9 ms·

Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

337 points by andrew-dc 4y ago

have_faith 4y ago
I don't know why people are surprised by Nintendo doing something like this. They pioneered releasing two of the same game at full price (Pokémon).
- lxgr 4y ago
  How is that comparable? iPhones, cars, clothes and much more are available in more than one color as well. If anything, the different color editions made trading among friends more interesting. I don't know anyone that actually bought both color editions of the same generation game.
  - ascagnel_ 4y ago
    > How is that comparable? iPhones, cars, clothes and much more are available in more than one color as well. The iPhone, the car, the clothing, etc., are all functionally identical and frequently, but not always, cost the same amount. Pokemon is different in that the two versions of each game contain all the creatures, but artificially exclude some from being caught in each title, which is absolutely a dark pattern. > I don't know anyone that actually bought both color editions of the same generation game. I'm not sure when they started the practice, but the most recent revision of Pokemon includes a SKU that includes both colors. https://twitter.com/nintendouk/status/1532018639565627399 https://twitter.com/nintendouk/status/1532018639565627399?
    - lxgr 4y ago
      > Pokemon is different in that the two versions of each game contain all the creatures, but artificially exclude some from being caught in each title, which is absolutely a dark pattern. This is to get you to trade with your friends! The same thing is true for the three starter Pokémon – the only way to log all three is to trade with other players. How would you even trade with yourself?
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        Many people had to buy a second console and the other game if they wanted to fill out the pokedex.
        lesuorac 4y ago
        Definitely much better in the good ol' days where games didn't get patches and you could use glitches to get all 151.
        bentley 4y ago
        I’m sure Nintendo wouldn’t have complained if people did that, but trades with friends were how the game was marketed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Oh4YiMNNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Oh4YiMNNw I was as big a Pokémon freak as anyone, lived in an extremely rural area, and still managed to complete the Pokédex without duplicate/paired games by trading with friends. (And nobody had to complete the Pokédex anyway! The games had a complete storyline without it.)
        mod50ack 4y ago
        That was something that played on Pokémon as a social phenomenon. And, more than that, you didn't absolutely need to do that to play and enjoy the game. It was a multiplayer element. If you were a diehard, yeah, you could buy a second Game Boy and a second game, but that would require playing the full game twice to get all the exclusives in both. That was beyond what the developers expected the player to do. All of that would make the game harder! On the other hand, players of FTP games are encouraged to make micropayments, which make those games "easier."
- shaunsingh0207 4y ago
  Noone buys both versions of the pokemon game though, its always been a nice novelty. Me and my mates always used to get opposite games so we could trade everything up. Its good fun.
  - minimaxir 4y ago
    > Noone buys both versions of the pokemon game though Enough do that Nintendo offers a SKU for buying both versions simultaneously: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/pokemon-scarlet-and-pokemon-violet-double-pack-switch/ https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/pokemon-scarlet-and-...
    - dooglius 4y ago
      Or pairs of people coordinate on such a purchase to do as GP describes
deleted 4y ago
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PaulHoule 4y ago
It told me about keyboard navigation although I was viewing on an iPad. That said, it worked great. They showed restraint in asking for an email only at the end.
cameronfraser 4y ago
Mobile games don't really strive to be anything other than what was described. Seems pretty expected.
- bogwog 4y ago
  I feel like most of the fault lies on Apple and Google, which explicitly incentivize these types of extremely profitable games, for obvious reasons. Further proof that the app stores need to be regulated, since they're not going to do the right thing on their own.
