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Discussion If there had been a new ballot for Ultimate, how different would some of the picks have been?

Benzychenz

Benzychenz

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With Sora being the winner of the Smash 4 ballot, and the Ultimate roster as a whole seemingly adding in these popular characters that likely ranked high, I’m curious as to how the popular picks would have changed in a new vote a few years later.

The big one for me is Crash Bandicoot. For the original ballot his series was completely dead, he was an irrelevant character. Now though? Alive and well, I think he’d make an easy top 10 spot.
 
Waluigi for sure.
But meme pick aside leon s kennedy. Resident Evil is pretty big still and no rep for any character yet.
 
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I voted for Steve and he got in, I guess I would vote for Ariana Grande or Katy Perry now, not sure yet
 
I think Waluigi and maybe Crash would have changed, but otherwise I don't think things have changed that much since the Smash 4 era. Sora would probably still be number 1 now.

I think there are a handful of characters that are less requested now, though. Geno, Skull Kid, and Isaac used to all be big picks back in the Brawl and early Smash 4 days. Now, not so much. Seems these didn't make it in regardless though, but I'd be curious to see where they stood on the Smash 4 poll.
 
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What I don't understand is Sakurai referenced that poll at the end of the DLC for Smash Wii U, when Bayonetta was the winner across all three regions (I voted for Bayo, so it's been gravy with every new fighter in Smash Ultimate since)

So was it Bayo or Sora that was the real winner?
 
Brofield said:
What I don't understand is Sakurai referenced that poll at the end of the DLC for Smash Wii U, when Bayonetta was the winner across all three regions (I voted for Bayo, so it's been gravy with every new fighter in Smash Ultimate since)

So was it Bayo or Sora that was the real winner?
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She wasn't the overall winner, but she placed in the top 5 in the US, is my understanding.
 
I dont think the ballot wouldve changed too much if held today in terms of new game releases, because there aren't a lot of brand new characters you hear suggested for Smash aside from a few like Jonesy/Fortnite.

The biggest difference would just be that the most popular character choices are now in Smash between Ultimate's newcomer lineup and adding back all the missing veterans. So people who voted for the top characters would have a chance to redistribute their votes.

It's honestly hard to tell right now who would rank high in a new poll besides some obvious ones that missed the boat like Waluigi. I imagine the results would be really skewed by region this time around. US/Europe would likely skew heavily towards western 3rd parties given that's the source of the biggest industry icons not in Smash(Crash, Master Chief, Doomguy, etc.) whereas given the lack of popularity of most western gaming IP in Japan, their results would be quite a bit different.
 
Brofield said:
What I don't understand is Sakurai referenced that poll at the end of the DLC for Smash Wii U, when Bayonetta was the winner across all three regions (I voted for Bayo, so it's been gravy with every new fighter in Smash Ultimate since)

So was it Bayo or Sora that was the real winner?
Click to expand...

Seems like at the very least Sora was the winner if all ballots were pooled together (so not broken out by region). When Bayonetta was revealed Sakurai made a point of describing her as the top choice amongst the most "realizable" characters. At the time I think many people thought that meant top choice after removing picks like Goku or Spongebob.
 
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Brofield said:
What I don't understand is Sakurai referenced that poll at the end of the DLC for Smash Wii U, when Bayonetta was the winner across all three regions (I voted for Bayo, so it's been gravy with every new fighter in Smash Ultimate since)

So was it Bayo or Sora that was the real winner?
Click to expand...

She was top 5 in NA, #1 in Europe, and the top pick of realizable characters. They never said she got the most votes above everyone and people suspected that there were character voted higher than her but just weren't possible for Smash 4.
 
I voted for Bayo and she got in :). Really wanted to vote for Sora or Banjo but at that time I thought they were impossible. Happy to be proved wrong.

If tomorrow there is a new ballot, I would vote for either Crash or Master Chief, two insane huge popular western picks that would make a more incredible roster than Ultimate is.
 
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Much appreciated for the insight everyone, because I was legitimately confused but I guess all in all it was the truth either way.

Still a shame the results couldn't be shared; I get that companies would have been harassed by gamers just to get their characters in but also I was curious to know the top choices, who were genuine meme votes and which ones had a viable chance outside of Bayonetta.

As for the list itself, I might have seen a few more Rareware suggestions now that Microsoft and Nintendo are playing nice (and maybe Master Chief could have gotten higher up), but I agree it's likely the genuine character votes wouldn't have shifted too much
 
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If Nintendo were to hold a new ballot for the next game, I'm sure these characters would probably have a big glow up from before:

  • Master Chief
  • Doom Slayer
  • Geno
  • Waluigi
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • Dante
Essentially mostly characters that didn't really take off until the Switch/Ultimate era.
 
