iOS and Android app stores are where creativity, quality and talent goes to die. Whole thing could disappear tomorrow and nothing of value would be lost.
And it wasn't a particularly impressive game. There's no shortage of endless runners on mobile, and Nintendo didn't do much to differentiate themselves, so it's no surprise nobody bought it.
Recently installed it on my son’s iPad. The game has totally transformed into this kind of crap.
Is it perhaps because they spent a few hundred/thousand £ on the phone itself and see that as the complete price?
I bought Super Mario Odyssey on release day in 2017 and it's never asked me for more money. In fact I think it got a few free content updates. It's the tightly-made, quality video game experience that it was when it came out.
I bought a game (Spelunky) on the Switch online shop. Nintendo then proceeded to send me constant emails about how my “coins are expiring.” So they award coins for purchases which you can save up to get “free” games, but then make them gradually expire if you don’t use them. What kind of high pressure sales tactic is this?
I was really turned off. I can see how this would be highly manipulative to kids though.
Why is Nintendo doing this crap? They’re a privately owned, family-run company. They don’t have outside shareholders to please. They could just choose to be less profitable and focus on protecting their family-friendly brand. This excessive greed is highly unseemly.
What age did you introduce video games to your kids?
My oldest is 5 and I let him tinker on the PS5 when I’m around playing things like Sonic or he really likes Astro’s Playworld.
We limit it to maybe 15-20 min a day but I swear it’s like I tell people I let him watch R-rated movies or something when I mention that I let him play video games at his age.
Curious what people here view as age appropriate.
I see this game as a capitulation and it's akin to seeing Santa Claus dying.
I would support a law against this entire business model on digital app stores, not necessarily a total ban, but something. No company can resist the temptation unless they are forced to. Google and Apple are making tons and tons of cash off unfettered addiction. Good luck though - there's an entire industry making a lot of money off this and a lot of decent jobs that depend on addicts feeding the system.
Its super confusing and hard to explain, because it doesnt make sense!
Second, I've personally become very wary of any mobile app that introduces multiple currency types. There's gold, and rubies, and power balls, and stardust! At some point pretty early on I decide it's not worth it to figure out how much things /actually/ cost and delete the thing. My understanding is that the math shows companies that microtransactions are the winning move over and over again. I hope that eventually there's enough grumpy consumers both parties become worth serving better.
In a sense, games are often about managing resources. Currency is a resource. If you have one currency type, you can come up with a dominant strategy that maximizes production of that particular currency type. If you make multiple currency types, which are difficult / inefficient to exchange for each other, it encourages people to interact with more portions of the game. You can also have certain currency types tied to key parts of the game’s progression.
Take a look at games like Hades or Control. Hades has obol, darkness, gems, chthonic keys, ambrosia, titan’s blood, diamonds, and nectar. That’s 8 different currency types, the way I count it. No microtransactions—you purchase the game and play it until you are satisfied. There are a ton of game design reasons why those different currency types exist, rather than using a single currency type.
The freemium / microtransaction model just needs one more currency type—something that is slow to acquire, but you can buy it with cash, that directly translates into gacha or something similar, and can be easily converted to other currency types. If Hades had microtransactions, it would probably just have 9 currency types instead of 8.
> Currency is a resource
by ignoring the context of the comment you replied to, and the rest of your comment just builds upon that.
Currency in this context is not just a resource, it's specifically resources tied into a system of microtransactions.
So that includes currency you buy directly with money and currency that is accepted alongside purchasable currency. Having Rubies, Emeralds, and Gold as three different currencies obviously doesn't mean anything special in isolation. Why would having X resource types in a game be special or predatory in isolation?
-
What makes it predatory is when only Rubies and Gold can be purchased with money, and some items can be purchased with Emeralds or Rubies, and the pricing for Rubies and Gold are different... the end result is muddying the actual costs of items, and making it more difficult for players to only spend once.
The main MO behind systems like that is to make one currency more important at the start, for example, by letting it get you ahead on core mechanics. Then in the later game having content like skins and characters be locked behind another currency which you're now encouraged to buy having naturally accumulated enough of the first currency through gameplay.
There have been exploitative home console games and non‐exploitative arcade games and mobile games, but to me the overall opposite pattern seems to hold true. Then again, perhaps I’m being blinded by nostalgia for the home console games of my childhood!
And if you run out of console games to emulate, there is a thriving rom hack community that has created some truly astonishing games (New Super Mario World 2: Around the World, Hyper Metroid, etc.)