blobbers 4y ago
Pay to win on mobile?? This is revolutionary!!! /s
- mattnewton 4y ago
  It’s more disappointing because I think people thought Nintendo was holding out on this kind of thing on principle. You had all the EA’s and Activisions of the world trying to replicate the economics of mobile casino apps in their AAA titles, but Nintendo was over in the corner still taking your $60 one time for a finished and complete game. Now its pretty clear that they are happy to sell their AAA brand titles to the mobile casino people. And people worry that means that maybe Nintendo isn’t principled on this issue, just conservative and slow to adopt these things in the same way they were slow and conservative on online multiplayer. If that’s true, maybe soon after showing crazy profits this kind of crap is coming for all of their beloved franchises in mainline titles on Nintendo hardware.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    > maybe soon after showing crazy profits this kind of crap is coming for all of their beloved franchises in mainline titles. It's possible, but I'd worry more if it starts showing up on their own consoles, instead of mobile titles that exist mostly to get people interested in playing on Nintendo's own hardware. Which isn't to say that Nintendo doesn't do weird things with DLC elsewhere—there was a 3DS game where you could purchase minigames with real money, but let you haggle with the seller in-game to get a better price.
    - mattnewton 4y ago
      That’s what I mean. I worry about DLC packs for the new Zelda that gate out core content instead of mostly supplemental stuff like the BotW dlc. You could imagine them selling the master sword DLC again and making some dungeons just not work without it because weapon durability is too low or something
  - mxkopy 4y ago
    Have you noticed that their old games are barely discounted from the price they were originally at when they released? Super Mario Galaxy is still $60, for example. I wonder if Pandora's box has been opened and everyone wants in on those insane P2W margins, or if the old way of doing things just isn't profitable anymore. And if the second option, why? Why don't they just charge $65?
Naga 4y ago
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.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- minimaxir 4y ago
  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)
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  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.
  - robotnikman 4y ago
    I remember the iOS pp store having tons of creative games when it first launched. You paid once and that was it. I miss those days.
    - guessbest 4y ago
      There still is, but they don't make it to the top of the grossing charts.
    - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
      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.
- 4y ago
gambiting 4y ago
What sort of nonsense website is this. It tells you that it works best in landscape mode when on mobile, but switching to landscape renders half of the page off screen.
- jimktrains2 4y ago
  It also refuses to render for me in fennec. It sayd I'm not supported.
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    Cant use it in Lynx either. Fucking worthless website.
    - dankwizard 4y ago
      Please don't swear this is a childrens website
    - popcalc 4y ago
      How many people use Lynx? Regardless the ones who do are more likely to be NEETs living in their parent's basement and less likely to hire you as a growth consultant a la the author. At some point you have to deprecate. It's delusional to expect people to find a way to both accommodate their vision and support your stallmanesque compulsions. >Fucking worthless website. What value have you brought to this thread?
Accacin 4y ago
Sadly, people play and buy these games as evidenced by the dumpster fire that was Diablo Immortal. I love Diablo, but there was no way in hell (lol) that I'd download that game and even play for free. I feel like these mobile games need regulating heavily, but it's also down to use to not support these games.
- bogwog 4y ago
  > but it's also down to use to not support these games. Not really true. Gambling is heavily regulated for a reason, it's just that these games haven't been officially categorized as gambling under existing gambling laws (yet). If you ever meet a gambling addict, try telling them to "just stop gambling" and see how well it works. There's something about the human brain that's highly vulnerable to this particular vice.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    Gambling is more addictive than drugs or alcohol because it actually DOES pay (sometimes).
    - anthk 4y ago
      Are you sure? Read about the Delirium Tremens, when withdrawing can be letal.
      - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        If you ask a therapist who specializes in addiction, they will likely say that gambling addictions are the hardest to treat. The reasoning is that when one gambles, one actually wins sometimes, even after many years of gambling. It’s that occasional reward that makes it difficult to treat. Drug and alcohol addiction, after years of abuse, do not result in “wins” of any kind (NB I did not say in the beginning of the addiction… but years later)
  - fullshark 4y ago
    There's two issues going on imo: 1. Technology has moved faster than regulation (a given). 2. There was a massive secular culture war victory in the west for shutting down those who decry vice and immorality among the religious, to the point that it's associated with mostly negative things: elitism, bigotry, patriarchal thinking, etc. It's simply not cool to say "gov't should regulate phones cause they are vice dispensary machines." Think of Helen Lovejoy from the Simpsons. So many times I've seen people here comment that "Elvis caused a moral panic" too or whatever basically agreeing with that point while we all work trying to get our cut. I don't know, maybe it takes a generation going through adolescence with these things everywhere for anything to happen. Maybe these industries will self police, but I don't get why any of us would want to work on games like this, or give them to our children.
