Web Video / Mario Party DS Anti Piracy

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I don't serve criminals."

"Piracy Is No Party!"

Mario Party DS Anti Piracy is a series of YouTube videos by Joey Perleoni. What started off as an ominous mock-up of what a Mario Party DS anti-piracy screen might look like evolved into a fullblown series, showcasing the deranged anti-piracy measures Nintendo supposedly left in this cute little Super Mario Bros. game.

It kicked off a whole new genre of Creepypasta — which is impressive, considering it started about a decade after Creepypastas were ever cool or popular — with other video makers following suit with their own anti-piracy mock-ups for other games and console OSes, and some even making their own Mario Party DS Anti-Piracy videos.

The original video was actually so convincing that some people took to the Cutting Room Floor wiki to try and add it to the Mario Party DS page, much to the annoyance of the video game data-mining community. This resulted in the page being locked.

You can watch the series here.

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It is a serious crime to pirate tropes:

• Alternate Reality Game: The series incorporated an ARG. Appears to have died, as the identity of the rogue developer that created the anti-piracy measures was never solved.
• Ambiguously Human: Played for Laughs. In the finale video, one of the cops wears a mask of Toad from the Mario games, and also has a Toad-like voice. It's hard to tell if this character is actually meant to be a Toad In-Universe, or just a guy who sounds like one and wears a mask.
• April Fools' Day: In 2022, Joey Perleoni released an Anti-Piracy Screen video for Mario Party 8, done in the style of what a YouTube video would have looked like at the time of Mario Party 8's release.
• Arc Words:
  • The videos always end with a screen that has the message "Piracy is No Party!" prominently displayed.
  • "Criminal" is often used to refer to the player, to emphasize that Digital Piracy Is Evil.
• Artistic License – Law: The game will dial 911 for you and tell you to plead guilty for owning an illegal copy of a video game and request your own arrest. In reality, you can't go to jail for downloading a pirated copy of a video game on the internet — if anyone actually gets prosecuted, it's usually the people distributing the ROM in the first place. Second, such a function, if it really existed, would get Nintendo into legal trouble for clogging the 911 hotline with calls concerning non-emergencies while 911 deals with actual emergencies. Third, 911 might not be the emergency number in your country. Finally, even if the player was arrested and tried, such a confession would be inadmissible in a court of law, as the game coerced the player to confess. It's implied that a lone developer (or group of developers) is implementing these piracy traps without thinking of the legal implications of forcing a DS to call 911 over Wi-Fi for non-emergency situations and forcing the player to confess to pirating a video game, but apparently the legal system in-universe takes their side despite this, as shown by a video showing a cop coming to Joey's house to arrest him.
• Art Shift: D.J. Hallyboo is rendered in Off-Model CGI, adding an extra layer of creepiness to his presence.
• Author Filibuster: In the finale, Joey turns into an angel and delivers a grand speech about how Nintendo is wrong for enforcing copyright on old games. D.J. Hallyboo kills him anyway.
• Back for the Finale: The police officer that arrested Joey and the kid with the Toad mask that was in the McDonalds commercial both return in the final episode to try to chase Joey.
• Berserk Button: D.J. Hallyboo's is trying to play the game for free. He kills Luigi for pirating the game.
• Big Bad: D.J. Hallyboo is the host of Mario Party DS who is trying to punish Joey Perlioni for pirating the game by tormenting him and his characters.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • The instructions for "Host Hoedown" are in Japanese, even though the rest of the videos are in English. They contain a message implying that the anti-piracy measures were not approved by Hudson Soft.
  • The "Exception occurred" messages contain hex code that translate into words such as "tunecode" and "morsemor", the meaning of which is unknown.
    • According to the live-streamed Q&A, “morsemor” is supposed to be a hint that all the songs for the series contain Morse code.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Joey is the Gray. While he does commit digital piracy, which is illegal, he does legitimately believe that Digital Piracy Is Okay since the game he pirated hasn't been published in 13 years. D.J. Hallyboo and the rogue developer who is implied to be the creator of the anti-piracy measures are the Black. Although wanting to prevent digital piracy isn't unreasonable, the way they go about it (putting nightmarish death scenes and error screens in a kids' game, chasing someone down and killing them) is definitely more extreme than necessary.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Luigi is always being played as when the anti-piracy checks are tripped and winds up being the victim of the anti-piracy measure.
