A new website for Nintendo upcoming Japanese theme park Super Nintendo World went live yesterday. It featured new details and a virtual tour of the video game’s wonderland ahead of its February 4 opening. It also used an image of Mario for the loading screen that appears to have been made not by Nintendo, but by one of its fans.
“I love how Nintendo used the Mario render of MY old ass Mario on their official Nintendo World website,” Twitter user and Mario fan artist ujiidow tweeted earlier today. Their image of Mario was taken about three years ago using the open source animation software Blender, and was shared on Reddit at that moment. The Mario model used for the display wasn’t one of Nintendo’s, but belonged to 3D artist RafaKnight, who shared it for download on their Patreon in 2017.
Neither Nintendo nor Universal Studios Japan immediately responded to a request for comment.
Now the image appears to be on the front page of Universal Studios Japan’s website for a theme park inspired by one of the most protective and litigious IP holders in the video game industry. (This week, the game distribution website GameJolt was hit a DMCA notice from Nintendo targeting hundreds of free fan-made projects based on the company’s IP address.)
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The potential irony was not lost on the r / gaming subreddit, who shared the discovery of ujiidow in a wire cheeky Nintendo toast, which has been voted more than 60,000 times. A message on the subject about NintendoLife shows ujiidow’s render side by side with a standard of Mario it resembles. While both may look almost identical at first, upon closer inspection, it’s clear that ujiidow’s is much more detailed, especially around the shade.
However, Ujiidow is not necessarily complaining. “I’m so used to my Mario getting very little attention,” they said Kotaku in an email. “I’m being told I need to take action, but I’m really excited to finally get some recognition for it.”
You can find some of their fan art here their DeviantArt page. One of the more recent pieces is a version of Cyberpunk 2077‘s box art that replaces its main character V with a more gray, armed Mario. Another shows modern Mario and one of Mario 64 swapping cans while swimming in a pool of water.
Ujiidow said they contacted Universal Studios about the image but have not heard from yet. In the meantime, they have taken the whole situation as a compliment. “If my render is mistaken for an official one, I show that I’m doing something here.”