Dinoman96 said:
If Nintendo were to hold a new ballot for the next game, I'm sure these characters would probably have a big glow up from before:

  • Master Chief
  • Doom Slayer
  • Geno
  • Waluigi
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • Dante
Essentially mostly characters that didn't really take off until the Switch/Ultimate era.
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I agree all of those characters would rank highly except for Geno. I think Geno support at this point is destined to die in a few years in the lull between Ultimate and the next game. Similar to a lot of Brawl-era requests like Isaac, Skull Kid, and Krystal. I think him getting snubbed 3 times in Ultimate DLC for other Square-Enix characters is a defeat he won't come back from.
 
Gartooth said:
I agree all of those characters would rank highly except for Geno. I think Geno support at this point is destined to die in a few years in the lull between Ultimate and the next game. Similar to a lot of Brawl-era requests like Isaac, Skull Kid, and Krystal. I think him getting snubbed 3 times in Ultimate DLC for other Square-Enix characters is a defeat he won't come back from.
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I do agree that Geno is probably gonna go back to where he was during the post-Brawl, pre-Smash 4 Cloud DLC period, (i.e mostly forgotten about except for a few niche fans) but I do think in the very unlikely event Nintendo hosted another ballot for the next Smash game within the next few years, Geno fans would prolly rally together one last time to try to make a difference. Same thing with Isaac.
 
Dinoman96 said:
I do agree that Geno is probably gonna go back to where he was during the post-Brawl, pre-Smash 4 Cloud DLC period, (i.e mostly forgotten about except for a few niche fans) but I do think in the very unlikely event Nintendo hosted another ballot for the next Smash game within the next few years, Geno fans would prolly rally together one last time to try to make a difference. Same thing with Isaac.
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All 7 Geno fans will rally together and have him place #9715 in the results.
 
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Dinoman96 said:
If Nintendo were to hold a new ballot for the next game, I'm sure these characters would probably have a big glow up from before:

  • Master Chief
  • Doom Slayer
  • Geno
  • Waluigi
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • Dante
Essentially mostly characters that didn't really take off until the Switch/Ultimate era.
Click to expand...
Let's make this more interesting and say Nintendo banned all previous Mii fighter costumes. I think the list would be like this:

  • Master Chief
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • 2B
  • Rayman
  • Monster Hunter
  • Phoenix Wright
  • Alphen
  • Arthur Morgan
 
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I think third party picks would place even better (Crash, Dante, Master Chief, etc) while first parties would basically fall off completely. Ultimate already included the remaining fan favorite picks (Ridley, K. Rool, the cut veterans) and also broke basically all the rules when it came to third party inclusions (except for not being from a video game, sorry Goku). The one exception is Waluigi who would get a lot of meme votes.
 
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An Undertale or Deltarune character would probably shoot-up to the top of the ballot if this were repeated with full knowledge of all characters added.
 
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Well Fortnite exists now so I think they'd shoot up. It's really hard to know otherwise though, maybe Among Us would get a huge number of votes?
 
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The Waluigi vote would have been stronger. If the ballot was after the base game came out but before the DLC, you'd probably see some representation from characters that premiered on the Switch. There would be a pretty big campaign in the west for Twintelle.
 
The imposter would have been voted in, this one time :v
 
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Sam Albro said:
The Waluigi vote would have been stronger. If the ballot was after the base game came out but before the DLC, you'd probably see some representation from characters that premiered on the Switch. There would be a pretty big campaign in the west for Twintelle.
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Oh Twintelle is a good shout. It’s definitely possible she would get a big enough vote to get put in over Min-Min.
 
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A reminder of EVERYTHING we know about the results of the Smash 4 Ballot:
  • Bayonetta was 1st in Europe, Top 5 in North America and deemed the #1 Worldwide out of "realisable fighters".
  • Castlevania (as an overall series with all requested characters added up) performed well on the Ballot, hence why Sakurai decided to include one in Ultimate. He specified that while Alucard was the most popular he had to pick a Belmont because the whip is too iconic.
  • King K. Rool was also said to have gotten "a ton of votes" on the Ballot.
  • Ridley, Chrom, Dark Samus and Banjo & Kazooie were said to have been included due to their popularity, though the Ballot wasn't specifically cited.
  • Sakurai said that veterans cut from Smash 4 all placed well on the Ballot.
  • The characters that placed higher than Bayonetta that were deemd unrealisable at the time include "veterans" (Snake being specfiically mentioned) and characters where negotiations fell through; and as we now know...
  • Sora was the true #1 Worldwide; but couldn't be included in Smash 4.
---

As for what the results would look like if one were to happen now? I think characters like Crash, Dante and Doom Slayer would've gotten more votes now than they would've in 2015. Their support campaigns for Smash only started ramping up during Ultimate's DLC season.
 
