No Mario’s Sky becomes DMCA’s Sky after Nintendo copyright claim

Nintendo has sent out another takedown notice, this time to a fan-made game that mashed up Super Mario with No Man’s Sky. Instead of shutting down the project, however, developer ASMB Games has found a way to circumvent Nintendo’s lawyers: by turning No Mario’s Sky into DMCA’s Sky.

The joke lampshades the legal threat Nintendo issued to ASMB Games, a copy of which is publicly accessible. Nintendo’s attorney said that No Mario’s Sky "infringes on Nintendo’s copyright in its Super Mario video game franchise" by using recognizable characters and sprites. Instead of pulling the game altogether, the team is wearing the copyright claim as a badge, tweaking it slightly to address Nintendo’s concerns.

Instead of the Jumpman, DMCA’s Sky stars a Spaceman who searches for Princess Mango while fighting off Moombas in an infinite universe. The game otherwise plays the same, according to its itch.io page. The only differences are the characters and the name of the worlds, now called DMCA-DMCA as well.

No Mario’s Sky lasted about a week before Nintendo came knocking on its developer’s door. Nintendo has been chasing down fangames by the hundreds as of late; last week, GameJolt pulled more than 500 homages to Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon in response to a copyright claim. A well-received Metroid 2 remake has also gone kaput, after Nintendo sent out letters to its one-man development team on two separate occasions.

As DMCA’s Sky, ASMB Games’ project may be able to withstand Nintendo’s legal team. That remains to be seen, however. For now, it’s available as a free download on Linux, Mac and Windows PC.