preinheimer 4y ago
First, that was an amazing breakdown of what's happening. If you enjoyed reading that you might like Folding Ideas breakdown of Fortnite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0 Second, I've personally become very wary of any mobile app that introduces multiple currency types. There's gold, and rubies, and power balls, and stardust! At some point pretty early on I decide it's not worth it to figure out how much things /actually/ cost and delete the thing. My understanding is that the math shows companies that microtransactions are the winning move over and over again. I hope that eventually there's enough grumpy consumers both parties become worth serving better.
- xmonkee 4y ago
  Folding Ideas is the greatest youtuber
- klodolph 4y ago
  Multiple currency types are a key part of freemium / microtransaction games, but there are other reasons to have multiple currency types, and it’s becoming more and more common across all types of games. In a sense, games are often about managing resources. Currency is a resource. If you have one currency type, you can come up with a dominant strategy that maximizes production of that particular currency type. If you make multiple currency types, which are difficult / inefficient to exchange for each other, it encourages people to interact with more portions of the game. You can also have certain currency types tied to key parts of the game’s progression. Take a look at games like Hades or Control. Hades has obol, darkness, gems, chthonic keys, ambrosia, titan’s blood, diamonds, and nectar. That’s 8 different currency types, the way I count it. No microtransactions—you purchase the game and play it until you are satisfied. There are a ton of game design reasons why those different currency types exist, rather than using a single currency type. The freemium / microtransaction model just needs one more currency type—something that is slow to acquire, but you can buy it with cash, that directly translates into gacha or something similar, and can be easily converted to other currency types. If Hades had microtransactions, it would probably just have 9 currency types instead of 8.
  - 4y ago
CM30 4y ago
It's a shame the game is so predatory with its monentisation tactics, since the actual content (tracks, characters, items, etc) is actually rather good. It's just most of it is buried under this pay to win, limited time bullshit. Still, at least Nintendo does provide a way to get this stuff without being subject to Tour's lootboxes. The Booster Course Pass DLC for 8 Deluxe on Switch offers much of the same content, except it's a simple one time purchase and in a game that isn't trying to exploit you at every turn.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > in a game that isn't trying to exploit you at every turn. With as profitable as these tactics are, I wonder for how much longer they’ll keep those tactics off their Switch games. Or, more cynically, “… game that isn’t trying to exploit you yet…”
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    They've been pretty good so far. Mario Kart Tour is 4 years old at this point, Fire Emblem Heroes is 6 years old. We've seen 3 non-spinoff Fire Emblem games since the release of Heroes and AFAIK they aren't microtransaction filled nonsense.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      They walk an awfully thin line, offering “expansion passes” and Amiibos. Not to mention locking game content behind two different tiers of subscription plans.
      - bentley 4y ago
        What feels most offensive to me is that people’s previous digital purchases of classic games through Virtual Console are permanently stuck on their Wiis and 3DSes, and can’t be transferred to the Switch, which only supports emulating classic games through paid subscriptions. Compare that to the PC market. I signed up for Steam in 2010 to buy Orange Box—Half‐Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal—for $10, and for over a decade that entire game pack has remained downloadable and playable on every PC I’ve owned, including most recently the Steam Deck.
nathanwh 4y ago
Something about how this article was animated out hurt my brain to look at. It had a lot on page telling me about how much there was too much information on the screen of the phone which was nested inside the page. And then every arrow press would move around the dialog boxes (some of which jiggled to fight for my attention extra hard) and update the little avatar. The content was interesting but it felt kind of ironic that a product psychology website was this mentally taxing to use.
