Super Mario Maker is no stranger to maintenance– the game has been taken offline a number of times for scheduled patches. However, Nintendo almost always let’s us know when this is going to happen far in advance, so players can be prepared and expect servers to be down. That’s why the other day’s “emergency maintenance” call came as quite a surprise to players everywhere.
Nintendo itself won’t give you any details about the day’s server shutdown, that’s for sure. But thanks to the internet, there are plenty of other resources that let us know just exactly why Nintendo needed to take Mario Maker offline. According to Patrick Klepek at Kotaku, some research led to a very interesting find regarding a glitch that would have run the competitive community of Mario Maker into the ground.
A Mario Maker player by the name of Joseph found a video online where another player and stage creator claimed his level had been hacked, as a challenger had beaten the stage in three seconds, according to the leaderboards. However, what the creator claimed to be a hack appeared to be more of a glitch, and after a little bit of studying, Joseph realized that the new world record holder had access to items that weren’t supposed to be available at any point in the stage. After some experimenting, Joseph managed to reproduce the glitch.
You can read about the glitch in its entirety here, as it’s a little bit convoluted. In short, though, the glitch gave online players opportunities that were otherwise impossible in the stages they were playing in, and it had the potential to be game breaking.
After discovering the glitch, Joseph reached out to streamer and fellow Mario Maker player Matt “Jaku” Jakubowski, who also confirmed the glitch and then, through LinkedIn (of all websites), got in contact with three members of Nintendo listed in the credits of Mario Maker. Jakubowski included a link in his message to a privately listed YouTube video showcasing the glitch, meaning the video wasn’t viewable to anyone without the direct link. Nintendo got back to him, and before we knew it, Mario Maker was offline.
Oddly enough, Nintendo pulled Jakubowski’s video from YouTube after their communication despite its private listing.
Despite Nintendo claiming that the servers would be down until tonight, the game went back online earlier this evening. After tests from both Joseph and Jakubowski, the glitch seems to be fixed.
It’s a little shocking that both the players and Nintendo didn’t discover the glitch until now, but for the sake of the stage creators and online community, I think it’s safe to say that it’s a good thing it’s been fixed.
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Written by George Comatas
As a wannabe social media personality and professional in the world of sarcasm, George does his best to always adapt to the changing world around him. He considers himself a maverick: a true-to-heart gamer with the mind of a pop star. Whether this makes him revolutionary or a setback, he's yet to find out. But one thing’s for sure; he's one-of-a-kind.
