"Super Mario Maker" has enjoyed tons of success since was it released worldwide in September. It granted fans, both new and old, the chance to dive into one of history's greatest video game franchises and make their own levels for other members of the Nintendo community to enjoy.
This popularity has hit a snag, however, and a controversy has emerged after substantiated reports have surfaced of players having their levels removed. Of course, it's Nintendo's right to remove levels if they don't adhere to the company's TOS. But that's just the problem - not only have these deletions targeted levels that didn't appear to violate any rules, but it soon became apparent that there was no rhyme or reason behind them.
Or that was the case until now. Nintendo, responding to the all-important question "A Course I Uploaded Seems to Have Disappeared. Where Did it Go?", released an official statement revealing that it may "sometimes have to delete courses from Course World."
Nintendo then goes on to give four reasons for a course being deleted:
Low stars/plays
- "After a fixed period of time, courses with low stars/plays will be automatically deleted from the server."
This isn't new. The issue, though, is that Nintendo doesn't explain how many stars a course would need or when it needs them by to avoid deletion. Granted, if people did know this, then they could beg for stars - which they already do. However, as things stand, great levels are being deleted, and no one really knows why.
Bugs
- "Courses that include bugs that were unintended by either the course creator or the developers will be deleted. It's important that we remove levels with bugs quickly, because letting these levels remain in Course World can lead to negative outcomes for many players such as players experiencing levels in unfair ways that the original course creator did not intend, or re-writing 'World Record' times."
No comment is required here, really. Levels that are suspectible to bugs, glitches or exploits should be - and have rightfully been - deleted.
Requesting stars from other users
- "Courses that are explicitly asking for stars from other players will be deleted. For example, using words such as 'Like', 'Yeah!', and the '★' symbol in their course names. Please change the course name when saving a course that includes these words."
This isn't new, either. Levels that are poorly designed can end up being rated higher than they deserve thanks to a few lucky stars.
Inappropriate Content
- "Courses that contain something inappropriate, such as offensive language or phrases will be deleted."
Fair enough, but what constitues "inappropriate" for Nintendo? As a family-friendly company, Nintendo likely has a stronger sense of what appropriateness means, but players are left in the dark because they don't know what the company defines appropriateness as. In the worse case scenario, Nintendo could delete all the levels belonging to a single user and offer no real reason for doing so.
So what does Nintendo's guidelines offer us? A big pile of nothing. It gives us vague guidelines to be mindful of, but they don't fix the core issues of the game. When a level is removed, Nintendo can't tell you why. Futhermore, Nintendo can't reinstate a stage, nor can you fix or re-upload a previously deleted level yourself.
All Nintendo would need to do is effectively communicate with its player base, and most of these issues would be non-existent. There would be a world of difference if players were told that their levels were deleted because they weren't played enough, or contained inappropriate language and then were afforded the opportunity to fix and re-upload them.
However as things stand, Nintendo, unless forced, remains frustratingly quiet, even at its own detriment.
