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[Skux]

Yes they made $30 million, but they could easily have made much more with a different payment structure.

How many people would have happily spent $1 or $2 on the game? How many of those buyers would have happily spent more than $10 over the lifetime of the game?

They'll be looking at this and seeing a gigantic missed opportunity.

 

[Gxgear]

Pretty short-sighted of Nintendo not to go for an f2p endless runner that'll give a bigger payoff longterm with recurring revenue. Works out for me since I actually hate the freemium model, but that's definitely the way to go for big money on mobile.

 

[koss424]

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..

What exactly were your kids expected if they were disappointed by a vido showing a Mario game that looks like a Mario game?

 

[KingSnake]

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.

It was the main attraction at the Apple event. It was aggressively promoted both by Nintendo (Jimmy Fallon) and Apple (pre-registrations, multiple notifications, banner in the App Store for days). It's maybe the biggest brand in gaming. It has broken downloading records after downloading records.

Why are you even trying to entertain the idea that one should expect Nintendo to achieve mediocre success on mobile markets after all this?

 

[Ghostshark]

The game has huge marketing issues. Instead of "free," it needed to be referred to as a demo. We knew that it would cost 10 dollars, but I doubt the average consumer did. Ten bucks is a bit high for a mobile only title as well.

As someone who owns the game, I wish it had more content. Toad Rally is flawed in that you have to basically do airship over and over, or the terrible haunted house levels for purples. It seems that there are looping versions of the levels that become really obvious after a few plays. It needs more variety. The game could also use more "score attack" features, and maybe an endless mode in addition to the campaign. Procedural generated content complimenting the base game would be fantastic.

 

[yyr]

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

We're not saying it wasn't worth the investment at all, but

How many people would have happily spent $1 or $2 on the game?

This. It was a huge missed opportunity.

SMR is a great idea in concept. Its finished form shows that Nintendo can release a high-quality and highly-polished game on mobile platforms. But their insistence on ignoring the way the mobile market works absolutely crushed any hope of SMR having a long tail or staying popular beyond the first few weeks.

Think of how much more potential SMR could have had if they'd simply given away all of World 1, and then charged $2 per world instead of $10 all at once, then released new worlds every few weeks, changing nothing else.

 

[LordRaptor]

It was the main attraction at the Apple event. It was aggressively promoted both by Nintendo (Jimmy Fallon) and Apple (pre-registrations, multiple notifications, banner in the App Store for days). It's maybe the biggest brand in gaming. It has broken downloading records after downloading records.

Why are you even trying to entertain the idea that one should expect Nintendo to achieve mediocre success on mobile markets after all this?

You're now making an entirely seperate argument about marketing that is completely divorced from company size or company history.
Being on Jimmy Fallon might be hot shit to you, but their competitors in the mobile space are hiring Mariah Carey for their TV spots airing mid super bowl.

There is no expectation of Nintendo having automatic huge success in the mobile space because they're Nintendo any more than there is any expectation that Samsung could suddenly release a console that easily outsells everything else.
Mobile is a highly competitive market, and it is outside of Nintendos traditional area of expertise. It seems churlish to begrudge them the moderate success they are finding there so far, or hold them to a higher standard than any other company entering that space for the first time.

 

[KingSnake]

You're now making an entirely seperate argument about marketing that is completely divorced from company size or company history.
Being on Jimmy Fallon might be hot shit to you, but their competitors in the mobile space are hiring Mariah Carey for their TV spots airing mid super bowl.

There is no expectation of Nintendo having automatic huge success in the mobile space because they're Nintendo any more than there is any expectation that Samsung could suddenly release a console that outsells everything else.
Mobile is a highly competitive market, and it is outside of Nintendos traditional area of expertise. It seems churlish to begrudge them the moderate success they are finding there so far, or hold them to a higher standard than any other company entering that space for the first time.

Right. Ignore the reality and current situation on the market and talk about a poor little hypothetical Nintendo's challenge versus the mobile markets giants.

At least poor little Niantic seemed to have found a way to overcome any kind of competition.

 

[LordRaptor]

Ignore the actual reality and talk about a poor little hypothetical Nintendo's challenge versus the mobile markets giants.

How exactly is that not the reality?
If its so easy, why doesn't everyone do it? Why are large third party publishers choosing to buy out established companies in that space rather than create and build up their own studios?