What part is wrong? Fortnite has been called pay to win itself from time to time
For examples, see https://www.sportskeeda.com/fortnite/the-history-pay-to-win-... or https://old.reddit.com/r/FortniteCompetitive/comments/l2qywf... or https://www.sportskeeda.com/fortnite/fortnite-finally-proves...
I don't think the author understands probabilities. They mention the probability of getting Peach in each roll is 0.25%, but assuming that each roll is independent, there's no way to guarantee (ie. "100% chance") that you get Peach, because it's possible to fail each roll no matter how many times you roll. If we take the author's dollar amount and work backwards to see what the overall probability is we end up with 91.2%, which is high but nowhere near 100%.
>you can only receive a certain number of rewards from each rarity level per 100 Pipe uses
but further down it says
>Additionally, as long as you haven’t exhausted the quantity by rarity for its category, you can receive duplicates of a reward from the Pipe.
However, it also says
>In fact, you’re guaranteed to receive at least one reward of each type by the time you’ve used 100 Pipe pulls — though the exact reward you’ll get is random for all categories except High-End Spotlight.
I agree that each roll isn't independent and you can't model it as such, but I don't think there's any mechanism to guarantee you a prize given enough rolls, and I still suspect the author messed up the math.
[1] https://www.gamerevolution.com/guides/600991-mario-kart-tour...
It's half an inside joke and half serious in our house, but I quote WOPR in War Games to the kids every so often:
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
The good news is that there are loads of great alternatives to these casino-like experiences, and it's just a matter of avoiding this stuff, and choosing the good.
I play no mobile games, they're all some cash trap like a vacuum cleaner, and simply not fun when you realize you'll never truly win anything unless you pay and pay hard. What do YOU really get for the money?
I guess knowing you're paying for Nintendo's old guard's retirements and health care.
They tried with Super Mario Run (https://supermariorun.com/en/), which was a premium pay-once game introduced by Miyamoto himself at an Apple keynote.
That didn't work, then Fire Emblem Heroes made a billion dollars.
Nintendo is no better than any other game publisher, they're just behind on predatory industry trends by 5-10 years, that's it. They're just now entering the "cut out content from games to sell it as DLC that you announce before the game is even released" phase that the western gaming industry went through ages ago, and even adopted the more recent "live service multiplayer game with endless daily grinds and battle passes that demands your constant attention" model with Splatoon 3.
I guess what I'm trying to say is yeah they have the essence of some problematic mechanics at work but if anything I find navigating them to be rewarding and not limiting. In this case they're not even really behind the industry, they're kind of lateral just lacking real money. I think this is an interesting position to be in, my big concern is they may be training players to feel good about these systems and then in S4 they allow you to put real money in...
It's just one step worse (maybe two) than everything being a subscription. I prefer buying games(/software) once and being left to enjoy the game.
And in the case of the original Angry Birds, Rovio even removed it from the app stores (and renamed it for past purchases to "Red's First Flight") because of the "game's impact" on their portfolio and business model.
There are some games in there, like the Star Trek one, that are clearly IAP-infested outside of Apple Arcade. You can see the inflection points and the spots where you'd be prompted to "buy" more "transporter power" or whatever. But like watching an American TV show on British TV, where the action fades to black (for a commercial) then comes right back, these are both jarring and interesting. The game would be perfectly playable, and arguably more interesting, without these points but the developers wouldn't be able to hook their whales so they exist elsewhere.
I say “used to” as I gave up browsing the App Store.
App stores are too polluted with garbage now, they went from being a unique selling point of mobile platforms to entirely useless and I think IAPs are largely to blame.
Straight forward, you can play it to see if you like it, you can play the different characters to see if they match your play style. No other purchases needed.
That being said, the prices in the shop are quite expensive from what I've heard from people who play the game.
[1] https://twitter.com/mariokarttourEN/status/15655858873035325...
I initially visited the site, saw how the navigation etc worked, figured it wasnt worth the read. Only after reading some comments here I figured I'd bear through it. Wasnt worth it in the end imho
My hunch is, there is another dark pattern hidden which he didn't discuss yet: the quantities in which you buy gems. You'll often land just one or two gems short of the number you actually needed. Then you can either buy the 3 gem pack for the worst relative price or buy another larger pack, encouraging you to come back later.
It seems hard to really spend all your gems and come out at zero. Usually there is a small amount left that on its own is useless but lures you into buying more.
