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[LordRaptor]

I wonder if this will have an effect on the Android version of the game. Will listening to Apple ultimately cost Nintendo sales on Android platform because they released on iOS first?

Despite Apples smaller userbase, its userbase are more prepared to spend money on mobile than Androids, so for a one-off payment title going Apple first makes sense.
Particularly given the level of exposure they got as a result of that deal.

 

[Makonero]

I wasn't aware the game was removed from the store and won't make any more money.

This is many people's first exposure to the "evergreen" nature of Nintendo titles.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Thirty million isn't that great compared to their profits on dedicated game sales. They need to hit just 1 million sales to achieve the same profit margin there, assuming MSRP of just $29.99. In the dedicated space, where they regularly sell much more than 1 million per high profile title, the $30 million from Super Mario Run is fine but not exciting. As an example, A Link Between Worlds sold over 2.5 million within just 6 months of release*. At $39.99 that's $100 million.

After 6 months of release, Mario Run will have made a lot more money than it has now. It's not like the game is done, no more sales. It is still the number 7 best-selling game on the App Store! That's the crazy thing about this article, the game is still wildly successful by any measure. Any developer would kill to remain in the top 10 after a month.

 

[ElFly]

I think the conversion rate is good, but the bigger question is...now what?

Another level pack for other $10? Super Mario Run 2? more F2P levels with timers and that crap?

 

[Aostia]

I didn't really enjoy the controls so I didn't pay. But their conversion rate still seems pretty strong.

Yup
And with a premium price
Those articles really are trying too hard

 

[meanspartan]

I'm not paying $10 for a mobile game and neither are most people. For the content it should have been like 2.99 but Nintendo thinks they are still a premium brand I guess. Releasing exclusively on IOS at first was kinda stupid as well.

My kids were excited for it, but really just don't give a shit as they saw videos and that and realize there are billions of these games available now, free..

This right here is why mobile gaming, aside from a few exceptions, will never be good.

If people refuse to pay for quality experiences and just want yelling face icon game #278 to nickel and dime them, then that is all they will get.

Mario run is not as good as a regular mario game, but it is a polished experience on mobile.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I find it weird that reports such as this always fail to mention Nintendo now has a possible 90 million devices (with Mario Run alone) to ping with a notification with possible Switch / non-mobile Mario news in coming months. Combine that with Miitomo (and possibly Pokemon Go - not sure about Nintendo ability to get Nitifcations pushed on that one), and that is reaching a huge scope of people to inform about the Switch when the time comes.

I have no idea when, but I continue to believe that everyone that installed a Nintendo App on their phones in the past year will be notified about the Switch sometimes in the next few months. That is free marketing to a huge range of people. That is massive added value.

 

[nynt9]

The controls are limited because the iPhone lacks tactile controls.

There are platformers on iOS with full controls that play perfectly fine on a touch screen.

 

[jblank83]

After 6 months of release, Mario Run will have made a lot more money than it has now. It's not like the game is done, no more sales. It is still the number 7 best-selling game on the App Store! That's the crazy thing about this article, the game is still wildly successful by any measure. Any developer would kill to remain in the top 10 after a month.

We'll see where it is 6m after release.

Then again, ALBW is one of the more mild examples of profitability in the dedicated space. Nintendo has many franchises that sell much more than 2.5 million and at a full $59.99.

 

[mattiewheels]

Animal Crossing is gonna be their IAP juggernaut. I'm glad they're giving us games with no nickel and dimming, but AC is so suited for that model.

 

[meanspartan]

Yup
And with a premium price
Those articles really are trying too hard

They really are aren't they? It seems as if they desperately want nintendo to fail, they already have an article in mind they want to write so they are pushing the narrative to get it there.

 

[Chainsawkitten]

There are platformers on iOS with full controls that play perfectly fine on a touch screen.

Do you have any specific recommendations?

Touch controls are great for plenty of games but I can't see it working as well as buttons for platformers (except perhaps autorunners with limited input, eg. Canabalt).

 

[HF2014]

And its not out on Android yet. Cant wait to see how it does.

 

[Haunted]

$30 million estimated revenue for a game with those production values seems like a really successful thing for Nintendo.

 

[always crazy bacon]

This right here is why mobile gaming, aside from a few exceptions, will never be good.

If people refuse to pay for quality experiences and just want yelling face icon game #278 to nickel and dime them, then that is all they will get.

Mario run is not as good as a regular mario game, but it is a polished experience on mobile.