 

[UnemployedVillain]

A lot of you, the writer included, don't seem to quite understand the point of Super Mario Run for Nintendo

 

[Vampirolol]

I wonder how many people won't understand this.

 

[Wiped89]

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.

Also, I had previously heard that anything over a 2% conversion rate was considered good in the mobile space:
http://info.localytics.com/blog/mobile-apps-whats-a-good-conversion-rate


*https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2014/140508e.pdf

I see this kind of maths time and time again on Neogaf but it isn't the case at all.
Nintendo doesn't even take HALF of that $39.99. Shops don't magically send all the money to Nintendo when they sell a game.
The games are bought in batches by stores, which then sell them on at a profit. A $40 game will probably be $20 tops per unit for Nintendo, from which it has to take shipping and production costs out.
Then the store has to deduct tax from its overall profit on that unit. Here in the UK, that's 20%, meaning that $8 goes to the taxman, $20 to Nintendo and $12 to the store, per unit.
This is being very generous to Nintendo - it may be more like $15 per unit.

More than Super Mario Run, no doubt! But then there's production and shipping, and of course a console game will cost much more to develop in the first place.

 

[Air]

$30 mil is crazy with what seemed like a really easy game to push out

 

[KingSnake]

How exactly is that not the reality?
If its so easy, why doesn't everyone do it? Why are large third party publishers choosing to buy out established companies in that space rather than create and build up their own studios?

The reality is that Super Mario Run has broken any kind of downloading record. The reality is that no other game was the banner on the App Store for so long or benefited from Apple support in such extensive manner. The reality is that the conversion rate is right on the average of F2P games with the downside that it's just 1 transaction vs. sustained revenue when you check into the details.

The reality is that Nintendo also entered into a collaboration with an established name (at that time) on the mobile market specifically to make the transition easier.

The reality is that Nintendo put the full force of their name behind this.

So yeah, it is expected to achieve more than an average developer with 5 employees.

I see this kind of maths time and time again on Neogaf but it isn't the case at all.
Nintendo doesn't even take HALF of that $39.99. Shops don't magically send all the money to Nintendo when they sell a game.

Nintendo doesn't get all the money from App Store either.

 

[tebunker]

I see this kind of maths time and time again on Neogaf but it isn't the case at all.
Nintendo doesn't even take HALF of that $39.99. Shops don't magically send all the money to Nintendo when they sell a game.
The games are bought in batches by stores, which then sell them on at a profit. A $40 game will probably be $20 tops per unit for Nintendo, from which it has to take shipping and production costs out.
Then the store has to deduct tax from its overall profit on that unit. Here in the UK, that's 20%, meaning that $8 goes to the taxman, $20 to Nintendo and $12 to the store, per unit.
This is being very generous to Nintendo - it may be more like $15 per unit.

More than Super Mario Run, no doubt! But then there's production and shipping, and of course a console game will cost much more to develop in the first place.

I addressed this on the previous page but your math is way off too. Most games wholesale at roughly 20-30%less than msrp,sometimes this varies depending on size of the retailer, below retail. Most retailers make 10-20% gross margin on game sales, so thats 4-8 profit to the stores. Hence why we have a used game market.



So a $60 US game is anywhere from $45-$40 ish wholesale. Depending on who is making and selling it then it gets more weird too. Nintendo pays no licensing fees at, but does have distribution costs involved. Whereas a third party has both distribution costs and per game licensing fees.

I believe there was a good article on gamasutra but most third parties bring in between $25-$35 on each game sold to retailers. Platform Holders are always going to be higher, so closer to the $35-$40 per game
Sold in.

Nintendo makes great margins on all of their software, but the real differences here stem from dev costs and distribution/selling costs. That $30 million, $21 if you give Apple the full 30%, is amazing ROI considering how quickly and probably how cheaply SMR was made.

 

[HotHamBoy]

$30 mil is crazy with what seemed like a really easy game to push out

I wonder how much profit was made after development costs, Apple's cut, the government's cut and the huge marketing stint.

Apple made a killing on those front page banners, for sure.

 

[LordRaptor]

So yeah, it is expected to achieve more than an average developer with 5 employees.

Keep being disappointed by a failure to reach your unreasonable and unrealistic expectations then, I guess ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[djtiesto]

Same here. The black coin challenges are irresistible and I'm surprised at my commitment to beating tough Toad Rally challengers. It's a well-made game and it's priced well for the content provided. Of course, I'm approaching this from the perspective of someone who regularly buys $60 games at launch. Still, I applaud Nintendo for insisting that its games are worth paying for and attempting to stop race-to-the-bottom pricing.

