5 ms·

Nintendo says it doesn’t have plans for any additional Super Mario Run content

36 points by electic 10y ago

newscracker 10y ago
I was so overjoyed when I heard during the Apple event that this would be a one time purchase game and not have annoying IAP like many other games do. Nintendo definitely made the right choice in not annoying users with the "one-time pay to play" model. But since the app store is used to cheap 99 cents pricing for most apps and games, people are upset at something costing ten times that. If I as a user see value, I'd rather have more games follow the Super Mario Run model of a limited trial with a single IAP to unlock everything than the prevailing in-game pseudo-currency based models that end up making the gameplay experience worse as time passes. I hesitate to update many games because they become worse over time as developers try new and annoying ways to monetize them. Overall, the app store pricing structure is a mess and creates a frustrating experience.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hedora 10y ago
  Yeah, the gameplay is usually compromised by virtual currencies. Worse, if you look at the big spenders, you usually find people with mental health issues, and money launderers using stolen credit cards to level up and then sell accounts. [source: anecdotes from acquaintances with experience with multiple sides of these issues]
ianai 10y ago
They say no more, now. Then after everyone flips out we'll have a version 2 or added content later. On the merit of price, most Wii U games run in the $40-60 usd range. It feels like the free to play crowd wants to ruin a traditional product model like they ruined the rest of mobile.
outericky 10y ago
Does it need more content? As it is, we've become spoiled by endless content and $0.99 cent games. Half the 1 star reviews for this game are that it's too expensive or too easy. My only gripe is the lack of family sharing and the constant internet / DRM problem. Otherwise, it's well worth $10, it's a very polished game. IAP is one of the worst things to happen to gaming.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- blktiger 10y ago
  Super Mario Run 2 could easily be just an in-app purchase where you just choose which game to play once the game loads. That saves you from hunting through a bunch of similar looking super mario run icons on your home screen while also making it easy for people who like the game to find out about the new one.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- givinguflac 10y ago
  I don't think it "needs" more content, but honestly I'm surprised because there are 6 worlds and I fully expected there would be an update to add the traditional worlds 7 and 8... oh well. Either way I like that I can just buy the game and play it rather than having a ton of IAP's. However, I'm very disappointed that I'm not able to easily switch from playing on my iPhone to my iPad without force quitting out of it on the first device, and I don't like that they don't use Apple's normal purchasing methods. What I mean by that is that according to messaging in the game, if you don't link a Nintendo account and you delete the game, there is no way to restore that in app purchase and you'll have to buy it again, which is just stupid.
larrik 10y ago
Only tangential, but I really hate the "free to download, IAP to unlock" model. Why? Because IAPs don't "share" on family plans, so if I buy it, I need to buy it again for each of my kids. No thanks.
- ensignavenger 10y ago
  I really like the shareware model- a lot better than the pay 2 win model. As far as your concern, it sound slike an Apple problem/limitation to me.
  - givinguflac 10y ago
    It's really not, I've shared IAP's between my devices. Nintendo is just being a bit greedy on this aspect. Also unless you link a nintendo account if you delete the game you'll have to buy it again, which is dumb.
    - ensignavenger 10y ago
      I didn't know that- I don't use any iOS devices. Sounds like Nintendo has implemented so really dumb DRM. (Well, all DRM is dumb, but this sounds really extra dumb.)
- cableshaft 10y ago
  It's annoying, but it has to do with how Apple bifurcates the free and paid tiers. If you want to get the visibility, you almost have to stick with the free tier. Why? Because people are much, much more likely to download something that's free and try it out than even something for a nominal fee, but if you have a separate 'free demo' app, then each app has a separate download count, and suddenly you've got a lot less downloads you would have gotten otherwise (some people would skip the free and download the paid, and a lot less people will download the paid in general anyway). Hardly anyone discovers apps outside the 'featured' and 'top paid' or 'top free' lists on the app store, so any loss in downloads drops you down those top lists, which can cost you a serious loss in potential revenue and is thus unacceptable. Also if you have a free and paid version you're forcing the user to download your game all over again just to purchase it, which adds friction to the purchase, which anyone in sales knows even a single extra click lowers the odds of people buying something by a lot. So the only thing that makes sense for most apps is to make your app free and allow people to spend money in the app to either unlock or acquire something in the game. There are some apps that are better served on the paid tiers, but those are usually apps that have enough visibility (or built-in audience, i.e. Cartoon Network games) and possibly a high enough price on other platforms that people would expect to pay something anyway (i.e. Minecraft Pocket, Square Enix games), or serve a niche audience of people that don't mind paying (i.e. app versions of board games whose prices are set at fraction of the price of buying the physical board game).
jly 10y ago
