Nintendo has such a great, family friendly brand. If I was in charge, I wouldn't want my brand to be anywhere close to being associated to this type of thing.
Grim to see even Nintendo who stand by their principles to such a degree elsewhere find themselves capitulating to garbage mobile profit models when on a phone.
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 my fave games from that era are no longer runnable on modern iOS.
Shenzhen Solitaire is probably the only quality pay once game I could name on the current App Store. There was one other but the dev stopped paying for an App Store license.
they didn't initially. their first mobile game, Super Mario Run, cost $10 and had none of the usual manipulative mobile game elements. People did not buy it so they switched to the same F2P nonsense as everyone else for future games.
Super Mario Run was also always-online for no reason, you couldn't play without an internet connection.
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.
I think the always-online thing is a DRM thing. I could be wrong, though.
As for the game itself: I've played it, and it's a pretty decent runner with the physics of New Super Mario Bros. Wii/U, but it's just not the same as the more full-fledged games. It's fun to pick up and play, but not groundbreaking or particularly special.
I was really disappointed by that choice. I had wanted to buy it for a plane trip I had shortly after it came out, but being online only, they lost that sale.
It seemed like an anti-piracy move because the game didn’t naturally need to be online. But I never thought iPhone app piracy was much of a concern.
The online-only aspect of it killed it for me. I lived in an area with spotty cell service when it came out, meaning a game that would otherwise be a great time killer was unplayable due to the DRM.
They have the data so they would certainly know better than me, but my anecdotal experience was just so wildly different. I bought it, and nearly everyone I know did. It was a great game, and did not of the scummy things that so many games did! The always online and the "won't run on rooted device" checks were very annoying to me, but it didn't exceed my tolerance threshold. I and many others praised them for just charging a one time payment for the whole game. My anecdotal experience made me very optimistic that Nintendo was going to prove that you didn't have to be scummy! Apparently not.
Yeah, but you only spent $10. The investors aren't going to stand for that crap when all these other companies are scamming their way to thousands. $10 or $4000 in revenue...take your pick. Gambling needs defined and outlawed in every way possible.
The recent supreme court ruling that released the sports gambling hounds has me gobsmacked with absolute disbelief.
From a legal standpoint, why is it a qualified use of government paternalism to outlaw gambling? We should not be asking the government to set laws based on morality.
Practically speaking, and apologies in advance for how obvious this argument is…when you ban gambling, it doesn’t disappear, it simply goes underground. Criminal actors benefit while the state is unable to enforce any protections or see any recompense. Moreover, it’s unclear what brightline exists between “gambling” and a ton of economic decisions. If I buy a plot of land because I think it might have oil, is that gambling? When I lock in an insurance policy, is that gambling?
I get it’s popular to immediately call for government enforcement whenever you experience personal moral outrage, but the real world contains far more nuance. Making gambling and some of its “sinful” corollaries like drug use illegal has never solved the problem, and has exacerbated it for the worst off.
I'm totally fine with allowing gambling at the condition that it be completely off limits to minors and it be properly labelled and easy to filter out. But now, what we see is games specifically targeting children are rife with gambling type mechanism to get the child to spend money. As for the App Store, sure they display that there might be micro transactions, but the hardly tell you if they are of the gem types or the "10$ to unlock full game" types. I also should be able to have an option in a menu somewhere to completely hide all those gambling type games. Right now, when I go look for games, I specifically filter for only the paid ones, yet those games still want to double dip and get you to pay micro transaction, which just discourages me from spending my money at all.
It is deemed a qualified use to limit gambling because gambling addiction hurts more than just the addict. Their family suffers, maybe society suffers because of crime. Limiting (not outlawing) allows for outreach, voluntary blacklists, escape for their family should they cross the line and other safety measures.
As for the brightline between economic decisions: yeah, the definition is not perfect. Poker isn't gambling for some definitions because it is 'a game of skill'. While buying a plot of land with oil is certainly a skill AND it is expected to generate profits. But we can't protect as m
well against hopeful stupidity.
Buying an insurance policy isn't gambling as it reduces risk. ...selling one is gambling if you didn't do the math though.
I think I agree on your take on gambling and some of its “sinful” corollaries, but aren't this and other dark patterns more about tricking and fooling people into something? At a casino I know it is money in, very likely no money out, maybe big money.