A bit off topic but I absolutely love your NOTAM of WIND avatar! Really interesting and unique game that I very rarely see any type of English discussion on.

 

[Air]

I wonder how much profit was made after development costs, Apple's cut, the government's cut and the huge marketing stint.

Apple made a killing on those front page banners, for sure.

I think a conservative estimate is around $10-13 mil. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple took a smaller cut of the profits since Mario run isn't on Android yet.

Yes they made $30 million, but they could easily have made much more with a different payment structure.

How many people would have happily spent $1 or $2 on the game? How many of those buyers would have happily spent more than $10 over the lifetime of the game?

They'll be looking at this and seeing a gigantic missed opportunity.

Not really. Mario run isn't a platform. They can always make a sequel.

 

[KingSnake]

A lot of you, the writer included, don't seem to quite understand the point of Super Mario Run for Nintendo

That's a good point, but Nintendo kind of tried to have their cake and eat it at the same time. It worked for Pokemon Go also because the F2P model kept a huge number of players still active for a long period of time and every updated brought a spike of attention on top. Will see if it will work in the same way for SMR which is a much more frontloaded experience overall.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

A lot of you, the writer included, don't seem to quite understand the point of Super Mario Run for Nintendo

If the point is to get an audience that might balk at paying $10 for games to buy a $250-300 dedicated games console and $40-60 games than it is going to fail miserably. I don't believe that is actually Nintendo's goal, as opposed to simply branching out, diversifying their IP and trying to make money off of a huge segment of the market that their traditional gaming efforts were never going to bring back. It's like saying the point of Marvel's movies is to get people back into comics. There might be some small crossover but by in large the point is to get money out of people who are familiar with the IPs but have no intention of ever reading a comic book.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

If the point is to get an audience that might balk at paying $10 for games to buy a $250-300 dedicated games console and $40-60 games than it is going to fail miserably. I don't believe that is actually Nintendo's goal, as opposed to simply branching out, diversifying their IP and trying to make money off of a huge segment of the market that their traditional gaming efforts were never going to bring back. It's like saying the point of Marvel's movies is to get people back into comics. There might be some small crossover but by in large the point is to get money out of people who are familiar with the IPs but have no intention of ever reading a comic book.

Based on what? I bet a significant number of people haven't spent a single cent on smartphone games, but will gladly buy those on traditional consoles. It's not unusual, and it's no unexpected. The economics of the smartphone market are completely different. The vast majority of games succeed with whales, a small fraction of users spending enormous amounts of money that balance out the majority of users not spending any. Traditional games don't work like that, and couldn't be sustained that way.

And the Marvel analogy isn't really accurate in my opinion, mainly because the mediums are drastically different. There is much more in common than a pared down smartphone experience for a franchise and a full featured version on a traditional system than there is between a movie and a comic book.

Either way, Iwata literally stated conversions to traditional consoles was the point. Pokemon Go proved this by bumping up years old titles, as well as probably helping S&M to be the most preordered game in the franchise's history. I'm sure if we look at sales charts Mario games have probably gotten a bump as well.

Nintendo is familiar with various sales models, despite what people think. They've had locked full featured games, they've had full featured games with free DLC, those with paid DLC, F2P games with paid DLC. The idea that they made Mario only require a 1 time full unlock, as opposed to DLC level packs, was a mistake or the result of ignorance of the market is laughable (not saying you were making this argument, but others were). I wouldn't be surprised if their mobile entries all have slightly different payment models

 

[Ninja Scooter]

Based on the fact that by your own admission a vast majority of people don't spent a cent on their gaming habits. To turn around and expect those people to become traditional "$300 for the box/$50 for every game" gamers is lunacy.

The point of my Marvel analogy is that it is an age old company branching out from its bread and butter. This is the smart play. There are probably millions of people out there who, even if they never intend on buying a Switch or any other traditional console ever again, know the Mario name. And the Zelda name. And the Pokémon name. So the smart thing to do instead of waiting for these people to come back to you (spoiler: most won't) is to seek them out and follow them where they are. Trade on what you do have with these people, even if it's just a nostalgia play. This is what the NES Classic is about. This is what Pokémon Go is. This is what Mario Run is. This is what Nintendo getting into tv/movies and theme parks is about. Despite what Iwata might have said a few years ago, I think Nintendo finally gets this.

