Super Mario Run will cost ten whole dollars. Entitled idiots assemble!
As reported by the entire internet, the upcoming Mario game for iOS, Super Mario Run, now has an official price tag: $9.99/£7.99. Predictably, people have immediately split into three camps (with crossover between the first two): those happy to see Nintendo value its mobile product appropriately (thereby also hoping that means it’s good); developers hoping it’ll impact on iOS pricing as a whole; and entitled furious idiots throwing toys out of their prams at the prospect of a company having the audacity to charge money for an iPhone game.
My inkling is the first of those suggests a game that, at the very least, won’t be shit. Nintendo’s perhaps smartly not bringing existing classics to iOS, nor even a ‘full’ Mario experience, but there’s no reason it cannot create a really great touchscreen-optimised game. After all, two of the four Rayman titles work really well on iOS; of the two that don’t, one is a direct port of an ancient Rayman game, and the other had hope beaten out of it by a baseball bat with ‘freemium’ scrawled across it in pen. By contrast, Super Mario Run has precisely one IAP, to unlock the full game.
I also suspect the second of those things won’t come to pass. Developers might hope a ten-buck game would lead to people’s entitlement and expectation on mobile shifting, but that ship has long sailed. Instead, it will simply prove that Nintendo can charge ten bucks for a game. Unless your IP is similarly famous (the Codemasters F1 title also has the same price), you’ll still be scrapping it out at the low end, or hoping for the best in the $2.99–$4.99 pricing arena that’s laughably referred to as ‘premium’ on mobile.
As for the idiots? They’ll continue being idiots. There are no guarantees about the quality of Nintendo’s game, nor how well it will perform. There’s not even any guarantee that it won’t bump up the average price of iOS games, even though that is extremely unlikely. No, the one certainly is this the free-to-download game will get a slew of shitty App Store reviews from people horribly angry they can’t play yet another game for free.
This is the first “endless runner”-type game that actually looks interesting (probably because it’s not really an endless runner, but actually has painstakingly detail-oriented level design).
That’s why it’s worth 10 bucks.
Hopefully, there’s a market for these games. Hopefully, not just for Nintendo. Otherwise, mobile gaming truly will forever be the smelly trash bin behind the gaming restaurant.
It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out. That said, I’ve found plenty of existing titles with similar mechanics compelling, such as Badland, Food Run HD, Platform Panic, Rat on the Run, and two of the Rayman games (Jungle Run and Fiesta Run), off the top of my head.
And I’d argue there’s still a ton of great stuff on mobile every month – more than I can cover even with my multiple beats. It’s just so much dross stinks the place up.
(Sidebar: I’d love to see Game & Watch on iOS and Android. Modern devices are almost exactly the right size. And although the more complex ones probably wouldn’t work, those with left/right only controls would be fantastic. Basically, I want official Parachute for iOS.)
Game & Watch would be perfect for mobile phones. I’d buy the crap out of that.