A standard requirement for many of today’s mobile games is that you have to be online to be able to even play the game. Many fans were concerned that Nintendo might adopt this route in their new and aggressive embrace of mobile, and now we’ve learned they’re requiring it as well.

“This is just … a requirement that’s been built into the game to support security,” Mario creator and the producer of Super Mario Run Shigeru Miyamoto said to Mashable.

When a follow-up question regarding this measure being used to combat piracy was asked, Miyamoto said “That’s correct.” He continued:

“We had thought at one point that it would be nice to have the World Tour [story] mode available standalone, to be able to play without that connection.

“But then the challenge is when that’s operating in a standalone mode, it actually complicates the connection back to the Toad Rally and Kingdom modes. And because those two modes are relying on the network save, we had to integrate the World Tour mode as well.”

To be clear, this decision was made because the other modes required network saves, meaning the game would have to always be connected to the internet.

“We’re launching in 150 countries and each of those countries has different network environments and things like that,” he said. “So it was important for us to be able to have it secure for all users.”

How do you guys feel about always-on mobile games, or games requiring internet connections in general? Sound off in the comments below!