MondoMega said:
A reminder of EVERYTHING we know about the results of the Smash 4 Ballot:
  • Bayonetta was 1st in Europe, Top 5 in North America and deemed the #1 Worldwide out of "realisable fighters".
  • Castlevania (as an overall series with all requested characters added up) performed well on the Ballot, hence why Sakurai decided to include one in Ultimate. He specified that while Alucard was the most popular he had to pick a Belmont because the whip is too iconic.
  • King K. Rool was also said to have gotten "a ton of votes" on the Ballot.
  • Ridley, Chrom, Dark Samus and Banjo & Kazooie were said to have been included due to their popularity, though the Ballot wasn't specifically cited.
  • Sakurai said that veterans cut from Smash 4 all placed well on the Ballot.
  • The characters that placed higher than Bayonetta that were deemd unrealisable at the time include "veterans" (Snake being specfiically mentioned) and characters where negotiations fell through; and as we now know...
  • Sora was the true #1 Worldwide; but couldn't be included in Smash 4.
---

As for what the results would look like if one were to happen now? I think characters like Crash, Dante and Doom Slayer would've gotten more votes now than they would've in 2015. Their support campaigns for Smash only started ramping up during Ultimate's DLC season.
Click to expand...
To be specific, Sakurai did cite the ballot for Ridley, Simon, and K. Rool.

 
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I imagine Sora will still be number 1 globally as he's one of the few characters with a large presence in every single major region.

Assuming there's not a lot of character splitting, an Undertale/Deltarune rep (probably Sans) would shoot way up to top 15 in at least North America and Japan.

For whatever reason, I could see western games that Japanese streamers/vtubers latched onto like GTA and Apex shooting way up, increasing their chances of getting a rep (though definitely less likely with the former).
 
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I'm guessing Ridley and K. Rool ranked above Bayonetta in NA ballot but were pretty low in the other regions that while realizable, their total votes were less than Bayonetta. In terms of unrealizable characters ahead of Bayonetta, I could see it being Sora, Steve, Banjo and Hero. Cloud was probably high as well but he was already being worked on by the time the ballot closed
 
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Higher chance of a Undertale-adjacent fighter imo. Sora still would've probably been the most requested though.
 
It really depends on when the Smash ballot will take place. Is it after "everyone is here", the whole base roster is revealed, before Fighter Pass 1 or 2 was announced, or now when we all know the entire roster?

If a new ballot is held now for the next Smash Bros, I guess Master Chief, Sans and Crash would be the top vote getters.
 
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I would still vote for Isaac or Felix from Golden Sun. I am also hoping that Nintendo is going to revive the series. 2022 is Golden Sun year. D:?
 
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Honestly I would like to see Nintendo focus on first party stuff. Chasing the hype train for bigger and bigger third party reps is unsustainable, and diminishes Nintendo’s own stable of characters IMO.

If I were to make a ballot, I’d put in fan favs that have been requested since Brawl, so characters like Krystal, Isaac, Dixie Kong, Impa or Midna. Waluigi is a meme now but he is a key missing Mario character. Some less expected choices could be Wart or Birdo, Dillon, Starfy, Takamaru or Mach Rider.

The only third party reps I would really want to see would be Crash and Klonoa, but especially Klonoa since he’s a platformer mascot who has mostly been Nintendo exclusive, and his publisher makes the Smash games now. Would be a nice nod to them for their hard work.
 
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I think Sora won back then because SE released KH games on DS and 3DS so there was hope for a console game, and right now he would probably win again because we are in a post-KH3 world. But if the ballot had been in like 2017-18 I think he would have placed high but not #1

Brofield said:
What I don't understand is Sakurai referenced that poll at the end of the DLC for Smash Wii U, when Bayonetta was the winner across all three regions (I voted for Bayo, so it's been gravy with every new fighter in Smash Ultimate since)

So was it Bayo or Sora that was the real winner?
Click to expand...
The real winners were Gamers™️
 
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I think Sora would have placed at #1 easily still, Sans would have likely been in the game too as an actual fighter. Crash would have had a better chance too I imagine.
 
