A new website for Nintendo upcoming Japanese theme park Super Nintendo World went live yesterday. There were new details and a virtual tour of the video game wonderland ahead of the February 4th opening. It also used an image of Mario for the loading screen, which apparently was not created by Nintendo but by one of its fans.
“I love the way Nintendo used MY old ass Mario on its official Nintendo World website,” said Twitter user and Mario fan ujiidow tweeted earlier today. Her picture of Mario was created with the open source animation software Blender about three years ago and shared on Reddit back then. The Mario model used for the render did not belong to Nintendos, but belonged to the 3D artist RafaKnight, who made it available for download on his Patreon in 2017.
Neither Nintendo nor Universal Studios Japan immediately responded to a request for comment.
Now the picture appears on the cover of Universal Studios Japan’s website for a theme park inspired by one of the most protective and contentious IP owners in the video game industry. (The game distribution website GameJolt was hit just this week a DMCA notice from Nintendo The target audience is hundreds of free fan projects based on the company’s IP.)
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The potential irony was not lost with the R / Gaming subreddit. shared the discovery of Ujiidov in a thread that cheekily roasts Nintendo and has been rated over 60,000 times. A contribution to this topic past NintendoLife shows Ujiidow’s rendering alongside a standard rendering of Mario that it is similar to. While both look almost identical at first glance, it is clear on closer inspection that Ujiidows are much more detailed, especially when it comes to shading.
Ujiidow doesn’t necessarily complain, though. “I’m so used to my Mario renders getting very little attention,” they said Kotaku in an email. “I am told to take action on this matter, but I find it very nice to finally have some credit for it.”
You can find some of their fan art on their DeviantArt page. One of newer pieces is a version of Cyberpunk 2077‘s Box Art, which replaces its main character V with a grizzled, armed Mario. Another shows the modern Mario and one of Mario 64 Commercial glances while swimming in a pool of water.
Ujiidow said they contacted Universal Studios about the picture but haven’t heard from it. In the meantime, they have taken the entire situation as a compliment. “Confusing my render with an official one shows that I’m doing something right.”
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