Mario Party DS Anti-Piracy Screen

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Part of a series on Anti-Piracy Screens. [View Related Entries]

About

Mario Party DS Anti-Piracy Screen refers to an anti-piracy screen that allegedly pops up if you try to play a pirated version of Mario Party DS, stopping you from playing. The anti-piracy screen became the subject of memes in late 2020. The screen is a hoax, and does not actually exist in Mario Party DS.

Origin

In November of 2007, Mario Party DS was released. On October 13th, 2020, Joey Perleoni uploaded a video titled "Mario Party DS Anti Piracy Screen" to YouTube^[1] (shown below). The video shows Mario Party DS gameplay for the first 10 seconds, after which a message pops up on the bottom screen reading, "Software piracy detected. You are in possession of an illicit copy of this title. Please turn off the power immediately."

The video then cuts to an image of various Mario Party characters behind jail bars on the bottom screen and a message on the top screen reading, "PIRACY IS NO PARTY! It is a serious crime to pirate video games. Please power off the system and report this stolen software immediately. For more information please visit http://ap.nintendo.com/" along with eerie music (image shown below). The video garnered over 980,000 views in just over a month.

Perleoni's anti-piracy screen is likely inspired by real anti-piracy screens coded into Nintendo games, which often also include eerie music and imagery and large, bright text (example shown below, left). It's also possible Perleoni was inspired by other fake anti-piracy screen videos and creepypastas, such as a popular fictional anti-piracy screen for Super Mario 64 by YouTuber Super Mario 64 Beta Archive,^[9] which gained over 1.7 million views in 6 months (shown below, right).

Spread

After Joey Perleoni's fake anti-piracy screen went viral, a YouTube video^[2] uploaded on November 23rd, 2010 showing off the actual anti-piracy screen for Mario Party DS began getting more traction, garnering over 169,000 views in 10 years. On December 17th, 2020, Joey Perleoni uploaded a video of the song from the anti-piracy screen video extended to YouTube,^[3] garnering over 499,000 views in 11 days (shown below, left). On December 20th, he uploaded another video to YouTube^[4] featuring the same anti-piracy screen, but accessed through an item shop rather than after attempting to play a mini-game, garnering over 830,000 views in a week (shown below, right).

A number of YouTubers made videos examining the screen. On December 22nd, Vailskibum94 uploaded a video^[5] outing the anti-piracy screen as a well-done fake, garnering over 100,000 views in 6 days (shown below, left). On December 24th, TetraBitGaming uploaded a video^[6] examining the legitimacy of the Mario Party DS anti-piracy screen, garnering over 370,000 views and 19,000 likes in 4 days (shown below, right).

On December 21st, Doomsikle uploaded a new fanmade version of the anti-piracy screen to YouTube,^[7] garnering over 100,000 views in a week (shown below, left). On December 24th, skepbeans uploaded a video edit to YouTube^[8] combining the anti-piracy screen with the video of Romeo Cannady dancing, garnering over 145,000 views in 4 days (shown below).

[This video has been removed]

The video also inspired people to make fake anti-piracy screens for other video games. For example, on December 25th bald e uploaded a fake anti-piracy screen for Super Mario Bros. on the NES, garnering over 13,000 views in 3 days (shown below).