  • Joey Perlioni himself. Not only does he have to deal with all of these anti-piracy methods, but he gets arrested for his troubles, is seemingly forced to do a McDonald's commercial (and still gets punished in it by having his mask forcibly taken off), and gets chased to the ends of his own town by D.J. Hallyboo himself before being killed, all because he decided to pirate a 13-year old DS game.
• Controllable Helplessness: Some of the anti-piracy screens allow the player to play a mini-game before displaying the "Piracy is no Party!" screen, with the implication that you can escape punishment by winning. These mini-games are, of course, impossible. Normal Mario Party DS minigame instructions screens have the three control schemes (buttons, touch screen, and Mic) shown on the top screen, and cross out the ones the minigame won't use; "RUN" has all three of them crossed out.
  Rules: There is nothing you can do.
  Controls: None
• Copy Protection: The videos document the (fictional) copy protection measures of Mario Party DS.
• Cowboy Cop: In the finale, the cop wearing a Toad mask is a bit too eager to shoot Joey. When Joey is killed by Hallyboo, Toad is upset that he wasn't the one to do the deed.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: It's treated in-universe like this unforgivable sin. The game will even literally call the police on you if you wait too long on the anti-piracy screen.
• Digital Piracy Is Okay: Joey (At least in-universe) certainly believes that there is nothing wrong with pirating old games that aren't being sold anymore.
  Joey Perlioni: This isn't how it should be! Mario Party DS hasn't been sold in 13 years, and it's not even on sale on any current Nintendo platforms! So why is it such a big deal if I pirate the game? If I pirate the game for my own enjoyment, why is it such a problem if you're not gonna make any money off of it in the first place?
• Disproportionate Retribution: The game throws increasingly unsettling anti-piracy measures at the player for pirating the game, many of which include the player character dying. One measure even calls the police and forces the player to confess to pirating a video game. Justified, as according to some hidden lore via some Japanese text on the "Host Hoedown" instructions screen, there is at least one rogue developer at Hudson Soft who has an unsettling obsession with thwarting pirates by including increasingly disturbing anti-piracy traps, to the point where the company themselves are trying to stop them from implementing any more.
  "This is not necessary. It will extend the launch significantly." - Hudson
• Dwindling Party: Literally. In one video, the camera pans towards where each of the CPU players should be to show that they're gone. In the end, it's revealed that they left Luigi behind for pirating the game before the announcer drops Luigi through a Trap Door.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first video was just a mockup of what an anti-piracy screen in Mario Party DS might look like. Luigi isn't the player character and the game simply glitches and freezes instead of Luigi dying. Later videos became increasingly creepy and deranged.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even Bowser tells Luigi off for being a pirate and drops a Thwomp on him.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • During the "Rocket Rascals" video, the game says "You can be a rascal, Luigi, just not a criminal", essentially claiming that the game is okay with you being mischievous unless you actually break the law.
  • "Personified Host" and the later "Host Hoedown" center on a minigame pitting the player against the host, the (untranslated) description of which ends with a note from or addressed to Hudson Soft, pointing out that this is completely unnecessary and is just going to delay the game's launch.
• Failure Is the Only Option: The instructions for "Run" tell the player that there is nothing they can do, and there are no controls listed.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Software Piracy is definitely a crime, but the game calling the police and forcing you to confess to them is kinda pushing it. The characters in-game react similarly, treating it as an act so heinous they'll refuse to interact with the pirate and even kill him on the spot with no one's objection. Even the real-world police eventually came to arrest Joey.
• Gainax Ending: The story ends with a comedic live-action Chase Scene with D.J. Hallyboo materializing in the real world, Joey ascending and becoming an angel for a brief moment, then Hallyboo sucking Joey into a Nintendo DS and smashing it.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: In "Host Hoedown", D.J. Hallyboo sings an opera note which causes rubble to fall from the top of the screen. If it goes on long enough, a Thwomp falls down and crushes the player.
• Gory Discretion Shot: In a minigame called "Run", Monty Mole attacks an uncontrollable Luigi. When he reaches him, the last shot we see before the game crashes to the anti-piracy screen is Luigi in the Monty Mole's hand as the game throws a "Sprite Not Found" runtime error. Three guesses on what may have happened.
