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Nintendo's Mobile Mario Game Sets Download Record But Pricing Proves Sticking Point (reuters.com)
Nintendo's first Mario smartphone game has set a download record but gamers baulked at the one-time cost of unlocking content, prompting investors to push the Japanese game makers' stock to a one-month low. From a report on Reuters: Super Mario Run hit 25 million downloads just four days after its Dec. 15 release in 151 countries on Apple's App Store, earning gross sales of about $21 million, showed data from app analyst Sensor Tower. But Nintendo shares have lost 11 percent since the launch as the latest game to feature Nintendo's princess-rescuing Italian plumber received negative reviews from users mainly complaining about its $9.99 one-time cost, rather than the usual model of paying small amounts for special features. "Mario is arguably the most popular gaming franchise in the world, yet we see only about 8 percent of those who try the game actually purchasing it," said Sensor Tower analyst Spencer Gabriel. Super Mario Run is free to download on the App Store where, in Japan, it is rated 2.5 stars out of 5 based on 1,095 reviews.
Players are balking at a $10 investment on something that may suck, particularly when people are telling us it sucks.
Nobody wants pay as you go, that is bullshit.
Personally I enjoyed the game, but the "demo" doesn't even let you play through all of World 1. A much better model would've been for them to give you all of World 1 and then charge $1 per world after that.
I grabbed her by the pussy.
I for one can add and I'd rather pay $10 up front for a good game than a dollar here and there for a larger total. Pay per play and pay per feature end up much more expensive for the consumer than a flat price!
Smart phones have changed how people think about money.
I bet it's cheaper to pay that one time fee, instead of Nintendo using the current phone economics model to take it drip by drip.
"good game" being the caveat!!
I've paid a lot more than $10 for a game over the years and been perfectly happy, and felt myself ripped off for an independent title I bought for $5. My suspicions is, and reviews are backing me up on this, that the new Mario game isn't very good, regardless of the price.
I agree, I'd much rather pay a one time flat fee, even if the game turns out to suck.
.99 and 1.99 purchases doesn't feel like as big of a hit as 9.99, despite the fact that they'll add up to more.
It's an interesting question, though, whether psychologically that holds true for the majority of people, especially given how successful some of the microtransaction games turn out to be. I could certainly envision that a lot of people would turn out to be drawn more towards a model where there's a low or nonexistent up front cost, with small/incremental costs for additional features. People would tell themselves "Oh, I won't buy those" or "I'll just buy the one or two I really want", and then they get hooked, and those 'small' costs add up, often to far more than a flat rate would be. We don't process prices in a purely logical fashion (hence the plethora of "x.99" prices, for instance), and several
Huge Nintendo fan here and I think its a little too pricey. To me personally, it's a $5 ($6 tops) app at best.
Reuters doesn't get paid to tell people what you want. Reuters gets paid to tell people what Apple and App companies want them to hear.
Nintendo is bringing a traditional -- and IMHO objectively better -- pricing model to mobile and the existing companies are falling into a screeching fit about it. They've created a lagoon of a mobile ecosystem where consumers expect no quality, get no quality, and reluctantly part with pennies or are enticed to do so with exploitative practices. The App store and Android equivilent are objective market failures already way past the point of saturation and these companies are in trouble if any real competitors come along.
Not that Nintendo is that competitor, But their pricing model opens the door for one. If 50 million kids normalise paying $10 for a quality phone application, it will put most existing mobile app creators out of business.
As someone who creates games that go by the nickel and dime strategy, you bet your ass it makes more money.
Sometimes I feel guilty, other times I'm just happy to be able to afford food.
I don't really blame the developers. The market is what it is. I personally opt to have nothing to do with it in that form, but it seems like I'm the minority.
