When pre-release screenshots and videos of Super Mario Odyssey were released, a few of which had Mario shirtless and in his boxers, the gaming community went crazy. A part of them went so mad as to start a competition called %nipple, which is a speedrunning competition to see how fast gamers could get Mario’s shirt off.

Speedrunning is a favorite aspect of the gaming world, in which players try to complete a game as quickly as possible while doing specific tasks along the way. Odyssey has a good chunk of them, but the %nipple speedrun is to see how fast players can buy the “boxer suit” outfit. Currently, the World Record for this task is Stravos96, who achieved this glorious feat of gaming in nine minutes and 57 seconds. This will no doubt be bested at some point soon because speedrunning is a fantastic game of one-upmanship over and over again.

Whoever knew that Mario’s nipples would be the object of such attention and obsession from gamers across the globe, and there would be a competition to see how fast you could get Mario’s shirt off?

[The Verge]

About Matt Lichtenstadter

Recent Maryland graduate. I've written for many sites including World Soccer Talk, GianlucaDiMarzio.com, Testudo Times, Yahoo's Puck Daddy Blog and more. Houndstooth is still cool, at least to me. Follow me @MattsMusings1 on Twitter, e-mail me about life and potential jobs at matthewaaron9 at Yahoo dot com.