• Grand Finale: The fittingly-titled "Finale" depicts Joey himself writing up a TAS program to complete the Unwinnable by Design Host Hoedown minigame and smugly sitting back while the game plays itself...but it turns out Hallyboo doesn't like that, and he breaks out of the game to deal with Joey in the real world, once and for all.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Piracy is ultimately a morally gray act. While pirating video games can lead to video game studios losing money, it shouldn't matter with older games as long as people aren't making their own copies to sell, as many of them never see the light of day again after their initial release and might be on hardware not easily accessible to the average layman, meaning that the developers and publishers aren't even making money off of these games anymore anyway, and many people who pirate these games just want to revisit older games without relying on aging, failing hardware that they might not even own. D.J. Hallyboo rejects this aesop, and kills Joey to death by sucking him in a DS and smashing it.
• Holy Backlight: Joey has one when he briefly turns into an angel.
• Hell Is That Noise: The moments following up to the game crashing to the anti-piracy screen is eerie static.
• Humanoid Abomination: D.J. Hallyboo. Not only is he able to manifest himself into real life after Joey Perlioni cheats the Host Hoedown, but he can run as fast as a moving car, survive being run over by said car no worse for wear, and absorb people into a Nintendo DS.
• I'll Kill You!: D.J. Hallyboo's first line after materializing into the real world is telling Joey that he's gonna kill him. It's even in the music for the scene, replacing Hallyboo's laugh in the original version of Host Hoedown.
• Knight Templar: The deranged booby-traps set up for potential pirates within the various layers of the game are implied to be the result of a lone, somewhat unhinged Hudson Soft developer with an extremely unhealthy obsession with thwarting would-be thieves.
• Leitmotif: In a sense. Sans the Self-Reporter theme, every piece of music made for the series uses the bassline from "Piracy Is No Party!".
• No Fair Cheating: Are you attempting to beat the personalized host by using a TAS? Nice try, but the host will manifest into real life and kill you.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: A male example. D.J. Hallyboo, an evil Expy of M.C. Ballyhoo from Mario Party 8, imitates Ballyhoo's signature "HA HA HAAA!" Unlike Ballyhoo, though, Hallyboo's laugh is meant to be scary.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • We don't actually see what Monty Mole does to Luigi, but given how everyone here treats piracy as a heinous crime against humanity and how the last shot we see is Luigi in the Monty Mole's hand before the game crashes, it can't be good.
  • Mario Party DS Anti Piracy| consists of nothing but a silhouette of someone sitting down and booting up the game, with a distorted, muffled version of the title screen ringing out. The description of the video is even unfinished, too! More disturbing is that this takes place directly after "The police are at my house," in which Joey allegedly got arrested.
• Ordered Apology: "Host Hoedown". The narrator passive-aggressively tells Luigi to offer a formal apology to D.J. Hallyboo for pirating the game or else "he won't go easy on him". This takes the form of tracing apologies on the bottom screen.
• Original Character: D.J. Hallyboo, an Off-Model Expy of Mario Party 8's M.C. Ballyhoo, who's apparently The Host of Mario Party DS.
• Phantom-Zone Picture: D.J. Hallyboo has the power to trap people inside a Nintendo DS.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: D.J. Hallyboo's portrait gives him glowing red eyes under his creepy, smiling hat.
• Rejected Apology: Joey shouts that he's sorry whilst fleeing D.J. Hallyboo, but he still gets chased and killed by him.
  D.J. Hallyboo: That doesn't cut it, criminal!
• Repetitive Audio Glitch: The music stutters briefly when the "Exception occurred" message is displayed.
• Retro Rocket: The rocket in "Rocket Rascals" would count; however, while normally it does nothing, when the game detects piracy smoke plumes out of the rocket, implying it took off (without closing the top on it) or that it exploded.
• Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: Most of the series' horror comes from how believable it was. By the end, when Joey gets arrested, forced to act in a McDonalds commercial, and chased through town by the physical manifestation of D.J. Hallyboo, the tone of the videos becomes much more comedic.
• Repulsive Ringmaster: Played with. D.J. Hallyboo is an evil Expy of M.C. Ballyhoo, the friendly ringmaster character from Mario Party 8. Despite being labelled a "D.J." (likely to help differentiate him from Ballyhoo), Hallyboo still wears an outfit resembling that of a circus ringmaster more than a D.J.. He is portrayed as a creepy Humanoid Abomination who kills Luigi in the game, and eventually Joey in the real world.
• Run or Die: The minigame "Run". Except Luigi isn't able to be controlled during the minigame, leaving him helpless to the Monty Mole shopkeeper.
• Serial Escalation: As the series goes on, the anti-piracy measures get considerably more elaborate and unsettling to the point where an untranslated message on the pre-game screen for Host Hoedown, presumably written to the development staff from one of the higher-ups, comments on how excessive and unnecessary all these anti-piracy measures are. It all culminates in Joey getting arrested.