 

[yyr]

The idea that they made Mario only require a 1 time full unlock, as opposed to DLC level packs, was a mistake or the result of ignorance of the market is laughable.

It was *both* a mistake *and* quite possibly the result of ignorance of the market. The fact that it was offered on the App Store as "free with in-app purchases" rather than a separate paid app and demo made it even worse.

I don't see anyone laughing at over 35,000 1-star ratings (out of 75,604 total ratings).

 

[PumpkinPie]

They should've made it free and charged for extra lives, that would've learned 'em.

 

[MikeE21286]

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

Wonder if the conversion rate will be front-loaded.

Over time I could imagine it will drop.

 

[KingSnake]

They should've made it free and charged for extra lives, that would've learned 'em.

Or like already suggested they could have chosen the middle ground and charged per world, as already suggested, and leaving the door open for a rather steady revenue flow in the future.

Wonder if the conversion rate will be front-loaded.

Over time I could imagine it will drop.

It already dropped compared to the first days/first week when it was around 5%.

 

[Rival]

I bet they would have sold 50 million copies if they priced it at $2.99. Would have made more money.

 

[Coffinhal]

Yes they made $30 million, but they could easily have made much more with a different payment structure.

How many people would have happily spent $1 or $2 on the game? How many of those buyers would have happily spent more than $10 over the lifetime of the game?

They'll be looking at this and seeing a gigantic missed opportunity.

Here we go again. There is a little thing often used by media companies that are called Survey. Thanks to the data it provides, it helps them answering these kind of questions in order to implement their strategy the best way possible.

Please stop believing video game editors are just idiots who do random shit all the time.

Also, still waiting for any data on "the missed opportunity" because it is just your hypothesis and therefore is kinda irrelevant to prove your point.

I bet they would have sold 50 million copies if they priced it at $2.99. Would have made more money.

Same. You bet but don't have any data to back up your "they should've done that because"

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

I really hope this shuts the "Nintendo should release games on other platforms" crowd up because this is what you're going to get.

 

[jblank83]

I see this kind of maths time and time again on Neogaf but it isn't the case at all.
Nintendo doesn't even take HALF of that $39.99. Shops don't magically send all the money to Nintendo when they sell a game.
The games are bought in batches by stores, which then sell them on at a profit. A $40 game will probably be $20 tops per unit for Nintendo, from which it has to take shipping and production costs out.
Then the store has to deduct tax from its overall profit on that unit. Here in the UK, that's 20%, meaning that $8 goes to the taxman, $20 to Nintendo and $12 to the store, per unit.
This is being very generous to Nintendo - it may be more like $15 per unit.

More than Super Mario Run, no doubt! But then there's production and shipping, and of course a console game will cost much more to develop in the first place.

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.

http://kotaku.com/5479698/what-your-60-really-buys
Correct in that each step of distribution takes a cut of the profit, but also correct that the mobile platform takes a cut of the 3rd party's sales. In terms of distribution cuts, that leans towards the digital platform sales on mobile. However, digital sales have increased on all dedicated platforms and such sales are 100% profit for the platform holder.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/06/2...es-are-digital-heres-why-thats-so-impressive/
20% or so of Smash 3DS's sales were digital, at least around launch. Pretty impressive

https://www.vg247.com/2016/11/02/di...sales-on-ps4-xbox-one-by-end-of-2016-says-ea/
It's expected that digital sales will make up 30% or so of dedicated platform unit sales now and in the near future.

When talking about net profit potential, there's a reason Nintendo wants to use mobile titles to drive users to its own dedicated hardware platform. That reason is not the profit margin on hardware.

In terms of net profit, as far as I'm aware, we do not know the budgets on games like ALBW versus Mario Run. Hence my original statement that we can't really go far with a discussion on this point. It's all conjecture. That said, Nintendo is known to run on slim operating budgets for projects, unlike the CoDs of the world.

Without knowing those budget numbers, I'd still wager it's highly unlikely that ALBW's budget was large enough to turn its greater sales numbers into lower net profits versus Run. And, again, that's a mild example. Nintendo has numerous franchises that sell much more than ALBW. Smash 4 combined (U + 3DS) has sold over 13 million copies, for example.