Nintendo priced this game fairly and appropriately. The game is absolutely packed with content and beautiful design and I'm glad they went for a traditional one and done pricing scheme rather than what other mobile games often use. It's the investors clamoring for more content to sell, not the people actually playing the game. IAP is an issue but it's not Nintendo's fault. They clearly wanted a way to try before you buy to entice more people to download, and this is the standard model that Apple has put together.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Beautiful design? It's redesign of stock OS UI is gross and annoying. The spinner when it looks for a network connection and fails is not good. The picker at the beginning - how is this good design. Paying some attention to the platform and not requiring an internet connection would have resulted in a better looking, better behaving game.
  - danso 10y ago
    Yeah, I immediately passed when I heard the game required an Internet connection. Their stated reasons are ridiculous [0], or at least questionable given the many number of high quality games that manage to have an offline mode. [0] http://www.polygon.com/mobile/2016/12/9/13897536/super-mario-run-internet-connection http://www.polygon.com/mobile/2016/12/9/13897536/super-mario...
  - flukus 10y ago
    Games have never used stock UI's. Even native looking applications are (unfortunately) quickly becoming a thing of the past.
caconym_ 10y ago
Are any real numbers available? Has the game actually lost money? Maybe investors have been riding a bit of a bubble, assuming that Pokemon Go would be the norm rather than the exception for mobile games based on venerable Nintendo franchises. Criticizing the payment model seems fair, though. However cynical and toxic you might think the typical mobile game's monetization scheme is, when in Rome...
- electic 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229607
  - caconym_ 10y ago
    Combined with the 8% value from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229499, that (according to my early morning math) comes in at something like (very roughly) $25M "gross revenue" (apologies if that's not the right term). That's just for whichever four days they set the records for. A fair bit of money, but for a company like Nintendo I could see development costs already getting up there, to say nothing of advertising, ongoing maintenance, and so on. Maybe they really will lose money on it. Mobile games are hard. For a game with this pricing model i.e. you pay up front, you get a high quality game, you play it (Monument Valley might be a similar example), even with really good market saturation (which is how I'd describe what SMR has accomplished but, again, I'm not an expert), $25M is great. To make a few comparisons based on probably-wrong numbers I found on Google for some excellent games, Tiny Wings made about $5M and the fairly well-known Monument Valley did about $15M. Those developers doubtless kept costs down by limiting their staff and project scope and relying on word-of-mouth/viral/whatever marketing. As I see it, any other approach with the straight-up pricing model is simply not going to make you any money 99% of the time. The people really making money on mobile games have set up Skinner boxes where "whales" can drop thousands of dollars a year in "micro"transactions. Maybe this is all bullshit; I'm just fascinated by the idea that you can release a relatively simple game, break download records on the app store with 8% of those downloads getting you $8-10 per (making some dumb assumptions about Apple's cut), and still lose money.
Mahn 10y ago
According to Reuters[0] about 8% of all downloads converted to sales for the full game. That's not that bad technically, but I guess expectations were high after Pokemon GO. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nintendo-supermario-idUSKBN14A0U0?il=0 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nintendo-supermario-idUSKB...
newscracker 10y ago
> A Nintendo spokesman said the company didn’t plan to release additional content, either free or paid. I find the term "new content" a bit weird here. What does it mean? New levels? New characters? New items in the shop? New challenges? New gameplay mode? Any of these? If we assume that a new type of challenge or a game play mode would count as new content, Super Mario Run just sent an in-game notification that a Toad Rally type game could be played with friends as a friendly challenge, without gaining or losing any coins or toads. How many times one can play this everyday depends on the number of worlds conquered and the number of friends one has on the game. Of course, this is free for the current players without updating the game from the app store. This feature wasn't available before. So Nintendo had already built this into the app and just flipped some switch today. Who knows how many such hidden features exist that would be turned on gradually to sustain player interest and keep them engaged? I didn't purchase the full game because, compared to many others, I find these games difficult to play and win. I have some other nitpicks as well - coins are basically useless (except to build some decorations), Toad Rally tickets are hard to win, getting the colored coins beyond the pink ones is quite tough and sometimes even impossible without using the bubble to go backward. So it didn't seem worth spending so much money to just play a few levels with limited advancement. I would've liked the game to have a range of difficulty levels on the plus and minus side of what currently exists.
- outericky 10y ago
  Agree that it's ambiguous. I fired it up and saw a new play mode available today (rally free run).... so not new levels, but new gameplay option.
  - newscracker 10y ago
