Super Mario Run’s Paywall is a Major Mistake

I was looking forward to Super Mario Run.

Another Nintendo licensed game on mobile devices? After the success of Pokémon GO, I was excited.

This morning, I downloaded the App, loaded it up, and was thoroughly impressed with the smoothness, polish, gameplay, and general vibe of the game. It’s very fun and simple to play, and each stage has high re-playability with additional challenges collecting coloured coins in increasingly hard places to access- given Mario’s single direction of travel. Graphically, it’s on par with the modern-style stages on Super Mario Maker. My joy was short lived. Very short. Only three stages long, in fact.

You see; despite being free to download, and being marketed on the Apple storefront as being a free game that “contains in-app purchases”, in reality, the rest of the stages after level 1-3 are behind a £7.99 paywall.

Nintendo are certainly settling into the model of mobile games well, it would seem.

This, to me, is a far worse offence than the game being riddled with microtransactions and time based restrictions: this is a bait and switch. You see, Nintendo knows as well as we do, that £7.99 is considered a high/premium price for a mobile game. They knew that if they put it on the storefront at that price, they would not get the interest, download rates would not be as high, and they would not get the sales. So, instead, they’ve advertised heavily, rode the hype train, made it free on the storefront, and are counting on the first three stages to be enough to draw a player in and reach into their wallets. It ensures the download figures for Nintendo’s mascot mobile game will look good. It also cannot be labelled as blatant dishonesty; because the fact you do have to pay is buried in the store description text with an asterisk next to it, in very small print.

By the way, the alleged irony of whiny, privileged people holding a £600-£700 phone and complaining over £7.99 is not lost on me, but it’s a little bit of a weak argument that doesn’t stand up, considering that most people obtain their handsets via a contract, at little or no extra cost from their service provider. At least these costs are visible and apparent before the contract is agreed on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpdfg5km60w

Contrary to what you might think reading this: I am not fully against microtransactions in games. Where a free mobile game offers shortcuts and extra resources to a player who is willing to pay for them, I have no issue. The critical element however, is that a free to play game should still be free at point of use. There should be a way (however inconvenient) for a player to earn those resources in-game without shelling out. There is however, no other way to play Super Mario Run beyond stage three without paying. You pay up, or you play only up to stage 1-3, period. No other option.

This was a critical moment for Nintendo. Along with Niantic, they sparked a phenomenon. There are numerous microtransactions in Pokémon GO. Loads of them. A whole in-game store of them. You can buy lures, incense, Pokéballs, lucky eggs and more; but everything in the store can be obtained, either from Poké-stops or by character level up. One of the egg incubators has infinite uses; additional limited use ones can be purchased. You can earn coins by having your Pokémon in gyms; or buy them from the store. Pay coins for Pokéballs; or go walking. This model is fair, and still allows people to play the game. People who don’t feel like they are already being fleeced for their money, are more likely to offer it up willingly for something they enjoy and support.

Super Mario Run was a chance to make lightning strike twice. Will it happen? I’m not so sure. I believe this is a misstep; one that’ll be paid for by Nintendo. As a result, I’m going to predict some kind of backpedal, and the developer breaking it down into smaller purchases and time restraints, or (less likely) making the game £7.99 on the storefront. The third option of course, is that they do absolutely nothing, and do nothing to assuage players like me who see the sheer corporate greed behind such a move, and refuse point blank to support it.

This is a pure money grabbing exercise. Forget Super Mario Run – it’s Mario Hustle.

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