Play Super Mario 64 In Your Browser

[dlevere]

By Jessica Conditt



Take the edge off of a full work week with a bit of Super Mario 64, available for download or playable right in your browser thanks to ingenious Unity developer Roystan Ross. He calls it Super Mario 64 HD, and it features the original game's first level, "Bob-Omb Battlefield."

Ross promises that everything is just as players of the 1996 game will remember, with a few exceptions, including no red coins and no Big Bob-Omb. But, it's still Super Mario 64 in your browser (not your Bowser).

Via: Kotaku UK

Source: Roystan Ross

[dlevere]

Fan-made Super Mario 64 game pulled after Nintendo cries foul

The gaming company issued a DMCA complaint, but desktop versions can still be found.

By Megan Geuss

Just a couple of days after computer science student Erik Roystan Ross released a free recreation of the first level of Nintendo's 1996 Super Mario 64 in Unity, the game's original creator stepped in to put “No” in “Nintendo.”

Ross, who released his high-definition version of the Bob-Omb Battlefield for play in a browser, or on a computer running Windows, Mac, or Linux, didn't have any intention of selling the game and made it available for free.

Still, Nintendo sent Content Delivery Network (CDN) Cloudflare a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) this week demanding that the fan recreation be taken down:

The copyrighted work at issue is Nintendo's™ Super Mario 64 video game (US Copyright Reg. No. PA0000788138), including but not limited to the audiovisual work, computer program, music, and fictional character depictions... The website at http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.html displays, and allows users to play, an electronic game that makes unauthorized use of copyright-protected features of Nintendo's Super Mario 64 video game. Nintendo requests that CloudFlare, Inc. immediately disable public access to http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.html .

Nintendo is famously protective of its copyright, taking issue with "Let's Play" videos posted on YouTube and threatening to shut down live-streamed Super Smash Bros. tournaments.

When it received the game company's DMCA complaint, CloudFlare sent the complaint to the person hosting Ross' game, and the hosting provider took the game down and posted the message that CloudFlare sent.

“I was hosting this work for a good friend who is an avid fan, and built the project from scratch as a tech demo,” the provider added. “As mentioned on the original blog post, and noted in various big name media press below, there is no intention to monetize this, ever.”

Nintendo also sent Ross takedown notices for his downloadable desktop versions of the Bob-Omb Battlefield. "The project is no longer playable, or downloadable in any form," Ross wrote on his website. "I received a copyright infringement notice on both the webplayer as well as the standalone builds. Which is fair enough, really. In light of Nintendo recently making a deal to release some of their IPs on mobile platforms, it’s probably not in their best interests to have a mobile-portable version of Mario 64 sitting around."

Ars contacted Nintendo's lawyers, but they did not immediately respond. CloudFlare said that it had no comment.

[pendekar]

one of my favorite games

[bungholio]

Never really noticed that. Nintendo as in "No, we intend to stop you from doing anything with our stuff." They've had that stick up their ass since their first console and it never has been dislodged. It's 1 level, not a full game. Either:

A. People played the game before, loved it, saw this and wanted a little slice of it again and Nintendo already got their money years ago.
B. A person never tried it and played this and either didn't care or might now buy the game and maybe even more Nintendo stuff meaning more money.

Where's the bad? Do they think "OMFG IF 1 LEVEL FOR 1 THING IS MADE AND WE DON'T STOP IT EVERYTHING WE MAKE WILL NOW BE MADE FREE!" or what is their problem? Did I miss a hidden evil C, D, E, and VIL in this thinking somewhere? Did they have some plan of doing a HD remake themselves and wanted to make a proper demo or something, because I haven't heard a word yet? Why don't they go on www.romhacking.net and just shut the other half of the gaming world down and erase it from existence? A bunch of grumps.