    I feel Nintendo probably didn't grasp that Toad Rally would be the gameplay sequence more appreciated by people than the World Tour. Toad Rally is more fun and gives more replay value. But it needs to be tweaked for better player matching, easier ways to get Toad Rally tickets often (or remove the ticket system altogether), allow to challenge friends for toads and coins (not a "friendly run") and so on. Adding Game Center support for friends is a better option than being tied to inviting friends through a different system or creating a Nintendo account (though Game Center ties the relationships to iOS alone). If at all anyone from the Nintendo team that built Super Mario Run is reading this, please focus on making Toad Rally more accessible and better.
electic 10y ago
I loved the game. The best part of the game is actually getting the colored coins and Toad Rally. I tend to run out of tickets fast and would love to buy more tickets. I think this could be a great way for Nintendo to make a constant revenue stream in the game.
CM30 10y ago
I don't get it. Didn't they just add some Christmas items for Kingdom Builder a few days ago? And a 'friendly' mode for Toad Rush earlier today? That sounds like additional Super Mario Run content for me. Just the free kind people like.
- gallerdude 10y ago
  No more additional paid content.
  - dpcan 10y ago
    It looks like the quote in the article also says "free content" so there is definitely some confusion here. Yet the notification I received IN the game today was titled "new feature added". So, maybe features aren't content, but that seems like an update to me.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dpcan 10y ago
Nintendo comes out and offers a game with a few free levels, then pay-once, and you get the whole game. Seems like exactly what everyone ALWAYS asks for. We constantly see complaining about micro transactions, etc, and Nintendo goes with the traditional pay-once model AND gives you the ability to try for free and people freak out. This industry is so incredibly frustrating. You can't please everyone, but it seems like you can't please anyone, ever, anymore. If you hype it, they will hate it. This seems to be the new world we live in. You almost have to subtly release something, let crowds pass it around online and feel like they are responsible for its success, put some of the "ownership" behind those hyping it, and then they can't hate on it when it comes out.
- TAForObvReasons 10y ago
  > This industry is so incredibly frustrating. You can't please everyone, but it seems like you can't please anyone, ever, anymore. The complainers are always louder than the praisers. People complain about SuperCell and in-app purchases in their games, but it's funny to think about how much money they make. Employees and founders there are among the highest earning people in Finland and pay the most taxes among individuals in Finald, so certainly if people are upset they aren't voting with their wallets.
- distantsounds 10y ago
  This is essentially the tried-and-true shareware model from the 90s that died in the era of micro-transactions and downloadable content. Albeit you sometimes got more than 3 levels, FPS games like DOOM come to mind.
- wmeredith 10y ago
  The old problem is that you can't please everyone. The new problem is that you can fucking hear everyone with social media..
- Singletoned 10y ago
  > If you hype it, they will hate it. This. People really seem to struggle to learn that if you massively hype something in advance, a lot of people are going to be disappointed. Even if it's good, but just not as good as they were expecting, they will feel disappointment. It's been advertised on the front page of the App Store for over a month, which is more promotion then I've ever seen Apple do for a game, but although this game is good, it doesn't feel good enough to be the most promoted game in iOS history.
aczerepinski 10y ago
As a shareholder, I don't think Nintendo is doing all they can to capitalize on their IP and industry position. I played the first three levels and the game seems fine. But why build a two-hour game and stop there? Once you've built out the infrastructure, isn't the hard part done, and additional art/level assets are comparatively less expensive? Wouldn't a 30 level expansion be inexpensive to develop and well received by fans?
- valarauca1 10y ago
  But why build a two-hour game and stop there? Over saturation, artificially create more demand. Nobody goes back to an all you can eat buffet because the steak was so well prepared. Wouldn't a 30 level expansion be inexpensive to develop and well received by fans? Generally no. DLC doesn't typically sell at a high rate. Also a Nintendo shareholder you should be aware they don't sell DLC's. I don't even understand your support over this business model. ATVI supports this model and is down ~$2 on the year. While NTDOY has avoided it and is up ~9 on the year. KING who heavily practiced this model is no longer trading. Going out 5year there has been little difference in the per-share profit. So the market really doesn't validate this business model. It is a model, it works, but it isn't wildy successful... The only justification I can see for it is chasing trends. Once you've built out the infrastructure, isn't the hard part done, and additional art/level assets are comparatively less expensive? This is also true for releasing future games at a premium point. Why sell 30 levels for $1. When you can sell 5 for $1 every 6 months? One is a far steadier revenue stream.
  - AlexandrB 10y ago
    > Also a Nintendo shareholder you should be aware they don't sell DLC's. This is completely false. There's plenty of DLC (new characters, maps[1]) for Super Smash Bros. Wii U & 3DS. [1] http://www.smashbros.com/us/dlc/ http://www.smashbros.com/us/dlc/
ndrake 10y ago
I'll gladly pay the $10 once they remove the constant internet connection requirement.
brak1 10y ago
Well i just got an iOS notification a few minutes ago saying "Super mario run - new feature - friendly run is available". But I assume (given that the game was only released a few days ago) that it was intended to slowly roll out whatever this 'friendly run' mode is...