Problem is the market has been conditioned to FTP and micro transactions. I brought a few higher priced games in the early days of iOS and it stung how quick they got discounted or reworked to FTP.

 

[AzaK]

Of course it's going to fall off the charts just as most pay-once games do typically do. Sure, eyes are possibly more important on an App store, so you want those rankings but it still seems to be a pretty good conversion. Nintendo will just have to keep marketing it.

 

[friskykillface]

game was short, my only gripe about the game

worth the $10 though, I had fun with it

 

[NOLA_Gaffer]

There are platformers on iOS with full controls that play perfectly fine on a touch screen.

I feel like this has to be one of those "to each their own" thing, because the lack of tactile controls on the iPhone is what turned me off to mobile gaming way back in 2008. On screen D-Pads and buttons just don't work [for me].

 

[KingV]

Especially considering that while 3% isn't the highest number for F2P conversion rates, we know that all of the 3% paid $10. In other F2P games the vast majority of paying players pay very small amounts, few players pay a moderate amount and a tiny fractions makes up the vast majority of the generated revenue, the so-called whales. Mario Run doesn't have any whales and yet it's in the Top 10. That's a great achievement.

I believe 3% is in the bounds of a fairly normal conversion rate. Average is like 3-5% from what I have seen elsewhere.

So like you, I'm not sure why people downplay it as a failure. Lifetime, Nintendo will probably gross $50 million+ on the game, and it doesn't have a big team constantly supporting it. They probably made it for only a few million bucks and in a year or two they can use what they've already built to make a sequel.

Nintendo was never going to be Supercell, nor should they.

 

[nynt9]

Do you have any specific recommendations?

Touch controls are great for plenty of games but I can't see it working as well as buttons for platformers (except perhaps autorunners with limited input, eg. Canabalt).

The League of Evil series and Shadow Blade are probably the best examples.

 

[KJRS_1993]

They really are aren't they? It seems as if they desperately want nintendo to fail, they already have an article in mind they want to write so they are pushing the narrative to get it there.

Yes, the Wall Street Journal desperately want Nintendo to fail. I think you've hit it right on the head there.

So like you, I'm not sure why people downplay it as a failure.

It's absolutely not a failure, it's done excellent numbers and I imagine hugely profitable already - it's not even on Android yet!

But the issue is that it could have pulled a metric crapton more in revenue if they used a payment model that the market is already used to, rather than trying to force through a pay upfront model.

We were over the moon and overjoyed when Pokémon Go made a huge amount of money from micro transactions and showed that Nintendo's properties could be successful in mobile. Now it's evil and exploitative when Super Mario Run doesn't use it.

 

[HF2014]

Animal Crossing is gonna be their IAP juggernaut. I'm glad they're giving us games with no nickel and dimming, but AC is so suited for that model.

It could, but i it really what its going to be? We all expect to pay for cloth, housing, digging, whatever action we will make in this game, but it could be totally different. A buy price, with some little options like SMR could also be it.

 

[Thraktor]

Along with Miitomo, a large part of Mario Run's business strategy seems to have been built around getting as many people onto My Nintendo as possible, so I'd actually be more interested in their My Nintendo enrolment rate than their monetisation rate (hopefully we'll get some details at their next quarterly briefing).

How they try to leverage this for Switch's launch will be very interesting. Obviously the mere existence and popularity of Mario Run and the NES Classic is keeping Nintendo in people's minds, but they could also actively push Switch to Mario Run users both directly (advertising it within the game), and indirectly by offering My Nintendo rewards in Mario Run for owning a Switch or vice versa.

I'm most interested in how they use Animal Crossing to try to bring mobile users over to Switch. It's the most mobile-friendly of their large franchises, but it also offers perhaps the most interesting possibilities when it comes to bringing casual gamers on board to their dedicated hardware. It's not something that's coming up a lot in discussions of Switch games this year, but I'd be quite surprised if we don't see an Animal Crossing title early on to tie in with the mobile game. Obviously there would be ample opportunity for typical FTP monetisation in an Animal Crossing mobile game, but with a tie-in Switch game they could use linkage between the two games (e.g. "You've earned this piece of furniture for use in Animal Crossing Switch") to push buying a Switch as their main monetisation strategy. They've already got the My Nintendo-linked cloud save system up and running to handle the interaction between the two games, and they can treat the mobile game as something like the island in existing AC games, sharing the same character across the two, but with new activities and different furniture/clothing/etc. that can be brought back and forth between the two games.

 

[bjork]

Mario Run might have done well but what about DLCs? What about Mario Run 2?

