An unofficial game project which used Super Mario assets to promote an NFT-based gambling platform has attracted the attention of Nintendo, so we all know what happens next.
As reported by Kotaku, a cryptocurrency scheme known as '1-UP Platform' has been preparing for launch this year, giving users the chance to take part in a battle royale-style game where players can bet on matches to earn NFTs (a controversial method of digital file ownership that uses blockchain technology). The problem here – or one of the problems, at least – is that the battle royale itself appears to be full of stolen assets.
You can see some early footage of the game in action below.
Unsurprisingly, Nintendo has already started the process of tackling the project head-on; as Twitter user @jycompany_ spotted, videos relating to the project on YouTube have already been taken down at Nintendo's request.
Kotaku notes that 1-UP Platform's Telegram admin, known as 'Link', has since defended the project, calling it "a cool indie concept":
"I’m a community manager for an anonymous team working on a cool indie concept. The goal was to innovate on top of an amazing idea infernoplus had launched in 2019. Nintendo had shut them down for innovating and are known to do that. We just created a beefed up version of it with a combat system. Goal was to innovate privately within the community to showcase what’s possible if we all contribute new ideas. We just feel like corporate ideas are drying out and nearly dead."
They go on to say that the stolen assets were only in place as a proof of concept and will be removed later down the line, calling out the "Nintendo simps" who helped to get the game noticed. They sound lovely, don't they?
"For all the Nintendo simps having a panic attack, fear not. It was private test videos getting put out there to grow grow size of the community. When we go live the entire game will have custom art with none of the original Nintendo fanmade sprites. This was just a proof of concept. The engine is custom made and will be used for other original games. The buzz is great though. At least it gets people talking about new ideas."
1-UP Platform hasn't been shy about Mario's inclusion, though, with a September blog post even describing the project as something that would "bring Mario and friends to the blockchain," all wrapped up in "a 2D, Battle-Royale concept based on classic retro games that we all know and love." If Mario was a selling point, was removing him from the game ever really the intention?
Currently, 1-UP's blog page is still using Mario assets without Nintendo's consent. We imagine it'll only be a matter of time before Nintendo presses further.
[source kotaku.com, via nme.com]
Comments 60
Gosh you rescue princess peach 20-30 times and all of a sudden you’re a simp?
and if you do NFTs, you go to hell before you die.
Aren't NFTs basically just glorified JPEGs that destroy the environment by harnessing extreme amounts of data?
This is basically the only time I'm happy that Nintendo took down a fan game (if you can even call it that).
Well... I dont know how to feel about this
Nintendo took down a fan game, and it's a W? WOW
@TheAwesomeBowser
See it as "CD-Keys" that are unique and got verified by a Network when you trade it.
Totally waste of Ressources
@TheAwesomeBowser Close. They're glorified links to jpegs (and other things) that use a tremendous amount of energy (i.e. carbon release) to make, and serve no real purpose. They don't confirm ownership and they don't seem to confer any rights.
The only people I've seen excited about them are speculative investors spending money on NFTs of really bad cartoons. It's very very strange. At least buying tulip bulbs got you some nice tulips.
When someone uses the word simp it's a good time end the conversation. If being excited about NFTs wasn't the first good clue.
So it's a mario game that's advertised as a mario game but planned to not be a mario game? And then they try to profit off of it with gambling? It doesn't take much foresight to see how that would end up.
So they're a platform that sells NFT's of digital assets that you use to power up your character for this game..? At least this is my understanding.
I would've avoided this like the plague anyway.
The team behind this sound dubious from the start, using blatant asset theft as a means to garner attention for a questionable product / service altogether.
"They're against innovation"
.. no, they're against you stealing their artwork, which if I'm not entirely mistaken, is the EXACT thing that NFT artworks kinda rely upon people not doing.
The fact that had to Nintendo assets to get themselves noticed in the first place, then for them to call people “simps” because they got caught out? Pathetic really.
Wow, just wow. What a mess this is
That's not even what 'simp' means. How do you do fellow kids indeed.
That looks fun lol
Nintendo actually making fans happy with their lawsuits this time hell yeah
Wait. That concept's real now? Why? I don't get it.
Gambling, NFTs, "join our Telegram" and edgelord chan speak?
How to make people not take your side against a Nintendo takedown in four easy steps.
They can say “innovate” as many times as they want but it doesn’t suddenly make copying someone else’s assets “innovative”
I understand people like making fan games but at least if you get shut down own you to it.
@Rosalinho totally agree. I’ve felt really bad for some other fan games that got shut down but I don’t feel at all for these guys. They basically admitted they’re stealing assets as a way to get more eyes on their game. I hope that gets brought against them while in court.