36 points by electic 10y ago

I was so overjoyed when I heard during the Apple event that this would be a one time purchase game and not have annoying IAP like many other games do. Nintendo definitely made the right choice in not annoying users with the "one-time pay to play" model. But since the app store is used to cheap 99 cents pricing for most apps and games, people are upset at something costing ten times that. If I as a user see value, I'd rather have more games follow the Super Mario Run model of a limited trial with a single IAP to unlock everything than the prevailing in-game pseudo-currency based models that end up making the gameplay experience worse as time passes. I hesitate to update many games because they become worse over time as developers try new and annoying ways to monetize them. Overall, the app store pricing structure is a mess and creates a frustrating experience.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hedora 10y ago
Yeah, the gameplay is usually compromised by virtual currencies. Worse, if you look at the big spenders, you usually find people with mental health issues, and money launderers using stolen credit cards to level up and then sell accounts. [source: anecdotes from acquaintances with experience with multiple sides of these issues]

ianai 10y ago

They say no more, now. Then after everyone flips out we'll have a version 2 or added content later. On the merit of price, most Wii U games run in the $40-60 usd range. It feels like the free to play crowd wants to ruin a traditional product model like they ruined the rest of mobile.

outericky 10y ago

Does it need more content? As it is, we've become spoiled by endless content and $0.99 cent games. Half the 1 star reviews for this game are that it's too expensive or too easy. My only gripe is the lack of family sharing and the constant internet / DRM problem. Otherwise, it's well worth $10, it's a very polished game. IAP is one of the worst things to happen to gaming.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
blktiger 10y ago
Super Mario Run 2 could easily be just an in-app purchase where you just choose which game to play once the game loads. That saves you from hunting through a bunch of similar looking super mario run icons on your home screen while also making it easy for people who like the game to find out about the new one.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
givinguflac 10y ago
I don't think it "needs" more content, but honestly I'm surprised because there are 6 worlds and I fully expected there would be an update to add the traditional worlds 7 and 8... oh well. Either way I like that I can just buy the game and play it rather than having a ton of IAP's. However, I'm very disappointed that I'm not able to easily switch from playing on my iPhone to my iPad without force quitting out of it on the first device, and I don't like that they don't use Apple's normal purchasing methods. What I mean by that is that according to messaging in the game, if you don't link a Nintendo account and you delete the game, there is no way to restore that in app purchase and you'll have to buy it again, which is just stupid.

