The US Environmental Protection Agency stole music from a Nintendo title to play in the background of an educational flash game, according to GameInformer.
The EPA’s Recycle City Challenge takes players through several scenarios and asks them questions like “What’s in a zero waste lunch?” or how can a café “upgrade their lights?” Children would select the most energy efficient answers and win tokens if they got them correct. But seasoned Nintendo-lovers will recognize a familiar tune from Yoshi’s Island DS playing in the background of the game.
A spokesperson for the EPA confirmed that the song was used and has since been removed from the game.
“The ‘Recycle City Challenge’ game was created for EPA by a contractor,” an EPA spokesperson told The Verge. “We are looking into whether the contractor received permission to use the music, to the extent permission was necessary in this instance.”
Nintendo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There exists one piece of in-game evidence in favor of the widespread Internet joke that Yoshi does not pay his taxes: in Fortune Street, Yoshi is the only one out of 26 characters that requests to be exempt from paying taxes when the player builds a new tax office. pic.twitter.com/VmaPeNlQhf
— Supper Mario Broth (@MarioBrothBlog) January 15, 2019
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Yoshi has faced a difficult couple weeks with rumors circulating online that he has previously committed tax fraud. Those rumors were later confirmed by internet sleuths who dug up past gameplay of Yoshi in Fortune Street asking to “be exempt from paying taxes.” Now would be the ideal time for him to un-cancel himself and allow the the US government to license his music while taking a stand as a pro-recycling figure in gaming.
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