This is a fairly common tactic when you have intermediate in-game currencies that you actually use to buy stuff in the game. For example, you can only use gems to buy stuff in-game, and most items in-game are worth a multiple of 200 gems. But when you buy the gems with cash, they're somehow only offered in multiples of 500 that are also not multiples of 200. You end up buying a few extra that maybe you didn't want, and they can later hook you in with the 'well, you already have some in your wallet' approach.
Video games are really becoming way too exploitative.
I feel like these mobile games need regulating heavily, but it's also down to use to not support these games.
Not really true. Gambling is heavily regulated for a reason, it's just that these games haven't been officially categorized as gambling under existing gambling laws (yet).
If you ever meet a gambling addict, try telling them to "just stop gambling" and see how well it works. There's something about the human brain that's highly vulnerable to this particular vice.
1. Technology has moved faster than regulation (a given).
2. There was a massive secular culture war victory in the west for shutting down those who decry vice and immorality among the religious, to the point that it's associated with mostly negative things: elitism, bigotry, patriarchal thinking, etc. It's simply not cool to say "gov't should regulate phones cause they are vice dispensary machines." Think of Helen Lovejoy from the Simpsons. So many times I've seen people here comment that "Elvis caused a moral panic" too or whatever basically agreeing with that point while we all work trying to get our cut.
I don't know, maybe it takes a generation going through adolescence with these things everywhere for anything to happen. Maybe these industries will self police, but I don't get why any of us would want to work on games like this, or give them to our children.
I really just meant in the sense of "normal" gamers in general, for example I've got friends who bemoan how the latest game they just bought runs like crap on their high-end PC and I'll say "stop preordering games" and they'll come up with some poor excuse as to why preordering is not the reason for these issues.
They'll complain about Diablo Immortal but download it and buy at least the first couple of packs you get offered.
I imagine it's similar here.
Still, at least Nintendo does provide a way to get this stuff without being subject to Tour's lootboxes. The Booster Course Pass DLC for 8 Deluxe on Switch offers much of the same content, except it's a simple one time purchase and in a game that isn't trying to exploit you at every turn.
With as profitable as these tactics are, I wonder for how much longer they’ll keep those tactics off their Switch games.
Or, more cynically, “… game that isn’t trying to exploit you yet…”
This subreddit can help onboard you to start playing Switch on your computer. https://www.reddit.com/r/NewYuzuPiracy/
It's hard to exploit you if you're unexploitable.
And from a players perspective, this is even more strange. Look at how much players stick to a good racing game, like trackmania or the new zeepkist and such. Just be straightforward, bring out cosmetic DLC and some free functional thing every few month for a few bucks and it's an honest thing.
it's called cookie run kingdoms and it triggers me on two points, not only it's exploitative model it's at the same pushing sugar, I called myself diabetical or something to raise however slim hope of awareness.
crazy times.
I guess gaming did start off with literal nickel-and-diming at the arcade. I’m glad I experienced the golden age of gaming where buying a game was the only transaction needed for 50 hours of enjoyment.
And if it is available, is Nintendo blatantly ignoring the ban pretending that "firing the pipe" is not a loot box? Or have they tweaked the in-game economic mechanics to be compatible with the Belgian law?
It's nice that iOS shows the list of purchases on the app page. If only it had a filter too.
I guess all mobile games are actually just one game: whale hunter. The dev is the player and the "players" are the prey.
I feel like I should get a decent sized rubber stamp: #enshittification[2]. Alas that I cant stamp it that all over web pages & apps.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/23621907/streaming-tv-boxes-roku-am... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35051353
[2] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479
...also as a nice side effect it would make the video games I like to play cheaper and better.
Japan is on that list as well, though I think the Mario Kart micro transactions and gambling like mechanisms are still legal.
Belgium probably has one of the strictest laws: “Looking at various games, such as FIFA 18 and Overwatch, Belgium determined that the randomized risk/reward system innate to loot boxes is tantamount to gambling.” Mario Kart Tour, for example, is simply not available there.
[1] https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-il...
Kids have lost tens of thousands of dollars on their platform. And I'm guessing if they were sued, none of it is binding, because minors.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/roblox-criticized-for-lack-of-...
From a less direct perspective I remember vividly when my mom would be shook at the idea of a $30 Pokemon game for the DS. Now we pay $60 for a game and expected to pay up to $60 in DLC's not including ingame currency purchases. Oh how times have changed.