- archi42 4y ago
  It's pretty well executed on desktop. Maybe revisit it, if you're interested in the visuals or want to learn about how that Mario Kart title drains your wallet.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    Am on desktop, and was genuinely interested in learning about the subject, but stopped reading 1/3 through because I didn't want to have to keep clicking and watching an animation after every sentence.
    - olyjohn 4y ago
      Oh well. Someone else will complain they didn't want to read a multi page article on the topic, and others will complain about having to watch a video that doesn't let them move at their own speed. Can't make everybody happy.
  - thecatspaw 4y ago
    I am on desktop, and on a technical level, its well executed. But it was so much more exhausting to read than a simple text article with pictures. I initially visited the site, saw how the navigation etc worked, figured it wasnt worth the read. Only after reading some comments here I figured I'd bear through it. Wasnt worth it in the end imho
- inkcapmushroom 4y ago
  I liked that they took all the time to decry all these dark practices, and then hit you at the end with "Do you want a summary of the presentation? Click this button!" which I'm sure requires you to sign up for their email newsletter and start on their customer pipeline.
honkycat 4y ago
This stuff needs to be illegal. It is programming kids into gambling. ...also as a nice side effect it would make the video games I like to play cheaper and better.
- tarotuser 4y ago
  You oughtta see what Roblox is doing. Nothing else quite like encouraging loot crates, minors working on semi-business ventures, stock markets, AND foreign exchanges. Kids have lost tens of thousands of dollars on their platform. And I'm guessing if they were sued, none of it is binding, because minors. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/roblox-criticized-for-lack-of-safeguards-for-children-stock-market-like-collectibles https://www.gamesindustry.biz/roblox-criticized-for-lack-of-...
- bippingchip 4y ago
  There’s a (short) list of countries where loot boxes are illegal [1]. Japan is on that list as well, though I think the Mario Kart micro transactions and gambling like mechanisms are still legal. Belgium probably has one of the strictest laws: “Looking at various games, such as FIFA 18 and Overwatch, Belgium determined that the randomized risk/reward system innate to loot boxes is tantamount to gambling.” Mario Kart Tour, for example, is simply not available there. [1] https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-illegal-japan-china-belgium-netherlands/ https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-il...
KhalPanda 4y ago
I (sadly) don't play any mobile games for this reason. _Every_ game seems to revolve around engineering you to buy to speed up progress. It's just one step worse (maybe two) than everything being a subscription. I prefer buying games(/software) once and being left to enjoy the game.
- strictnein 4y ago
  What sucks is that they've gone back and added so much of this junk to older games too. Games like Plants vs Zombies and Angry Birds used to just be skill based journeys through increasingly difficult levels. The last time I opened one of those games I hardly recognized them.
  - christoph 4y ago
    What's particularly galling is that many of those games had a reasonable up-front cost with an unwritten agreement you were buying a complete product, then as time and updates have gone by, they've totally junked the original product you paid your money for. I'm basically done with anything on mobile that has IAP or potentially might at a future date.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    I just installed and played Plants vs Zombies (the original) on Android a few days ago. I did not see any way to purchase anything…. Yet
    - strictnein 4y ago
      I think I may have been conflating PvZ 1 and 2.
      - robotnikman 4y ago
        Yeah, its PvZ 2 which has all the added bs
  - techsupporter 4y ago
andrew-dc 4y ago
Because of this kind of practice, I act as a content curator for my kids. I do my best not to shelter (challenging, but doable), but to educate and train them to spot these kind of subtle (and not-so-subtle) schemes. Are you playing the game, or is the game playing you? It's half an inside joke and half serious in our house, but I quote WOPR in War Games to the kids every so often: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." The good news is that there are loads of great alternatives to these casino-like experiences, and it's just a matter of avoiding this stuff, and choosing the good.
ghostbrainalpha 4y ago
The design of these case studies is pretty freaking awesome.
ProjectArcturis 4y ago
This site has awful UI. Unreadable on mobile.