  (Rough translation) Hudson - This is not necessary. It will delay the launch considerably.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Hallyboo's response to Joey Perlioni's speech about how pirating Mario Party DS isn't hurting Nintendo because they aren't selling it anymore is to reiterate that piracy is no party, and then to seal him into a DS and destroy it.
• Space Whale Aesop: Played for Laughs. After D.J. Hallyboo rejects Joey's aesop on how pirating older, out-of-print games don't ultimately hurt the industry and companies shouldn't care about people pirating games that they are no longer making money off of, it's replaced with this aesop: Don't pirate video games, or you will either be arrested, or one of the characters from the game will come to life and kill you.
• Swallowed Whole: During the mini-game "Sweet Sleuth" (a mini-game where a Shy Guy requests candy and you have to pick the one that he requests), the anti-piracy measure causes the Shy Guy to request Luigi. This causes Luigi to run to him as the Shy Guy picks him up and eats him as the game crashes (keep in mind, it's the mask itself that opens its mouth).
• Take That!: Joey's speech about it not being that bad that he pirated Mario Party DS can be seen as one towards Nintendo's stance on emulating games, even if they're no longer available for sale from Nintendo or retailers and any other ways of legally obtaining the games are so far removed from Nintendo that they wouldn't make money off of people buying them anyway (such as during the "#FreeMelee" debacle). invoked
• They Killed Kenny Again: As Luigi is being played as when the anti-piracy measures are triggered, he is the victim of them, which usually end with him dying. Of course, with this being a video game, he's fine by the next video.
• Trap Door: The space Luigi stands on turns out to be this as it opens up and drops Luigi into the void.
• Unbuilt Trope: A massive wave of fanmade anti-piracy screen mockups (usually taking a horrific Subverted Kids' Show approach) was inspired by this series. However, flavor text implies that the anti-piracy was developed solely by one rogue dev who took the issue far too seriously, to the point of calling the police and forcing the player to admit their guilt. Nintendo and Hudson Soft, naturally, did not let this into the final build, and it's implied that Joey's copy of the game is an earlier build before the anti-piracy was removed. Once things start to get supernatural outright, everything suddenly takes a less serious turn as D.J. Hallyboo chases Joey throughout the real world before killing him by sucking him into a DS and smashing it, almost as if the series is parodying those that resort to supernatural threats.
• Uncertain Doom: At the end of the Happy Meal commercial, Joey's Luigi mask is suddenly taken away by an off-screen D.J. Hallyboo, and he is seen silently shivering in fear for a few seconds. Then the video is cut short, leaving his fate unknown.
• Unusual Euphemism: After being told that he wasn't the one who killed Joey, the Toad mask guy says "Motherfunger!"^ExplanationIt's a pun on "fungus," since Toads are mushroom people.
• Unwinnable by Design: Played for Horror.
  • Triggering the Monty Mole anti-piracy routine forces the player into a minigame called "Run", in which they are ostensibly tasked with fleeing a giant Monty Mole, but have no controls with which to do so.
  • "Host Hoedown", a fictitious minigame where you are forced to apologize to a personalized host (in Joey's case, D.J. Hallyboo, an expy of M.C. Ballyhoo) for pirating the game by tracing the word on the bottom screen. During the third phase, the word moves around, effectively rendering the game this. While it's technically possible to beat the game via TAS, this'll result in your own life being unwinnable.
• Villain Protagonist: Joey Perlioni is this, for pirating a video game.
• Villain Teleportation: D.J. Hallyboo has this power in real life, as he first teleports on top of Joey's car and then in front of it after being run over.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The person wearing the Toad mask in the Happy Meal commercial suddenly disappears in the middle of the video. However, it's possible they could've been the police officer with the Toad mask that appears in the finale.
  • Mammon, the Download Play Entity, is never given an explanation or shown what it does.
• Wham Line:
  • From the intro screen to "RUN":
    Rules: "There is nothing you can do."
    Controls: None
  • Untranslated Japanese text on "Host Hoedown" reveals that, whatever is going on with the game, the higher ups didn't warrant it.
    (Rough translation) Hudson - This is not necessary. It will delay the launch considerably.
  • When Joey decides to use a TAS bot to beat Host Hoedown, he gets an unsettling message from the touch screen, followed by a voice. This is followed by a hand appearing from behind Joey's desk.
    you won't like my true form you won't like my true form
    DJ Hallyboo: "Heeere I come!"
• Winged Humanoid: Joey briefly turns into an angel when giving a speech to his pursuers that his crimes weren't that bad as all he did was pirate a 13-year-old DS game that isn't even available for sale on any modern Nintendo platforms. He's back to normal when D.J. Hallyboo refuses to accept this and kill him.

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"POWER OFF NOW"

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