I think you mean, "balked."
is that since it's not an up-front purchase, but an in-game one, you cannot use Family Sharing with it.
first, these comments skew the results. i never ever buy anything that says "in app payments". hate them as I feel I'm buying a pig in a poke that I will invest my time in and then be asked to pay some unknown amount in the future. I'd rather just pay an acceptable price knowing I won't owe more just to use what I have.
thus I won't be the one commenting and rating the app that I refuse to buy.
Second, you are not likely to see anyone comments in a review. "Gee I with there were more add on payments in-app."
thus the absense of evidence in not the evidence of absense. People who hate in-app model of bussiness don't register.
Second $10? that's cheap. And since it's coming from a reliable company one has no need to fear it's a scam or a piece of alpha-ware.
So whine away.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I've paid a lot more than $10 for a game over the years and been perfectly happy
Did those games require you to buy a data plan for hundreds of dollars per year in order to keep even single-player mode going when you leave Wi-Fi range?
i never ever buy anything that says "in app payments". hate them as I feel I'm buying a pig in a poke that I will invest my time in and then be asked to pay some unknown amount in the future.
That's Apple's fault. The App Store says "payments", plural, even when there's only one one-time payment required to unlock all of a particular app's functionality.
The reason only 8% buy it is because it sucks.
Maybe, just maybe, the entirety of Nintendo's stock value isn't dependent on the success of an app.
Heck just look at Pokemon Go. I've heard of tons of people spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the game. I admit I spent $10 early on before I realized how the gyms worked, and that's all I've ever spent on mobile apps.
I wonder what percentage (and am guessing it's a large one) download Super Mario Run, discover that it must be continuously online and connected to Nintendo servers to function, and immediately ditch itâ¦
If the app cost $9.99 to download then I'd have already purchased it. Just like DS and Wii games before it.
My beef is I have a family account setup, so my family could share a $10 purchased game, but I need to buy the $10 in app purchase on every member of the families account. In app are great for the speed ups, they suck for actual functionality.
Most mobile games you either pay up front or you get free with micro-transactions. Mario Run is more like 90s shareware, if you like the demo you buy the rest
To my knowledge NOBODY else does it this way
crazy dynamite monkey
Anyone who complains about this is a fucking idiot. This is the number 1 reason I do not play mobile games.
"We released a garbage endless runner using Mario assets which people can't play on the subway/some trains/in many buildings in large cities because of bullshit always online DRM for a fucking single-player game and it doesn't seem to be doing that well. It must be because we didn't ALSO fuck people out of money with microtransactions. Sorry, we'll fix that net time."
It's amazing people can be that fucking dense.
Nintendo's first Mario smartphone game has set a download record but gamers baulked at the one-time cost of unlocking content, prompting investors to push the Japanese game makers' stock to a one-month low. From a report on Reuters:
The man who wrote this has no idea what the word "balk" means and has likely never seen it before. This is clear from the misspelling. This raises the intriguing question of how this content is generated. AI? No, AI would spell basic words correctly.
...when it was just called Temple Run. Love the new skin, but what do you want us to pay $10 for again?
Fuck these people. And fuck the mobile phone as a games platform. It just isn't. It's a gigantic shitstain on videogaming.
People have gone from (rightly) complaining about microtransactions in the gaming industry to complaining about getting a whole game for one up front price. I'm sure there's an entire host of honest, upright companies ready and willing to solve that problem for them, and frankly, these people deserve whatever the hell they get. Un. Fucking. Believable.
many would argue that I'm already paying for the data plan for other reasons
Does what you're already paying take into account the possibility that the game may push you into having to pay an overage fee? Or a tethering fee if the device on which you play the game is not the phone to which your data plan is registered?
I'm astounded at the press/reviews that Run is receiving. I think it's a phenomenal game. By far it's the best mobile game I've played. My son, who plays tons more mobile games than I, agrees. But here's the problem I have with Run - I bought it on the day it came out, and played about 30 - 35 minutes per day. By the 5th day I was through every level. $10 for such a short game is a bit steep, IMO. I feel like Nintendo *IS* doing the drip-feed/nickel-and-dime pay-as-you-go thing, but in their own way. They'll add more levels in a separate game ("Run 2"?) and charge another $10 for it.