Further conjecture (with the least evidence): I'd bet it's harder to break incredible sales numbers on app stores versus dedicated platforms. That is, Pokemon Go with its $600 million in profit is an exception, not a rule that Nintendo can count on when making mobile titles. Their endeavors in the mobile space will be much more modest and less consistent than their efforts in the dedicated platform space: e.g. Mario Run with its modest profits and Miitomo with its steep user drop off versus the consistently high sales of titles Smash 4, NSMB U, and Super Mario 3D World, even on the maligned Wii U. Again, that's why they want to drive people towards their dedicated hardware, instead of banking on mobile as their future. imo

 

[More_Badass]

It was *both* a mistake *and* quite possibly the result of ignorance of the market. The fact that it was offered on the App Store as "free with in-app purchases" rather than a separate paid app and demo made it even worse.

I don't see anyone laughing at over 35,000 1-star ratings (out of 75,604 total ratings).

1) No one does seperate apps anymore. People will often just download the free version, feel like they played enough, and not buy the full game

Free with an unlock, be it a full game unlock or ad removed or premium upgrade, is how a lot of games go

2) Considering most reviews are complaints about having to pay, I don't think that's as much an issue as you're making it out to be. Mario isn't the first game to be flooded with one star reviews because people don't want to pay money, and it won't be the last

 

[A Link to the Past]

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

Same, I was really confused when the article never addressed the game's length.

 

[yyr]

1) No one does seperate apps anymore.

Barely anyone does outright purchase either, except when the price is clearly displayed on the app. Can you think of another app that's set up this way? I can't.

The negative backlash was largely caused by folks seeing "free with in-app purchases" and expecting a F2P game. Because that's what "free with in-app purchases" generally means. The message was communicated poorly.

 

[More_Badass]

Barely anyone does outright purchase either, except when the price is clearly displayed on the app. Can you think of another app that's set up this way? I can't.

The negative backlash was largely caused by folks seeing "free with in-app purchases" and expecting a F2P game. Because that's what "free with in-app purchases" generally means. The message was communicated poorly.

Many. Telltale games after a year, ports like Chronology, indie titles like The Last Room series, Choice of Game gamebooks, Mediocre's games like Smash Hit and Does Not Commute, Subterfuge, 99 Bricks, Really Bad Chess, The Silent Age, to name a few

Free with an unlock has been a thing on mobile for years. It's not new in any way.

And I don't agree with it being about confusion. It's been said before but the same song and dance, complete with a flood of 1-star reviews, happened when Monument Valley got a $2 expansion. It's not confusion, it's not wanting to pay at all

 

[xir]

wait.. where's the why?

 

[yyr]

Many. Telltale games after a year, ports like Chronology, indie titles like The Last Room series, Choice of Game gamebooks, Mediocre's games like Smash Hit and Does Not Commute, Subterfuge, 99 Bricks, Really Bad Chess, The Silent Age, to name a few

The difference IMO is that those were not marketed to the masses the way SMR was. The audience for those games specifically sought those games (or games in those genres) out, was much more likely to actually read the descriptions, knew how the pricing model worked, etc. going in.

SMR was thrust in front of literally everyone who walked into the App Store. That audience is much more familiar with whatever is advertised or popular...so for the most part, Candy Crush, Mobile Strike, Bubble Witch, and so forth, where all of those games follow the F2P model by the book.

 

[SalvaPot]

Its there so people crave the full experience, how much did it cost to develop? I wonder if Nintendo already got their investment back and then some.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

The difference IMO is that those were not marketed to the masses the way SMR was. The audience for those games specifically sought those games (or games in those genres) out, was much more likely to actually read the descriptions, knew how the pricing model worked, etc. going in.

SMR was thrust in front of literally everyone who walked into the App Store. That audience is much more familiar with whatever is advertised or popular...so for the most part, Candy Crush, Mobile Strike, Bubble Witch, and so forth, where all of those games follow the F2P model by the book.

