As undoubtedly one of the most successful games on the Switch, Mario Maker 2 has grown a loyal and talented community of makers and players. Due to the game’s age, the most popular levels currently are usually more difficult than a normal player could easily beat, leading to a culture of intricately built levels being shown off as a fun challenge for veteran players. Some of the most popular of these levels, however, are now being deleted by Nintendo due to claims of advertiser content, leaving many baffled as to why it is happening and why now.

Initial reports of the issue came mostly from the community itself. A few days ago, a popular YouTuber who commonly plays Mario Maker 2, DGR, made a video about the deletions. In it, he links the takedowns to levels with hashtags in the level descriptions, often used by groups of makers such as #TeamShell, and speculating that a system is in place to recognize hashtags as advertising content. The pinned comment of that video goes into greater depth, citing example courses being taken down after a handful of reports. The comment also notes that levels have been taken down seemingly systematically, hinting that there is no effort by Nintendo itself to remove the courses. Instead, the user claims that the deletions are due to a combination of reports and an exploitable automated system.

Recently, another prominent member of the community, Ceave Gaming seconds many of the claims made by the rest of the community, with his investigation revealing that certain teams were more highly affected than others. He claims that this could hint at an individual using multiple accounts to target specific groups of makers, though neither Nintendo nor any individual has confirmed this claim.

Despite the game’s popularity, the community around Mario Maker 2 has become relatively reduced in scope, causing the missing levels to go somewhat unnoticed until recently. Some makers have begun making backups of their courses or altering their descriptions in an attempt to save them from deletion, while others have attempted to reach out to Nintendo to resolve the problem.