And playing it in tall mode is somehow a disgraceful way to play Mário!
When they announced it on stage - they said it would be a one time fee. I was surprised it was as a "in app purchase". If they can change the business model around, that might help improve the quality of games.
Here is supposedly how to get around the in app purchase. https://www.reddit.com/r/ninte...
Is it just me, or do you hate it when people say "Is it just me..."?
For that caveat you can also read the reviews (almost universally positive) watch a gameplay video (show you how the features work) or ... play through most of the first world of the game which you can do before paying the $10.
"Good game" is also relative and personal. I for one find it to be a good game. YMMV
if so, then it's already more than you would get from a movie ticket, and since there are free levels to play you know what the game is about.
it wasn't a dig against the mario game, just generally speaking. people pay for perceived value, if it has become culturally unacceptable to pay up front, then it will have the undesired effect on sales regardless of the actual value the 10$ might buy as was the original commenters point.
Hey Nintendo.. if you'd charged a dollar for a full featured game, you'd have a soaring stock price and 25 million dollars on top of that.
Welcome to your failure.
No, not sarcasm. I really mean it. Well done Nintendo. $10 is chicken feed. Seriously.
As an independent App developer I often feel like a sweat shop worker. Or a ant being tortured by a child with a magnifying glass.
You write an App, that people really like and want, but the shit you have to put up with because you don't give it away for FREE is soul destroying.
I've tried offering two options, pay for full function or use with interstitial Ads.
The 1 star ratings keep coming in with comments like "Remove those annoying Ads and I'll give you 5 stars".
Oh thanks. I can feed myself and family on your generous 5 star rating?
The App eco-system is probably the most under valued product market place in modern society.
People think nothing of chucking 99c at a street busker or homeless beggar but balk at the thought of handing over a penny for an App they really want.
Nintendo could have been more underhanded, like some other games who can afford big names and tv adverts, but they chose instead to offer a freemium product with a single purchase option and not try to milk you for millions.
The game might suck, but their business ethics and mentality are sound.
No doubt their strategy going forward is to offer discount days and other price promotions to increase the conversion ratio.
You can only do that though from starting with a premium price.
Thank you Nintendo for not going to the lowest price point and perpetuating what has become an industry trend that's slowly suffocating itself to death.
I for one can add and I'd rather pay $10 up front for a good game than a dollar here and there for a larger total
The game is NOT $1 here and there. It's $10 one time, for the whole game...
The only difference is that Nintendo lets you go through the tutorial, three of the initial levels, play around with building your castle, and the race mode - so basically they give you a pretty large amount of content for free to decide if you like what is going on, then you purchase the whole thing. It's exactly like a free game demo where you can unlock the full game any time you like, not like an in-app nightmare that we know from other mobile games.
I actually think the pricing model and approach they took is essentially perfect, and I would love as many apps as possible to be modeled after this.
The only thing that I think is archaic is the need to be online to play, though I'm still not sure how much of a requirement that is since I'm mostly in a city and have a cell connection. If you really can't play it on a plane though, that is bad thinking on their part since a large part of their target market may well not have a network connection all the time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, 8% of 25 millions at 9.99 is U$ 19,980,000. In four days. I'm sure this is much more then stupid microtransaction model.
Nintendo allow sharing by a Nintendo ID account. The full game unlocks any time you use your id that you entered when you brought it, and you can have it on multiple devices at the same time.
A $10 starting price gives Nintendo flexibility to run sales to boost purchases when initial sales start tapering. When a $10 app has a 50% off sale it gets more attention than a $0.99 app; and at $5 Nintendo would still make a handy profit. If the price started at the bottom there's no where to go from there.
Besides, making $21 million in four days doesn't sounds like a problem to me. I doubt it cost Nintendo that much to design the game.