CE02 4y ago
Great breakdown, enjoyable read. I think it highlights why more and more tech firms are hiring employees with psychology and economics backrounds. The attention economy combined with the ever-growing presence of a razor and blades style market with in-game purchases in pay-to-win games is insane. I understand it from a profitability perspective. In addition it allows for more enduring cashflows. From a less direct perspective I remember vividly when my mom would be shook at the idea of a $30 Pokemon game for the DS. Now we pay $60 for a game and expected to pay up to $60 in DLC's not including ingame currency purchases. Oh how times have changed.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  I think DLC is a matter of inflation. publishers don't want to raise sticker prices, but their input costs are actually increasing, so they need to increase prices directly somehow. Also, expansion packs for AAA games have always been a thing, and it's always felt kind of painful to buy them.
  - bentley 4y ago
    Another reason to produce DLC is that it keeps market attention on your existing game (thus diverting eyeballs from your competitors) without having to devote the resources required to develop a whole new game since most of the base is provided by the previously finished game.
  - CE02 4y ago
    I think it’s the pain more than anything of paying $60+ for a game only to have paid expansions and in game currency.
- em500 4y ago
  SNES and N64 games were usually $50-$60 in the 1990s, when salaries where a lot lower.
- frumper 4y ago
  I remember a few SNES games being $79 at release. One example I remember buying was Street Fighter II.
helf 4y ago
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OatmealDome 4y ago
It should be noted that the pipes (loot boxes) have recently been replaced with a shop where you directly pay for things using rubies instead of gambling. [1] That being said, the prices in the shop are quite expensive from what I've heard from people who play the game. [1] https://twitter.com/mariokarttourEN/status/1565585887303532544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/mariokarttourEN/status/15655858873035325...
- minimaxir 4y ago
  For emphasis, the reason that many games recently are switching from the loot box model to the non-loot-box model (such as Overwatch 2), even at the point of putting microtransactions at super high prices, is several countries such as Belgium have banned loot boxes and there could be pressure to ban them elsewhere.
- etiam 4y ago
  At first glance I read rubles... which I guess would be at least a little bit like gambling, lately.
tetha 4y ago
Yeah this isn't even subtle. They aren't even hiding the pointlessness of the free to play coin grind by limiting it to 300 coins per day. And I'm somewhat sure there is more math in there that a limited time offer for X days needs like 290X - 310X coins to unlock to make it look somewhat grindable but it's not. And from a players perspective, this is even more strange. Look at how much players stick to a good racing game, like trackmania or the new zeepkist and such. Just be straightforward, bring out cosmetic DLC and some free functional thing every few month for a few bucks and it's an honest thing.
m000 4y ago
It would be interesting if someone could check if the game is available in Belgium, where loot boxes are illegal. And if it is available, is Nintendo blatantly ignoring the ban pretending that "firing the pipe" is not a loot box? Or have they tweaked the in-game economic mechanics to be compatible with the Belgian law?
- snthd 4y ago
  Not available in Belgium or Vietnam for exactly that reason.
bastard_op 4y ago
It's rather sad even Nintendo has devolved to this sort of mobile gaming trap too, you would think the old guard would have some respect for themselves to purposely NOT contribute to this modern epidemic. I play no mobile games, they're all some cash trap like a vacuum cleaner, and simply not fun when you realize you'll never truly win anything unless you pay and pay hard. What do YOU really get for the money? I guess knowing you're paying for Nintendo's old guard's retirements and health care.
- minimaxir 4y ago
  > It's rather sad even Nintendo has devolved to this sort of mobile gaming trap too, you would think the old guard would have some respect for themselves to purposely NOT contribute to this modern epidemic. They tried with Super Mario Run (https://supermariorun.com/en/ https://supermariorun.com/en/), which was a premium pay-once game introduced by Miyamoto himself at an Apple keynote. That didn't work, then Fire Emblem Heroes made a billion dollars.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    Yeah I remember they explicitly wanted to avoid the "free-to-play" schemes back when SMR came out.