larrik 10y ago

Only tangential, but I really hate the "free to download, IAP to unlock" model. Why? Because IAPs don't "share" on family plans, so if I buy it, I need to buy it again for each of my kids. No thanks.

ensignavenger 10y ago
I really like the shareware model- a lot better than the pay 2 win model. As far as your concern, it sound slike an Apple problem/limitation to me.
- givinguflac 10y ago
  It's really not, I've shared IAP's between my devices. Nintendo is just being a bit greedy on this aspect. Also unless you link a nintendo account if you delete the game you'll have to buy it again, which is dumb.
  - ensignavenger 10y ago
    I didn't know that- I don't use any iOS devices. Sounds like Nintendo has implemented so really dumb DRM. (Well, all DRM is dumb, but this sounds really extra dumb.)
cableshaft 10y ago
It's annoying, but it has to do with how Apple bifurcates the free and paid tiers. If you want to get the visibility, you almost have to stick with the free tier. Why? Because people are much, much more likely to download something that's free and try it out than even something for a nominal fee, but if you have a separate 'free demo' app, then each app has a separate download count, and suddenly you've got a lot less downloads you would have gotten otherwise (some people would skip the free and download the paid, and a lot less people will download the paid in general anyway). Hardly anyone discovers apps outside the 'featured' and 'top paid' or 'top free' lists on the app store, so any loss in downloads drops you down those top lists, which can cost you a serious loss in potential revenue and is thus unacceptable. Also if you have a free and paid version you're forcing the user to download your game all over again just to purchase it, which adds friction to the purchase, which anyone in sales knows even a single extra click lowers the odds of people buying something by a lot. So the only thing that makes sense for most apps is to make your app free and allow people to spend money in the app to either unlock or acquire something in the game. There are some apps that are better served on the paid tiers, but those are usually apps that have enough visibility (or built-in audience, i.e. Cartoon Network games) and possibly a high enough price on other platforms that people would expect to pay something anyway (i.e. Minecraft Pocket, Square Enix games), or serve a niche audience of people that don't mind paying (i.e. app versions of board games whose prices are set at fraction of the price of buying the physical board game).

jly 10y ago

Nintendo priced this game fairly and appropriately. The game is absolutely packed with content and beautiful design and I'm glad they went for a traditional one and done pricing scheme rather than what other mobile games often use. It's the investors clamoring for more content to sell, not the people actually playing the game. IAP is an issue but it's not Nintendo's fault. They clearly wanted a way to try before you buy to entice more people to download, and this is the standard model that Apple has put together.

lostlogin 10y ago
Beautiful design? It's redesign of stock OS UI is gross and annoying. The spinner when it looks for a network connection and fails is not good. The picker at the beginning - how is this good design. Paying some attention to the platform and not requiring an internet connection would have resulted in a better looking, better behaving game.
- danso 10y ago
  Yeah, I immediately passed when I heard the game required an Internet connection. Their stated reasons are ridiculous [0], or at least questionable given the many number of high quality games that manage to have an offline mode. [0] http://www.polygon.com/mobile/2016/12/9/13897536/super-mario-run-internet-connection http://www.polygon.com/mobile/2016/12/9/13897536/super-mario...
- flukus 10y ago
  Games have never used stock UI's. Even native looking applications are (unfortunately) quickly becoming a thing of the past.

caconym_ 10y ago

Are any real numbers available? Has the game actually lost money? Maybe investors have been riding a bit of a bubble, assuming that Pokemon Go would be the norm rather than the exception for mobile games based on venerable Nintendo franchises. Criticizing the payment model seems fair, though. However cynical and toxic you might think the typical mobile game's monetization scheme is, when in Rome...