Come on dude. Now you're just projecting your thoughts on how it should have been marketing onto how you thought it was. The first screenshot in the store is literally this

People don't want to spend money. Games that charge anything more than microtransaction prices regularly get shit on review wise by people not paying attention. None of this is new. If Nintendo wanted to make it so you only paid for level packs, they could have. They've done things like this with numerous games, so it's not some new model for them. They simply chose not to. This doesn't look like a game that will receive their full attention. At best I can see another "world" pack, closer to the Switch Mario launch, or maybe when the Android version releases, but it was never intended to be a game with tons of constantly released content

 

[sanstesy]

The model they chose is ultimately a big mistake and F2P was the only logical choice they could have made if they really wanted to enter the market successfully in any respect. It is what it is, though.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

The model they chose is ultimately a big mistake and F2P was the only logical choice they could have made if they really wanted to enter the market successfully in any respect. It is what it is, though.

What exactly do some of you consider successful? Because it seems to be some arbitrarily lofty goal that Nintendo has no actual chance of maintaining, because their mobile games will never be their full focus. SMR broke a number of records so I don't understand why it's considered unsuccessful.

And if you're comparing it to games from company's whose entire focus, and business model revolves around their mobile titles, then it seems you're setting it up to fail by default

 

[Rival]

Here we go again. There is a little thing often used by media companies that are called Survey. Thanks to the data it provides, it helps them answering these kind of questions in order to implement their strategy the best way possible.

Please stop believing video game editors are just idiots who do random shit all the time.

Also, still waiting for any data on "the missed opportunity" because it is just your hypothesis and therefore is kinda irrelevant to prove your point.



Same. You bet but don't have any data to back up your "they should've done that because"

I don't have any data other that for what it was I would have spent $3 on it. I can't be alone.

 

[Alienfan]

I'm not sure if Mario Run was the first mobile game some people on GAF had played, but this isn't "mobile gaming done right". It's overpriced, lacks content and is worse than the top free to play runners on the market. Microtransactions aren't inherently terrible, but what is, is a $10 game not worth $10. Hopefully they add more content to it and use the Rayman mobile game as a blueprint for the sequel

 

[Rival]

I'm not sure if Mario Run was the first mobile game some people on GAF had played, but this isn't "mobile gaming done right". It's overpriced, lacks content and is worse than the top free to play runners on the market. Microtransactions aren't inherently terrible, but what is, is a $10 game not worth $10. Hopefully they add content to it.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[LionPride]

Super Mario Run has been a good idea for Nintendo. They finally stepped out of their box and realized that everyone, especially people who don't play video games, know who Mario is and would play games on a mobile device. They see that hey, they should probably make more software and just go away from Hardware in all likelihood because that avenue is becoming more and more closed to them while software wise they are still something.

 

[?oe?oe]

If you can't spend $10 on a game, you're not going to buy meatier Switch games.

 

[kmag]

I bet they would have sold 50 million copies if they priced it at $2.99. Would have made more money.

They'd have sold more, but they wanted to keep a premium to the Mario brand.

The title is essentially a profit making ad for Nintendo. It's a glorified brand awareness exercise.

Nintendo aren't stupid, they know they've left a lot of immediate revenue on the table with the model they've selected over the freeium model (although frankly I think platformers are a tougher freeium sell, although they could have sold level DLC I suppose) but the trade off is another extremely low cost advertising channel via mynintendo. Even if they can get a fraction of the install base to pick up a Switch who wouldn't have done so they've won a watch.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

They'd have sold more, but they wanted to keep a premium to the Mario brand.

The title is essentially a profit making ad for Nintendo. It's a glorified brand awareness exercise.

Nintendo aren't stupid, they know they've left a lot of immediate revenue on the table with the model they've selected over the freeium model (although frankly I think platformers are a tougher freeium sell, although they could have sold level DLC I suppose) but the trade off is another extremely low cost advertising channel via mynintendo. Even if they can get a fraction of the install base to pick up a Switch who wouldn't have done so they've won a watch.

Doesn't your argument make the case for the game being cheaper in order to have a much bigger pool of potential Switch converts?

I mean, the point of an ad is to market to the widest audience possible, right? If that was their strategy? I just don't think it is. Considering how unpredictable and volatile they are finding the mobile market to be so far in their first few efforts, I can't imagine they are reasonably expecting they can turn any significant amount of them into traditional console gamers. The ship on that has sailed. That's a losing battle. They need to (and I think are) focus more on targeting that audience, not turning them into something they aren't.

 

[godhandiscen]

3 million sales without counting the legs is great.

I love the game.

 

[Emulated Hype]

That conversion rate seems about right, everyone I've talked to in my circle deleted the demo after trying it for 5-10 minutes.

If this was about expanding the brand then I think Pokemon Go probably did a better job.