The 3 million user who decided to pay, will they continue to pay 10 bucks for a sequel?

If they made one based on Mario 2, I'm there.

 

[PSqueak]

I read the title and thought the WSJ was complaining that the game was too short.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Well, I hope that 30 million is reinvested into their future smartphone games. I thought Mario Run was fine, but the single direction running style made me wish for a bit more depth. Using it in one hand eating an apple is one thing, but a 15CAD game is like a big AAA title from a few years ago, so I always want more depth out of smartphone games.

I'm sitting with more power than the 7th gen consoles in my pocket, I want it to be used.

 

[UserDoesNotExist]

It could, but i it really what its going to be? We all expect to pay for cloth, housing, digging, whatever action we will make in this game, but it could be totally different. A buy price, with some little options like SMR could also be it.

Tom Nook will start threatening to text nudes to your contacts unless you pay him either 100,000 bells or 4.99 USD a month. Look into his eyes. The sonuvabitch is capable of it.

 

[Basileus777]

a 3% conversion rate of a F2P title is actually pretty good.

Yeah but most F2P titles don't cap the amount of money they can get from a single customer at $10.

 

[KingSnake]

It's a good revenue, but nothing to write home about really. Even adding the Android sales it will barely overpass the revenues for something like Mario Party 10.

 

[tebunker]

We'll see where it is 6m after release.

Then again, ALBW is one of the more mild examples of profitability in the dedicated space. Nintendo has many franchises that sell much more than 2.5 million and at a full $59.99.

Please, everyone, when going forward to discuss sales or revenues of software, stop using MSRP. Unless every copy is digital Nintendo isn't bringing in full retail gross.

Sure it may make he arguement seem better but its not the truth. If you want to talk retail sell in use a $ amount closer to $45 ish for physical product. It will cover the bases and is a better example. Especially for Nintendo who rarely discount stuff. If you want to talke 3Ds games like this poster, uses some more like $30ish. Remember there are many other groups involved in Nintendos physical game distribution and they all make profit too.

So yeah, while Nintendo only had to sell 1million of a 3ds game to GROSS, ~$30million, this Iphone game cost them a fraction of time and resources and it involved only paying Apple whatever their negotiated cut is. Something tells me Apple may have taken less than the full 30% for the exclusivity of a Mario title.

Even then, the effort to bring in approx $21 million via super mario run is minimal compared to what goes in to even an average 3ds title. The NET profit here is what is going to cause the wide divide.

 

[AgeEighty]

They made a ton of money so I wouldn't call their run short.

It's not a FTP game, it's a free to start game, so thinking it was going to hang in the top charts for a long time was just bad judgment.

This. The game's business model isn't an evergreen sort of thing of the type that keeps games at the top of the charts, but it also doesn't really need to be as long as they can continue converting those who download it at a healthy rate.

 

[dickroach]

Nintendo's so stupid. they had a chance to release a game that perpetually brings in millions and millions of dollars for YEARS by finally releasing a Mario game on mobile, and didn't. this game should have had microtransactions.

 

[PassiveObserver]

Speaking as a consumer, game is fun but I ain't buying until the app is priced at $5 and the always-online restriction is removed. In no hurry, so maybe 2 years down the line I'll own this, or I never will.

 

[AgeEighty]

this game should have had microtransactions.

Good god, look what they've turned us into.

 

[Jordan117]

I wonder what effect blanket-banning every jailbroken and previously-jailbroken-but-updated device had.

 

[LordOcidax]

Good god, look what they've turned us into.

I think he is being sarcastic... I hope..

 

[dickroach]

Good god, look what they've turned us into.

meh. I'm a day one Nintendo guy (games + systems), but I don't give a hoot about mobile. if they were finally willing to dip their toes into mobile they should have done it right and tried to make bank.

I think he is being sarcastic... I hope..

nope.

 

[NOLA_Gaffer]

this game should have had microtransactions.

It's kind of fascinating how microtransactions has affected the gaming public in a stockholm syndrome-esque way. Over the last ten years gamers have gone from despising microtransactions to apparently longing for them when they're absent.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

My coworker just paid for it. That's +1 casual female demographic for Nintendo.

 

[Galang]

Game was worth the ten dollars, but after I beat it I had no desire to return to it. For someone more casual I think they'll get a lot more out of it

 

[SpokkX]

It's frankly mobile gaming done right. I'd rather pay $10 up front and have access to the entire game than sit through ads, timers, and other bullshit because the developer has to milk their customers for every penny flowing through their wallets.