electic 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229607
- caconym_ 10y ago
  Combined with the 8% value from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13229499, that (according to my early morning math) comes in at something like (very roughly) $25M "gross revenue" (apologies if that's not the right term). That's just for whichever four days they set the records for. A fair bit of money, but for a company like Nintendo I could see development costs already getting up there, to say nothing of advertising, ongoing maintenance, and so on. Maybe they really will lose money on it. Mobile games are hard. For a game with this pricing model i.e. you pay up front, you get a high quality game, you play it (Monument Valley might be a similar example), even with really good market saturation (which is how I'd describe what SMR has accomplished but, again, I'm not an expert), $25M is great. To make a few comparisons based on probably-wrong numbers I found on Google for some excellent games, Tiny Wings made about $5M and the fairly well-known Monument Valley did about $15M. Those developers doubtless kept costs down by limiting their staff and project scope and relying on word-of-mouth/viral/whatever marketing. As I see it, any other approach with the straight-up pricing model is simply not going to make you any money 99% of the time. The people really making money on mobile games have set up Skinner boxes where "whales" can drop thousands of dollars a year in "micro"transactions. Maybe this is all bullshit; I'm just fascinated by the idea that you can release a relatively simple game, break download records on the app store with 8% of those downloads getting you $8-10 per (making some dumb assumptions about Apple's cut), and still lose money.

Mahn 10y ago

According to Reuters[0] about 8% of all downloads converted to sales for the full game. That's not that bad technically, but I guess expectations were high after Pokemon GO. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nintendo-supermario-idUSKBN14A0U0?il=0 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nintendo-supermario-idUSKB...

newscracker 10y ago

> A Nintendo spokesman said the company didn’t plan to release additional content, either free or paid. I find the term "new content" a bit weird here. What does it mean? New levels? New characters? New items in the shop? New challenges? New gameplay mode? Any of these? If we assume that a new type of challenge or a game play mode would count as new content, Super Mario Run just sent an in-game notification that a Toad Rally type game could be played with friends as a friendly challenge, without gaining or losing any coins or toads. How many times one can play this everyday depends on the number of worlds conquered and the number of friends one has on the game. Of course, this is free for the current players without updating the game from the app store. This feature wasn't available before. So Nintendo had already built this into the app and just flipped some switch today. Who knows how many such hidden features exist that would be turned on gradually to sustain player interest and keep them engaged? I didn't purchase the full game because, compared to many others, I find these games difficult to play and win. I have some other nitpicks as well - coins are basically useless (except to build some decorations), Toad Rally tickets are hard to win, getting the colored coins beyond the pink ones is quite tough and sometimes even impossible without using the bubble to go backward. So it didn't seem worth spending so much money to just play a few levels with limited advancement. I would've liked the game to have a range of difficulty levels on the plus and minus side of what currently exists.

outericky 10y ago
Agree that it's ambiguous. I fired it up and saw a new play mode available today (rally free run).... so not new levels, but new gameplay option.
- newscracker 10y ago
  I feel Nintendo probably didn't grasp that Toad Rally would be the gameplay sequence more appreciated by people than the World Tour. Toad Rally is more fun and gives more replay value. But it needs to be tweaked for better player matching, easier ways to get Toad Rally tickets often (or remove the ticket system altogether), allow to challenge friends for toads and coins (not a "friendly run") and so on. Adding Game Center support for friends is a better option than being tied to inviting friends through a different system or creating a Nintendo account (though Game Center ties the relationships to iOS alone). If at all anyone from the Nintendo team that built Super Mario Run is reading this, please focus on making Toad Rally more accessible and better.

electic 10y ago

I loved the game. The best part of the game is actually getting the colored coins and Toad Rally. I tend to run out of tickets fast and would love to buy more tickets. I think this could be a great way for Nintendo to make a constant revenue stream in the game.