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Dinoman96 said:
If Nintendo were to hold a new ballot for the next game, I'm sure these characters would probably have a big glow up from before:

  • Master Chief
  • Doom Slayer
  • Geno
  • Waluigi
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • Dante
Essentially mostly characters that didn't really take off until the Switch/Ultimate era.
Click to expand...
Geno? Ultimate era? Anyone who's been into smash speculation has been hearing about this dude for like 2 decades. If anything his support now doesn't compare to his early days, especially since he has actual competition now.
 
Renmazuo said:
Geno? Ultimate era? Anyone who's been into smash speculation has been hearing about this dude for like 2 decades. If anything his support now doesn't compare to his early days, especially since he has actual competition now.
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Well like I said before, Geno's support had mostly sputtered out after Brawl. He and his fans only really came back into the limelight after Sakurai directly acknowledged the character and his popularity back in late 2015/early 2016 (so obviously AFTER the Smash ballot was wrapped up) with the Mii costume + the interview where he said he wanted to make him playable.
 
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I was just saying to someone recently that, the problem with using the Smash Ballot from the Smash 4 days is that, since then, the Yakuza series went from relatively unknown and very niche to one of the most celebrated franchises with wildly froth-mouthed fans looking to talk about it where/whenever they can. I can basically guarantee that Kiryu would have EASILY made top 10 if that poll had been run today.
 
You give me another ballot and I am going with.

  • Skull Kid
  • Dixie Kong
  • Urbosa
  • Impa
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • Spyro
  • Scorpion/Sub-Zero
 
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Derachi said:
I was just saying to someone recently that, the problem with using the Smash Ballot from the Smash 4 days is that, since then, the Yakuza series went from relatively unknown and very niche to one of the most celebrated franchises with wildly froth-mouthed fans looking to talk about it where/whenever they can. I can basically guarantee that Kiryu would have EASILY made top 10 if that poll had been run today.
Click to expand...
In addition to this, the reason Ultimate didn't have a ballot is because smash 4 + ultimate were continuous development, so technically the smash 4 ballot was also an Ultimate ballot. After the success of Ultimate I imagine they will do another for the next brand new smash, or maybe a less chaotic free for all replacement
 
Renmazuo said:
In addition to this, the reason Ultimate didn't have a ballot is because smash 4 + ultimate were continuous development, so technically the smash 4 ballot was also an Ultimate ballot. After the success of Ultimate I imagine they will do another for the next brand new smash, or maybe a less chaotic free for all replacement
Click to expand...

I imagine they would never want to do a ballot again after the first one, haha.
 
Renmazuo said:
After the 25 million sales of ultimate + above average dlc adoption I genuinely don't see why not. It obviously works to some extent.
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Considering that Sakurai outright said he didn't want fans harassing companies to add characters from the ballot I imagine he just doesn't want the hassle. They still have plenty of other ways to accumulate data on who Smash fans want, like Twitter trends.
 
Mekanos said:
Considering that Sakurai outright said he didn't want fans harassing companies to add characters from the ballot I imagine he just doesn't want the hassle. They still have plenty of other ways to accumulate data on who Smash fans want, like Twitter trends.
Click to expand...
I thought he said that in the context of revealing ballot results to the public, not simply having a ballot at all.
Yeah having a ballot is a hassle and all but it seems natural to me that if you want the big numbers you gotta put in some extra effort. They just went through the trouble of getting Sora from Disney after all which was probably more of a headache than the rest of the ballot combined.

Edit: if anything, not having a ballot seems even worse to me if your concern is avoiding harassment? Knowing Nintendo is paying attention to popularity but without offering some sort of avenue to communicate them your opinion, you would try to get your voice heard any way you can. For example, twitter trends like you pointed out. Imagine the flood of pointless smash roster tweets we would get if people felt that was the only way to get your character in the game, by trying to force trends on other sites and by spamming at people. I don't know, a centralized voting system just seems better to me. They could make improvements to it compared to the past iteration sure, but having nothing at all just seems worse all around. The other alternative is stating you won't pay attention to fan requests at all and telling people they shouldn't bother.
 
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Renmazuo said:
I thought he said that in the context of revealing ballot results to the public, not simply having a ballot at all.
Yeah having a ballot is a hassle and all but it seems natural to me that if you want the big numbers you gotta put in some extra effort. They just went through the trouble of getting Sora from Disney after all which was probably more of a headache than the rest of the ballot combined.