Here it is money in, for a chance to play better against.. what even humans, or just more virtualities?
I know i know, where to draw the line will be superhard or impossible, but this has the touch of plain betrayal to me, that classic gambling hasn't (as long as it is fair).
I don't fully disagree with you, but it's not so simple. I only paid $10, but I've paid $0 to all the others. Same for the people I know with one exception. It's got to be a small number of total users that spend thousands in a game, so it seems reasonable to think that the revenue could be comparable when everyone pays something.
You would be blown away at how many people without money spend $4000 in a short time.
I worked with a guy who spent thousands on World of Tanks when it launched 12years ago (free to play, and they didn't have anything that was pay-to-win or that resembled gambling). His income was about $40k and he had a family to support. I have since run into others who have blown similar amounts or more on mobile gaming. These people are slowly, quietly ruining their lives.
They added some daily bonus type stuff that may seem similar at first--I think they did that because it's what the mobile market largely expects, sadly--but there's nothing tied to payment, and it's pretty easy to just play the game.
I always found it weird how mobile phone apps/games trigger the "happy to pay £10 for a pizza, but not happy to pay £10 for hours of entertainment" attitude in people.
Is it perhaps because they spent a few hundred/thousand £ on the phone itself and see that as the complete price?
Mario Kart Tour makes far less money for Nintendo than Fire Emblem Heroes, which has a more traditional Gacha model (that is ironically not as pay-to-win unless you are doing high-end PvP)
I've never been into Nintendo but after having kids I kept hearing this about how great they are for families so I bought a Switch. That's when I learned what a greedy exploitative platform it is: overcharging for games, nickle and dimeing for everything, and abusing their fan's nostalgia. I definitely don't want to get my kids invested in their platform so I got rid of the Switch. Steam has more than we need anyway. (just wish Steam had better family friendly search filters, why is it impossible to search for games by ESRB rating?!).
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.
That's when I learned what a greedy exploitative platform it is
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.
For what it is worth, the Yamauchi family has been slowly selling their portion of the company for nearly a decade. (https://www.campdenfb.com/article/nintendo-heirs-sell-stake-...). The shareholder structure is the only thing keeping in control and they definitely care about how happy shareholders are. Luckily, the particular shareholders they are concerned with tend to hold for an extremely long period of time (Japanese banks and holding cos).
The coins, both the giving of and the expiring, are 100% a Japanese culture thing.
Most japanese residents can tell you near every store will have a points card system where you get 1% back in points. Or 0.5% for the stingy super markets.
What is lesser known is that by law such points, and even digital in-game currency, must expire else be considered money and regulated as such.
The coins are a "fun" value add thing. You can get small discounts on digital games if you use the gold ones. The silver ones can get you various digital/physical goodies. You're not missing out if you don't use them.
Why make them expire though? Even worse, they expire the coins gradually, stretching it out as long as possible, like radioactive decay. And they send you an email to remind you every time a few coins expire.
This is not fun! This is straightforward psychological manipulation! It’s taking people’s loss aversion [1] and grinding it as hard as possible for as much profit as they can. This is especially bad when you consider that they are a family-oriented company that primarily markets to children.
I don't believe that's true; unused gold coins expire at the end of the same month during which you acquired them, one year later. (I believe silver/platinum coins are similar, but only last six months)
So for example if you acquired 10 gold coins during July 2020 (it doesn't matter when or how many purchases or how spread they are through the month), all ten of those coins would expire simultaneously at the end of July 2021, while any coins you acquired later would remain. It's not a radioactive decay at all; it's a simple expiration date on each individual coin, like you get on coupons or other incentive programs.
The coins expire for the same reason that coupons expire, airline loyalty program miles expire, etc -- they're a liability on the company's balance sheet which potentially could build up infinitely if there wasn't some limit to how long they needed to be tracked and redeemable.
I never got such an email, so I guess you are subscribed to their newsletter? Just unsubscribe if that's the case.
Regarding e-shop: I'd never let my hypothetical children have access to any kind of e-shop where you can purchase without me having to confirm. Parental controls FTW.
The alternative is to uncheck “save payment method for future purchases”.