CM30 10y ago

I don't get it. Didn't they just add some Christmas items for Kingdom Builder a few days ago? And a 'friendly' mode for Toad Rush earlier today? That sounds like additional Super Mario Run content for me. Just the free kind people like.

gallerdude 10y ago
No more additional paid content.
- dpcan 10y ago
  It looks like the quote in the article also says "free content" so there is definitely some confusion here. Yet the notification I received IN the game today was titled "new feature added". So, maybe features aren't content, but that seems like an update to me.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dpcan 10y ago

Nintendo comes out and offers a game with a few free levels, then pay-once, and you get the whole game. Seems like exactly what everyone ALWAYS asks for. We constantly see complaining about micro transactions, etc, and Nintendo goes with the traditional pay-once model AND gives you the ability to try for free and people freak out. This industry is so incredibly frustrating. You can't please everyone, but it seems like you can't please anyone, ever, anymore. If you hype it, they will hate it. This seems to be the new world we live in. You almost have to subtly release something, let crowds pass it around online and feel like they are responsible for its success, put some of the "ownership" behind those hyping it, and then they can't hate on it when it comes out.

TAForObvReasons 10y ago
> This industry is so incredibly frustrating. You can't please everyone, but it seems like you can't please anyone, ever, anymore. The complainers are always louder than the praisers. People complain about SuperCell and in-app purchases in their games, but it's funny to think about how much money they make. Employees and founders there are among the highest earning people in Finland and pay the most taxes among individuals in Finald, so certainly if people are upset they aren't voting with their wallets.
distantsounds 10y ago
This is essentially the tried-and-true shareware model from the 90s that died in the era of micro-transactions and downloadable content. Albeit you sometimes got more than 3 levels, FPS games like DOOM come to mind.
wmeredith 10y ago
The old problem is that you can't please everyone. The new problem is that you can fucking hear everyone with social media..
Singletoned 10y ago
> If you hype it, they will hate it. This. People really seem to struggle to learn that if you massively hype something in advance, a lot of people are going to be disappointed. Even if it's good, but just not as good as they were expecting, they will feel disappointment. It's been advertised on the front page of the App Store for over a month, which is more promotion then I've ever seen Apple do for a game, but although this game is good, it doesn't feel good enough to be the most promoted game in iOS history.

aczerepinski 10y ago

As a shareholder, I don't think Nintendo is doing all they can to capitalize on their IP and industry position. I played the first three levels and the game seems fine. But why build a two-hour game and stop there? Once you've built out the infrastructure, isn't the hard part done, and additional art/level assets are comparatively less expensive? Wouldn't a 30 level expansion be inexpensive to develop and well received by fans?

valarauca1 10y ago
But why build a two-hour game and stop there? Over saturation, artificially create more demand. Nobody goes back to an all you can eat buffet because the steak was so well prepared. Wouldn't a 30 level expansion be inexpensive to develop and well received by fans? Generally no. DLC doesn't typically sell at a high rate. Also a Nintendo shareholder you should be aware they don't sell DLC's. I don't even understand your support over this business model. ATVI supports this model and is down ~$2 on the year. While NTDOY has avoided it and is up ~9 on the year. KING who heavily practiced this model is no longer trading. Going out 5year there has been little difference in the per-share profit. So the market really doesn't validate this business model. It is a model, it works, but it isn't wildy successful... The only justification I can see for it is chasing trends. Once you've built out the infrastructure, isn't the hard part done, and additional art/level assets are comparatively less expensive? This is also true for releasing future games at a premium point. Why sell 30 levels for $1. When you can sell 5 for $1 every 6 months? One is a far steadier revenue stream.
- AlexandrB 10y ago
  > Also a Nintendo shareholder you should be aware they don't sell DLC's. This is completely false. There's plenty of DLC (new characters, maps[1]) for Super Smash Bros. Wii U & 3DS. [1] http://www.smashbros.com/us/dlc/ http://www.smashbros.com/us/dlc/

ndrake 10y ago

I'll gladly pay the $10 once they remove the constant internet connection requirement.

brak1 10y ago

Well i just got an iOS notification a few minutes ago saying "Super mario run - new feature - friendly run is available". But I assume (given that the game was only released a few days ago) that it was intended to slowly roll out whatever this 'friendly run' mode is...