Dr. Alan Bunney, the CEO of esports company Panda Global, has announced his resignation. This is yet another plot twist in the Smash Bros. esports tournament controversy that's been brewing since last week. To catch you up, a few days ago, Smash World Tour, one of the biggest Smash tournaments – with a $250,000 prize pool, announced that Nintendo had pulled their license without warning, just over a week before the tournament. Nintendo then put out a statement insinuating SWT didn't meet the “high standards” it requires from its partners.

Panda Global has released a statement confirming that Alan Bunney is no longer CEO. An Interim Management Committee will be formed to run the company for the time being, and the Panda Cup Finale has been postponed for security reasons.

SWT also claimed that this whole ordeal was somehow caused by rival organiser, Panda Global. The latest development sees Bunney Tweeting that he has resigned from his post, but it doesn't look like he'll be going quietly. "I've stepped down as CEO of Panda to protect the safety and wellbeing of the team," he Tweeted. "My statement (with evidence) is coming." Attached with this is an image with two sentences on it - "SWT lied" and "BTS leadership put the community in jeopardy".

It's still unclear why Bunney has resigned, considering that SWT has provided no public evidence against him influencing Nintendo, and even the company itself saying so. But it seems like there's clearly some sort of controversy afoot, as there's no other reason why he would have resigned.

I've stepped down as CEO of Panda to protect the safety and wellbeing of the team.

My statement (with evidence) is coming. pic.twitter.com/LkousPo183

— Panda | Dr Alan (@DrAlanB) December 5, 2022

SWT's allegations against Panda, according to its original statement: "we quickly found that many organizers were concerned about joining up in 2022. They told us that they had been told by Alan, the CEO and co-founder of Panda, that we were going to get shut down and were not coming back in 2022."

As for Bunney's "evidence", he has claimed that SWT has lied, but hasn't mentioned which part it lied about. From all the gathered statements, he could possibly mean that SWT has lied about the whole controversy to begin with, blaming Nintendo and Panda to shake off any shortcomings of its own.

It's still unclear how the Beyond the Summit leadership has "put the community in jeopardy"; but the leadership reportedly also corroborated the allegations against Bunney.

This story is still developing, and we'll update you as it unfolds.



Posted: Dec 08, 2022 7:30 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/panda-ceo-alan-bunney-resigns-smash-bros-controversy/