Age of the Geek

Super Mario runs from profits
     For many years now I've bemoaned the fact that Nintendo's top notch games are held hostage to their sub-par consoles. On more than one occasion I've wished that the legendary game developers would abandon the hardware market and follow in the footsteps of their former rival, Sega, becoming a third-party developer. Oh how great would it be if I could play Nintendo's games on my PC without the use of less-than-legal emulators and ROMs.
     That may be a pipe dream, but Nintendo has taken a step in that direction by releasing two new titles for mobile platforms. "Super Mario Run," premiered on the Android devices last week (having already been released for Apple products last year), making it the first Mario game in years to be released on a non-Nintendo platform.
     Unlike most games on the mobile platform, "Super Mario Run" offers a traditional sales method. The first world can be played for free, but the rest of the game requires a one-time payment of $10 to fully unlock.
     One would think that this would be a welcome change of pace for mobile gamers. No stamina bars, artificially limiting the amount of time you can spend with the game. No micro-transactions offering random chances for desired upgrades. No upgrades hidden behind different forms of in-game currency.
     You pay once for the game, and that's that.
     Shockingly, this has not proven to be a particularly profitable business model. With only five percent of downloads resulting in the full purchase, Nintendo has confirmed that the game has not lived up to its expectations sales wise.
     Which is not to say that "Super Mario Run" has been unsuccessful or not well received. The game has received overwhelmingly positive reviews so far, with more than half of the total ratings on Google Play giving the game a five star review. However, the game is apparently polarizing, as the next most common review, by a large margin, awarded the game only a single star.
     Most of the negativity around the game centers on its $10 price point. While some take umbrage at the specific price, often citing $5 as more appropriate for the game, others are livid that Nintendo has dared ask to be paid for the game they are trying to sell.
     It just goes to show how different the mobile market is from the traditional console market. If "Super Mario Run" was released on the Nintendo Switch's e-store, allowing people to demo the first world would be seen as a gesture of goodwill. You won't find that kind of deal anywhere else on the Nintendo store. Demos in general are a rarity these days on the console market.
     But the mobile market is different. It's dominated by "freemium" games that technically can be played at no cost to the user, even though they are often designed with artificial paywalls that make the game nearly unplayable without tossing some money at it. This nickel and diming can result in spending a lot more on a game than one would expect, even if it's only a dollar at a time.
     The difference in value proposition is vast. "Fire Emblem Heroes," Nintendo's other entry in the mobile market, is centered on the recruitment of random characters to boost the ranks of your army. $10 spent on that game will net you about five new characters, most of which are statistically likely to be useless.
     Yet reaction to "Fire Emblem Heroes" has been much more positive, and profitable, for Nintendo.
     The difference of course is that spending $10 in "Fire Emblem Heroes" is completely optional. Logging in daily and completing quests is more than enough to earn enough in-game currency to progress at a decent rate, however players that spend more will always have an advantage over those that don't.
     In the console market, "pay-to-win" is considered an unforgivable sin. On the mobile market, it is the way of life. These games depend on "whales," people willing and able to pay excessive sums of money for a minimal advantage.
     It's certainly a problematic system, but it's hard to argue with the results. The "freemium" business model has proven time and again to be immensely successful. It's interesting that, as income inequality has skyrocketed over the last thirty years, the emerging business model naturally transitioned away from "pay this much" to "pay what you can afford." Those that can afford to drop $30 a month on a phone game do so, subsidizing those that can't. It doesn't lead to good game design, but at least everybody gets to play.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and admittedly drops a dollar or two on "Final Fantasy Record Keeper" every month or so.