If they just didnt use the blocks it would have been fine, they just did it to get publicity which worked
Using assets from another brand without permission to launch a product is always going to end badly. Shows a shortsightedness and naivety that prevents you from taking the end product seriously — or at least gives you serious pause were you to invest.
Yeah, colour me a simp here.
Ok yep this one is deserved this time
The one time I’ll take Nintendo’s side. These people are morons.
Anyone who uses the word "simp" in a serious manner deserves to get sued.
/s but not really
Apparently Nintendo hates innovation now.
Anyone who uses simp in a sentence, especially when trying to sell people phony garbage, can go burn in hell.
@BTB20 Because of this? ***** using their IP for what appears to be yet another scam? Yeah, innovative.
@westman98 Ha. I had the same thought but didn’t see your post. It’s sad that we all seem to talk like idiots these days.
Sounds like a moron that has no idea what simp means and just vomits it out as a buzzword. No one is gonna defend this “little guy” from Nintendo.
Make your own game you unoriginal thieves.
The developer is really dumb. He’s says they were “innovating” and shouldn’t be taken down even though they were using the game just changed a little bit. Maybe not copy the look of the game, uncreative doofus
A lot of people on Twitter were tagging a Nintendo for this and when it got taken down, people were actually happy about it
I guess the world dont have common sense anymore.i mean when you use a Nintendo ip character what do you think will happen lol
The one time I actually agree with a Nintendo dmca takedown!
Never support NFTs, they damage the environment and make you look like a loser for owning them.
At least these modders are being honest about what they are doing, better than the one's that hide behind a patreaonage.
Rom hacks don’t get taken down and they look exactly the same as this. Also nft’s aren’t just about JPEG’s you’ll need to do some real research. Plus not all crypto networks use huge amounts of carbon footprint! Again do some research.
@Boxmonkey Only rom hacks are free and don’t damage the environment
They forgot to call themselves"big fans" to play the sympathy card.
So the news is that there isn't any news? :v
'Do some research' is never a good finishing move.
Fun read (for people that think NFTs really do anything useful): https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/16/no-nfts-arent-copyrights/
Ironic that they stole digital assets to sell NFTs.
Isn’t infernoplus a youtuber? Doesn’t he do a lot of dark souls content, or am I mixing him up with someone else?
It's fine to use those assets to prototype a game, but you're supposed to remove them before you go public. This guy is profiting off of Nintendo and he knows it; saying he'll remove it later after he's gathered all this attention isn't a good excuse.
Also, he doesn't know what the word "private" means. "It was private test videos getting put out there to grow." Once it gets put out there, its no longer private.
"We think that Nintendo doing boring repetitive work and we want to give artists a space to sell their work and get proper credit....so we stole a load of artists work with no credit and copied what Nintendo did. But we also slapped gambling on top of it. Innovation!"
NFT simps are the worst.
It's a pretty easy scheme to get a massive signal boost and sympathy from people who hate Nintendo's litigious legal team. Just put Nintendo stuff in your game and hide behind being a fan or it being placeholders. These guys bungled it pretty bad if people are actually siding with the big N's legal force.
How does it not become common sense to just not use Nintendo's assets for profit without their permission? Why can't people just follow in the footsteps of Brace Yourself Games and actually propose some sort of collaboration?
This is one of the only times I'm glad Nintendo closed something.
@moodycat Do they really I must have missed that.
It seems like all the actual good artists are smart enough to stay away from NFTs, leaving only ones who's "art" is no better than 2000's Deviantart. (Which ironically, has an anti-NFT security system in place)
sigh
God I hate NFTs. Ever since they got Neopets roped into the mess, I'm been very much against the idea.
Good! The sooner this NFT nonsense dies, the better.
Sometimes it's unfair when Nintendo takes down harmless non-profit fan games that aren't in direct competition to their own, but I don't blame them one bit for going after this project. I don't think this kind of thing is something they want their company's image associated with, not to mention these guys are actually trying to make money off of it.
If they were sincerely going to replace the art before going live, then it's their own fault for stupidly uploading concept videos with stolen art in the first place. Although, it sounds like only the videos have been targeted so far, so if they can convince Nintendo that they're separating their project from the stolen art quickly enough, maybe they can still make it work.
@BloodNinja they also made that super mario 99 online fangame a couple years back
"Nintendo had shut them down for innovating and are known to do that."
"For all the Nintendo simps having a panic attack."
For a group of people making "a cool indie concept" using stolen Nintendo assets, they sure don't appreciate the company they're stealing from or it's fanbase.
For once I'm 100% on Nintendo's side here. These are not nice people at all.
@CrazyOtto They make money though.
Did Nintendo go after Flappy Bird for obviously stealing pipe images from Super Mario 3? That feels like something they would have done but I can't remember hearing about it.
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