Hungrybox Defends Controversial Coinbox Cancellation

Juan 'Hungrybox' Debiedma has come out in defense of his statements regarding the future of Coinbox Melee. 

The Coinbox is a weekly online tournament sponsored by Coinbase, a Cryptocurrency outfit, which features Smash Bros. Ultimate and Smash Bros. Melee. Hungrybox announced this in 2022 which was exciting as it was a weekly tournament that had money on the line making it very popular amongst Smash Fans. 

However, ever since the announcement of Nintendo's new Community Guidelines, questions have surfaced about the viability of The Coinbox tournament and if it would be able to continue. Hungrybox was very vocal about his worries regarding Nintendo's new stance on the use of their game in tournament. 

In a series of tweets, Hungrybox explained that he was a little more optimistic after talking to several TOs who have worked with Nintendo and have said that the new guidelines are actually a good thing that would make the procurement of licenses easier. 

At the end of the thread, Hungrybox stated that while it saddened him, if Nintendo were to get in touch and he could get The Coinbox licensed, he might need to discontinue The Coinbox Melee tournament which uses a modded version of the game which would be a violation of Nintendo's policy. 

This drew some criticism from fans worried about the future of competitive Melee. 

Hungrybox hit back at the comments stating that he had already done a lot for the Melee community and the game in general. He explained that he would rather keep one thing going than lose it all, and would prefer to avoid legal trouble for him and his team. 

He also urged patience as we are not sure of all the details currently. 

Alex Jebailey of CEO Gaming had also stressed patience and even released a video explaining why he doesn't worry too much about the new guidelines as it helps to legitimize many Smash tournaments which have been running unlicensed so far. 

By next month things will become clearer as organizations will begin to make applications to Nintendo for the rights to host Smash tournaments in 2024, by which time we should have more information