Edit: if anything, not having a ballot seems even worse to me if your concern is avoiding harassment? Knowing Nintendo is paying attention to popularity but without offering some sort of avenue to communicate them your opinion, you would try to get your voice heard any way you can. For example, twitter trends like you pointed out. Imagine the flood of pointless smash roster tweets we would get if people felt that was the only way to get your character in the game, by trying to force trends on other sites and by spamming at people. I don't know, a centralized voting system just seems better to me. They could make improvements to it compared to the past iteration sure, but having nothing at all just seems worse all around. The other alternative is stating you won't pay attention to fan requests at all and telling people they shouldn't bother.
Click to expand...
I think either way Nintendo is probably not going to have another public "send us your fighter requests" event. Sakurai mentioned in his book released in 2019 that he does not want to do another Smash Ballot. Now of course that could change, but the ballot data from Smash 4 is probably still good for a while, given that Sora's popularity did not drop in the six years it took him to get him into Smash (if anything the opposite). I think they'll continue to add fan requests but they won't necessarily ask for fans' input on it; Sonic got into Brawl as the most requested character without a formal ballot.
 
Depends when the ballot happened. But if it happened now it'd be mostly the third-party names we've been hearing for the last year or two and Waluigi. First-party would get just about shut out, which wouldn't be the case if we were a little closer to base. But the ATs ran a train on most of the remaining popular first-parties and took them out of the conversation for like three years, which is a rough blow.
 
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The "Master Chief for Smash" demand really started with Halo on Switch rumors that have yet to come to fruition.
 
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Mekanos said:
I think either way Nintendo is probably not going to have another public "send us your fighter requests" event. Sakurai mentioned in his book released in 2019 that he does not want to do another Smash Ballot. Now of course that could change, but the ballot data from Smash 4 is probably still good for a while, given that Sora's popularity did not drop in the six years it took him to get him into Smash (if anything the opposite). I think they'll continue to add fan requests but they won't necessarily ask for fans' input on it; Sonic got into Brawl as the most requested character without a formal ballot.
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I always understood that to mean they weren't doing a ballot for Ultimate because they are still using the current one. Not that they would never do another. Like many people pointed out in this thread many series have become much more popular in recent years, or outright didn't exist before then. And that's only from the games' standpoint, should people who got into Smash with Ultimate just not be heard? Since the ballot happened before they ever got to vote that is. They can't just keep using the old ballot forever.

And yes, back in the brawl days they added Sonic without the need for a formal ballot. But back then the internet was also a much different beast. Nowadays you get infamous incidents like Harada denouncing people spamming him on twitter, even after nintendo outright said the fighters pass was already set in stone and there was no point in asking for new fighters. Now imagine if they didn't give such a warning for the next smash.

The ballot aversion I see on the internet always comes across as really strange to me to be honest. It has been stated on multiple occasions to have contributed significantly to the biggest (and most sold) smash bros to date, yet people act as if it was a horrible mistake that should never be repeated. If you ask me I would rather be able to vote for the next smash instead of... not be able to vote. Even if my favorite character has almost no chance of winning. Seriously I just don't get what's so bad about giving your customers an avenue to communicate with you.
 
Renmazuo said:
I always understood that to mean they weren't doing a ballot for Ultimate because they are still using the current one. Not that they would never do another. Like many people pointed out in this thread many series have become much more popular in recent years, or outright didn't exist before then. And that's only from the games' standpoint, should people who got into Smash with Ultimate just not be heard? Since the ballot happened before they ever got to vote that is. They can't just keep using the old ballot forever.

And yes, back in the brawl days they added Sonic without the need for a formal ballot. But back then the internet was also a much different beast. Nowadays you get infamous incidents like Harada denouncing people spamming him on twitter, even after nintendo outright said the fighters pass was already set in stone and there was no point in asking for new fighters. Now imagine if they didn't give such a warning for the next smash.

The ballot aversion I see on the internet always comes across as really strange to me to be honest. It has been stated on multiple occasions to have contributed significantly to the biggest (and most sold) smash bros to date, yet people act as if it was a horrible mistake that should never be repeated. If you ask me I would rather be able to vote for the next smash instead of... not be able to vote. Even if my favorite character has almost no chance of winning. Seriously I just don't get what's so bad about giving your customers an avenue to communicate with you.
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Of course I'd like another ballot (I have hundreds of hours logged playing as the character I voted for), but I can see Sakurai and Nintendo's hesitance from their POV. Nintendo has always been kind of touch and go with fan feedback; it's not that they never do it, but whether it's a company culture thing or something else they largely avoid soliciting direct feedback (instead paying attention to general trends, like 3D Zelda sales declining until reinventing it with BOTW). That said there should probably be mechanisms to prevent people from using 10+ devices to vote for their character, but I don't know what that is.
 
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