Players still plugged into Super Mario Maker 2 have accused Nintendo of suddenly removing “thousands” of user-made levels, which the company has apparently claimed broke its rules on advertising.
Released for the original Switch back in 2019, Super Mario Maker 2 allows players to construct their own fiendish Mario courses for other fans to follow. Years later, however, and long after Nintendo itself is seemingly done adding new content, the company is now removing fan courses with hashtags in their title or description.
Almost seven years on from the game’s launch, fans have spotted numerous reports suddenly cropping up on reddit and social media, where users have been told their courses are being deleted. These have now been picked up and verified further by the game’s veteran YouTuber community.
“I recently found out by email that one of my courses was removed,” said PangaeaPangam, a YouTuber and Twitch streamer who still posts about the game daily. “[The email] doesn’t really explain why it gets removed, like in-depth. But it says your nickname and that ‘content you shared (either through a game or through an online service) has been deleted or hidden from other players because it violates the Nintendo Account User Agreement, including the Community Guidelines.'”
PangaeaPanga then showed the email he received from Nintendo, which states the reasoning given as “Advertising” and notes: “this is Nintendo’s final decision. If violations continue, other actions, such as restricting your usage of Nintendo Account services, may be taken. We appreciate your cooperation in creating an enjoyable online environment.” After checking the details of the removed course in-game, PangaeaPanga noted that the course’s description included “#TeamShell,” the name of a Mario Maker level creation community.
Judging by other user reports, the inclusion of a hashtag is all that’s required for someone at Nintendo (or some automated process) to pull levels. Why it’s happening now, however, is something of a mystery.
“Nintendo has started mass-deleting levels with hashtags in the names of their levels,” added DGR, another Super Mario Maker creator, in another YouTube video. “Thousands upon thousands of levels are at risk of being deleted, or at risk of being deleted. We haven’t had any new content in this game for a very long time, but according to Nintendo, having any hashtag in the name of your level is advertising or spam content.”
Could these removals be part of a wider push at Nintendo to police user content? In a separate but oddly-timed incident, games journalist and tech expert John Linneman from Digital Foundry reported having a Switch username changed to “???” by Nintendo, seemingly due to the “EU” part of his profile name being perceived as part of a website address.
Those who still play the game are recommending fans now make backups of levels (without the use of hashtags in their titles) in case Nintendo’s ban hammer keeps on swinging. Others, meanwhile, have suggested that Nintendo has suddenly regained interest in policing Super Mario Maker 2’s content in advance of a third title being announced. Whatever the case is, we’ve asked Nintendo itself for more.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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