Yes. This is the only model i can accept. Free to play with consumables (lives etc) would have diluted mario

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

Maybe suited for the OT, but one thing I don't get is what the point is for the Toad Rally and the Friend Rally things are if you can never see what the result is when someone challenges you. You only ever see your results at the time of the rally. Unless I'm missing it, I never know when someone challenges me in Toad rally and what the result is....same with Friend Rally.

 

[HotHamBoy]

It's frankly mobile gaming done right. I'd rather pay $10 up front and have access to the entire game than sit through ads, timers, and other bullshit because the developer has to milk their customers for every penny flowing through their wallets.

Good news: hundreds of awesome mobile games are also pay one and done, for less than $10.

I'm not paying $10 for a mobile game and neither are most people. For the content it should have been like 2.99 but Nintendo thinks they are still a premium brand I guess. Releasing exclusively on IOS at first was kinda stupid as well.

My kids were excited for it, but really just don't give a shit as they saw videos and that and realize there are billions of these games available now, free..

Why? Why does the fact that it is on mobile devalue a game so drastically?

There are quite a lot of PC/console indie games on mobile that have to be priced at a third of the price, or even less, to stand a chance. Look at The Banner Saga 1 & 2, a game series that works perfectly fine on mobile. $5 on the app store vs $20 everywhere else. Why?

People have just made this arbitrary value judgement, I don't get it. Especially when every wants to bitch about how "all mobile games are F2P trash." This mentality is precisely the reason why, an honest game asking an honest price can't make it.

 

[yyr]

After 6 months of release, Mario Run will have made a lot more money than it has now. It's not like the game is done, no more sales. It is still the number 7 best-selling game on the App Store! That's the crazy thing about this article, the game is still wildly successful by any measure. Any developer would kill to remain in the top 10 after a month.

The game is mostly done, and no, it has certainly made the majority of its lifetime money (on iOS at least). This is not a reflection of the game's quality; it is exclusively because of the pricing model. Downloads have dropped considerably because most people who were interested have already tried it, and they either bought it or not.

It popped back into #10 today apparently, but was #11 for the last 2 days and will likely continue to sink (source: ThinkGaming). That's just the way it is with outright-purchase games. And, by the way, it has been less than 3 weeks since release, not a month.

Why? Why does the fact that it is on mobile devalue a game so drastically?

It doesn't necessarily devalue the game. To put it simply, the prices are set according to market conditions.

The reason for the lower price is competition. On mobile, the competition is cheaper than it is on console, so the prices are set accordingly. It doesn't matter how "honest" the price is; if someone can get game X for free or game Y for $2.99, they're probably not going to even consider paying $20 for game Z.

 

[Mooreberg]

It's kind of fascinating how microtransactions has affected the gaming public in a stockholm syndrome-esque way. Over the last ten years gamers have gone from despising microtransactions to apparently longing for them when they're absent.

You are talking about two different groups of people. The people who have gradually tired of buying $40 of COD maps annually over the past nine years and the people who think anything above "free" is outrageous on their phone are not the same audience.

 

[cyba89]

So when something isn't #1 on the AppStore for half a year it's not worth the investment?

Should as well cancel every videogame but Minecraft, League of Legends and GTA5 because other games sure won't reach those numbers for a long time.

 

[KingSnake]

So when something isn't #1 on the AppStore for half a year it's not worth the investment?

More like not even 2-3 weeks. And stop pretending that one should expect from Nintendo the same "success" as one would expect from mediocre developers with a number of employees in single digits.

 

[Red Devil]

It could, but i it really what its going to be? We all expect to pay for cloth, housing, digging, whatever action we will make in this game, but it could be totally different. A buy price, with some little options like SMR could also be it.

I feel that people expecting that the AC and FE games on mobile won't be just simple spin-offs like Super Mario Run is in a way might be up for a big disappointment.

 

[luoapp]

More like not even 2-3 weeks. And stop pretending that one should expect from Nintendo the same "success" as one would expect from mediocre developers with a number of employees in single digits.

And let's not forget this is the biggest video game IP and backed with unprecedented marketing push (App store email sign up and tonight show appearance).

 

[LordRaptor]

stop pretending that one should expect from Nintendo the same "success" as one would expect from mediocre developers with a number of employees in single digits.

Success in the traditional dedicated gaming market is absolutely not an automatic guarantee of success in the mobile market, as any number of third party developers can attest, so I don't know why you would even bring that up or pretend that one ensures the other.