I can remember having to go halves on it for my Xmas present, as I think it was well outside the norm price wise.
Never regretted that purchase though! Unlike a lot of the overpriced half finished pre-order games we get nowadays..
Also, expansion packs for AAA games have always been a thing, and it's always felt kind of painful to buy them.
Sad that gaming these days has devolved into the state it has. I love gaming, and have loved gaming since I got a SNES at age 5. Micro-transactions suck, and constantly make me feel like I'm paying to let the developer get away with not finishing the actual game, rather than me paying for a fully developed game.
Nintendo, in this case, is being fucking lazy by allowing this to tarnish their brand - they are owned by 1. a family that is probably worth a few hundred million (the Yamauchi family) and has no need for a quick buck, and 2. the Saudi PIF, which has trillions of dollars at its disposal and zero need for a quick buck.
To this day I play almost zero mobile games, the one exception is the LiChess app, which is free and has zero IAPs. Occasionally I'll do the daily New York Times Crossword mini and Wordle, which is also free.
Disclaimer: when the game in question came out, I put a few good hours into Mario Kart Tour, and enjoyed the core game itself, but hated the lootbox experience.
On a complete side note: does anyone else feel that gaming, especially since the advent of mobile gaming, has really changed for the worse? It seems nobody plays together anymore, which was a big part of my childhood, teenage, and college years.
Of course I understand what has happened. But it’s kind of taken the fun out of gaming. Or maybe I’m just old, grumpy and nostalgic.
In both Chrome and Firefox, global dark styles (whether built-in or via Dark Reader) also render the chat bubbles unreadable due to contrast issues (the text color gets set to something very light, but the chat bubble backgrounds remain white).
That sucks because the design otherwise seems cute and fun to me. :(
But I actually REALLY enjoyed this right-arrow format.
but people criticized it for having to pay up front. and it was a commercial failure.
so, people gets what they deserve i guess.
(btw, "super mario run" is still updated, if you have kids just buy it, it's well worth the money)
No thanks. Gimme some KSP or a NES emulator.
For me, and I wonder for other people, when you play one of these games you come to a point where you either keep playing or stop. Is the game fun? Is progression reasonable? Is this achievable without dumping huge amounts of cash into it? If any of those is "no", I quit.
The problem is that newer games pop up and I'm sure they're going to get even more subtle about getting you to part with your money. Pretty gross.
closes the browser tab on their phone
Nowadays you just outright buy whatever character you need with rubies. Rubies can be earned by playing normally, or you can buy rubies for money. The prices for characters is a little bit steep but not so bad you can't earn enough rubies free each tour to buy what you need.
Another decent strategy is to pick a tour where you will just let things slide and you just grind coins and rubies.
I haven't spent a cent and I've been playing for almost 2 years.
The quality of your racing is unrelated to the result, and your opponent’s behavior is either a previous race someone else did, or otherwise completely made up.
Freemium - the 'mium' means "not really"
Now its pretty clear that they are happy to sell their AAA brand titles to the mobile casino people. And people worry that means that maybe Nintendo isn’t principled on this issue, just conservative and slow to adopt these things in the same way they were slow and conservative on online multiplayer. If that’s true, maybe soon after showing crazy profits this kind of crap is coming for all of their beloved franchises in mainline titles on Nintendo hardware.
It's possible, but I'd worry more if it starts showing up on their own consoles, instead of mobile titles that exist mostly to get people interested in playing on Nintendo's own hardware.
Which isn't to say that Nintendo doesn't do weird things with DLC elsewhere—there was a 3DS game where you could purchase minigames with real money, but let you haggle with the seller in-game to get a better price.
Much of that revenue likely comes from players buying egg incubators and raid passes, which both are essentially pay-to-win gambling. And just like Mario Kart Tour, there are hard caps on how much can be done per day without paying.
If anything, the different color editions made trading among friends more interesting. I don't know anyone that actually bought both color editions of the same generation game.
The iPhone, the car, the clothing, etc., are all functionally identical and frequently, but not always, cost the same amount. Pokemon is different in that the two versions of each game contain all the creatures, but artificially exclude some from being caught in each title, which is absolutely a dark pattern.
> I don't know anyone that actually bought both color editions of the same generation game.
I'm not sure when they started the practice, but the most recent revision of Pokemon includes a SKU that includes both colors.
Enough do that Nintendo offers a SKU for buying both versions simultaneously: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/pokemon-scarlet-and-...