Do you mind elaborating on the "overcharging for games" part? Console games in the 80s were about $45, so games today are actually cheaper if inflation is taken into account.
Console games really benefited from economy of scale. The Legend of Zelda had an MSRP in 1986 of $50. That is $136 in 2022 money. You can preorder The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for $70, or roughly half the price.
Imagine how many more hours of labor goes into a modern game compared to a 1986 game. The 1986 game has nine people in the credits. Three people with the role "programmer". Two things kept prices in line. Reduced hardware costs, as the older carts are much more expensive. Increased sales, where more people buy the same software.
Throwing more people mostly making graphics, and creating movie like sequences where characters explain things isn't as hard with the tools available compared to making everything fit memory-wise making choices not faced today. Those three programmers interfaced with the hardware directly, solved os problems to get things working enough to put in a custom game engine they created into the smallest amount of memory before they can even start creating a world where there game could exist. The challenge today is how can I generate enough content to create a story to put into my unreal game engine. The 3d part, driver development, the memory management all is handled by something else.
Games for Nintendo consoles aren’t overpriced relative to games from past generations, but are expensive relative to PC games today. Sales promotions on PC platforms like Steam and GOG are more frequent and provide deeper discounts than Nintendo’s. And while AAA Nintendo games are roughly the same price as AAA games on Steam, old Nintendo AAA games retain much higher prices than old AAA games on Steam. (Example: Mario Kart 8 is nine years old and still sells for $60 not including DLC.)
A lot of the major Nintendo games are on sale this week (probably because of March 10 = MAR10), but even the oldest first‐party titles are only down to about $40 at the lowest.
Random question for the HN crowd piggybacking off your comment:
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.
My youngest son was 3 or 4 when we played Everquest together. He sat on my lap so he could see the monitor and killed snakes in front of Qeynos for 10-15 minutes a night for a few months.
We constantly played console games and board games as a family. The kids got their own handhelds about 7-8. We supervised what games they could play until high school, and limited their game playing/TV until 16 based on their grades and good behavior. After that, they really didn't need limits as they were responsible enough.
I was far more concerned about them having a cell phone. We resisted as long as possible, and then started with dumb phones without a data plan.
Don't have kids yet, but I started playing at age 5, didn't notice any issues (although that may be in the eye of the beholder, ha)
I actually think video games did me a decent amount of good with reading and math skills. Lot of RPGs, minecraft, etc. I would definitely set time limits and try to push towards more "brainy" games
Yeah. Although it was good that I quit when I did, my time with world of Warcraft when I was 9 leveled up my typing and communication skills so fast. Since I'm particularly prone to min/maxing I also got some good experience with math and unintuitive systems and how to guage what was better. (Percent increase vs flat increase, hit speed vs hit damage, etc.)
My son has been playing various Mario games since age 5. He can hold his own on Mario Party and has finished Odyssey. When we were kids, I was playing GTA, Mortal Kombat etc, so my childhood wasn't necessarily a good example.
That being said, his reading and math abilities are quite good and we attribute that to videogames, and a healthy dose of Mo Willems books.
My kid is 4 and plays a few specific games that I allow. He loves ”fire boy & water girl” for example, and he used to play Super Mario Run but it was not turning well so I cut that. Sometimes we play SNES Mario games together but he usually finds them too hard. Also some Mario Kart on emulators, and some Minecraft.
We let our oldest start pretty young. He could beat Monument Valley at 3 and beat Shovel Knight at 5.
Our current limits for our 5 and 7 year old kids are one hour, three days a week.
In some ways it feels like letting them read visual novels. The media itself is usually great, I just worry about them getting used to the easiest forms.
The switch is also a UX nightmare. I can't believe the time and stress incurred to get profiles setup and purchase games. Completely drained my excitement. I have like four of them...all sit unused.
I think they tried to do things clean with games like "Super Mario Run", I think they really really tried and even when it did kind of work investors weren't happy seeing how games like Diablo Immortal was the highest grossing Diablo game ever and Nintendo wouldn't just take the money just sitting there in front of them.
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.
I swear Pokemon Unite has 5 different currencies. Gems, Tickets, Coins, Fashion Tickets, Holowear tickets. But then there are other items / collector things which can be used to spend on other stuff, like energy.
Its super confusing and hard to explain, because it doesnt make sense!
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.