cover their microphones so the expletives wouldn’t be heard, but it didn’t work.
The Reddit post concerning the European tournament indicated that Nintendo of Europe was investigating the matter, but have yet to take action.
