Nintendo’s lawyers strike again, this time against a Mario NFT gambling game

An unofficial gaming project that used Super Mario assets to promote an NFT-based gaming platform has attracted Nintendo’s attention. so we all know what happens next.

As reported by Kotaku, a cryptocurrency scheme known as ‘Platform 1-UP’ has been gearing up for launch this year, giving users the opportunity to take part in a battle royale-style game where players can bet on matches to win. NFT (a controversial proprietary digital archiving method that uses blockchain technology). The problem here, or one of the problems, at least, is that the actual battle itself appears to be littered with stolen assets.

You can see some initial images of the game in action below.

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo has already started the process of tackling the project head-on; as a Twitter user @jycompany_ viewed, project-related videos on YouTube have already been removed at Nintendo’s request.

Kotaku notes that 1-UP Platform’s Telegram admin, known as ‘Link’, has since championed 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 an amazing idea that infernoplus had launched in 2019. Nintendo had shut them down for innovating and we are known to do that. We just did. create a hardened version with a combat system. The goal was to innovate privately within the community to show what is possible if we all contribute new ideas. We just feel like corporate ideas are drying up and almost dying. “

They go on to say that the stolen assets were only in place as proof of concept and will be removed later, calling out the “Nintendo simps” that helped get the game noticed. They sound lovely, right?

“For all Nintendo simps having a panic attack, fear not. They were private test videos that were posted to increase the size of the community. When we go live, the entire game will have custom art without any of the original sprites from Nintendo. This was just a proof of concept. The engine is custom built and will be used for other original games. The buzz is great though. At least it gets people talking about new ideas. “

However, 1-UP Platform hasn’t been shy about including Mario, with a September blog post even describing the project as something that would “bring Mario and his 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 point of sale, was removing him from the game really the intention?

Currently, the 1-UP blog page still uses Mario assets without Nintendo’s consent. We imagine it will only be a matter of time before Nintendo pushes harder.