It seems that Nintendo accidentally used a fan-made render of Mario for its Super Nintendo World website. Nintendo has recently come under attack for several controversies, such as removing hundreds of fan-made games in a new DMCA takedown. In addition to its removal of fan-made games, Nintendo also canceled heavily anticipated tournaments for both Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 2, which led to many fans’ disappointment. On top of all of this, President of Nintendo of America Doug Bowser defended the temporary retail life of Super Mario 3D All-Stars in an interview from last month.
Nintendo has been engaging in these practices for a while now. In 2017, they removed a fan-made remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, only to announce a remake of their own for the Nintendo 3DS at that year’s E3 presentation. More recently, they terminated the sale of Etika Joy-Cons, which angered many fans. Etika was a popular YouTuber who died in 2019, and fans felt the discontinuation was highly disrespectful on Nintendo’s part.
Ironically, Nintendo accidentally used a fan’s render of Mario for the website for Super Nintendo World, as uJidow points out on Twitter. uJidow, who made the Mario render, called out this instance yesterday. Nintendo has since removed the render from its original placement, but it still exists as an icon on the site’s loading pages. Take a look at uJidow’s impressive render below. They also make various other Mario and Nintendo renders, such as Mario posing in a Cyberpunk 2077 fashion and Mario posing alongside the popular Super Mario RPG character Geno.
Given Nintendo’s recent behavior revolving around DMCA takedowns and fan-made content, this all rings out as incredibly ironic. Nintendo did this unknowingly, and it’s easy to see how this accident was made considering how identical uJidow’s Mario render is to the official render. If anything, it just speaks to uJidow’s talent as an artist. However, Nintendo should double down on its recent behavior by not only admitting its error, but also compensating uJidow for their use of the render.
Because the fan-made render is still actively being used on the site as a loading icon, Nintendo is using fan-made content without the creator’s consent. It feels highly unethical for Nintendo to be issuing DMCA takedowns on fan-made content that creators poured hundreds of hours into creating while the company carelessly uses a fan-made render with no payment or credit. Perhaps Nintendo needs to issue a DMCA takedown on itself.
Source: uJidow