After a few months of speculation after RTA in Japan, Japan’s biggest speedrunning charity event, announced it would skip Nintendo games at this year’s event, we finally have an actual explanation.
Finally opening up about this on RTA in Japan’s website (via Automaton), the decision was made because the charity is now a legal entity and has been since 2020. Now that it’s a legal entity, though, Nintendo is demanding advanced notice and should it use any game made by the Big N, it would be seen as “unauthorized use.”
From now on, the non-profit will have to be sending requests for each game it wants to feature at its event. Unfortunately, it simply couldn’t be done in time for this year’s RTA in Japan event, so it simply has to do without Nintendo games. We’re sure it’ll still be a massive success, as it has a slurry of other games like Cuphead, Minecraft, Inscryption, 2024’s Silent Hill 2, and more pegged for the show.
Needless to say, though, for future years, it will request to use games in an authorized manner. This was just a bit sudden, so it didn’t have time to formally request anything.