    - groovybits 4y ago
      An interesting game that Nintendo made early on in their mobile saga was Dragalia Lost [1], which was probably the most generous 'gatcha' [2] mobile game ever released. It was so player-friendly, that it underperformed for much of it's 4 years, and ultimately shut down in November 2022. It was unfortunate that mobile gaming is in the state that its in, but Nintendo had some good ideas in the mobile space. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragalia_Lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragalia_Lost [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gacha_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gacha_game
- bakugo 4y ago
  > It's rather sad even Nintendo has devolved to this sort of mobile gaming trap too, you would think the old guard would have some respect for themselves to purposely NOT contribute to this modern epidemic. Nintendo is no better than any other game publisher, they're just behind on predatory industry trends by 5-10 years, that's it. They're just now entering the "cut out content from games to sell it as DLC that you announce before the game is even released" phase that the western gaming industry went through ages ago, and even adopted the more recent "live service multiplayer game with endless daily grinds and battle passes that demands your constant attention" model with Splatoon 3.
silveira 4y ago
Unless it is some sort of open-source game project, I don't play free games.
deleted 4y ago
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pxc 4y ago
Much of the text (the last few words of each chat bubble) is unreadable in Firefox for Android due to misalignment issues (falls outside the chat bubble). In both Chrome and Firefox, global dark styles (whether built-in or via Dark Reader) also render the chat bubbles unreadable due to contrast issues (the text color gets set to something very light, but the chat bubble backgrounds remain white). That sucks because the design otherwise seems cute and fun to me. :(
gnicholas 4y ago
As a longtime fan of Mario Kart, this makes me sad. The games cost like $60 in the good old days, and now it's $24 for one character? Ridiculous. I guess all mobile games are actually just one game: whale hunter. The dev is the player and the "players" are the prey.
leroy-is-here 4y ago
What kinds of internal pressures is Nintendo feeling to OK this kind of design? The current gaming market has been lambasted for these practices since Bethesda tried to charge $2 for horse armor, but nearly every AAA title has some sort of micro-transaction system now. I don’t think it’s going away, but I do think Nintendo was wise to not try this in a flagship title. I guess gaming did start off with literal nickel-and-diming at the arcade. I’m glad I experienced the golden age of gaming where buying a game was the only transaction needed for 50 hours of enjoyment.
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
Mobile games aren’t even fun. They’re just designed to addict children and encourage microtransactions. No thanks. Gimme some KSP or a NES emulator.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Is there a not-annoying way to read this?
lykahb 4y ago
I ignore games that require connectivity or have purchases that can be done more than once. One-time purchase to remove ads or to unlock levels is fine. Anything else hints that the game would be manipulative trash. It's nice that iOS shows the list of purchases on the app page. If only it had a filter too.
alliao 4y ago
I played an ultra exploitative game for "fun" for a bit, these things are WILD. It should be illegal, it competes not with other games, but with beer/tobacco/casino aka predatory to those with addictive disorders. it's called cookie run kingdoms and it triggers me on two points, not only it's exploitative model it's at the same pushing sugar, I called myself diabetical or something to raise however slim hope of awareness. crazy times.
xg15 4y ago
This was a really great writeup and an amazing way to present it. My hunch is, there is another dark pattern hidden which he didn't discuss yet: the quantities in which you buy gems. You'll often land just one or two gems short of the number you actually needed. Then you can either buy the 3 gem pack for the worst relative price or buy another larger pack, encouraging you to come back later. It seems hard to really spend all your gems and come out at zero. Usually there is a small amount left that on its own is useless but lures you into buying more.
- boringg 4y ago
  How much time and effort went into producing that? I'm curious how such a project got put together and why. Video games are really becoming way too exploitative.
- genocidicbunny 4y ago
  > the quantities in which you buy gems This is a fairly common tactic when you have intermediate in-game currencies that you actually use to buy stuff in the game. For example, you can only use gems to buy stuff in-game, and most items in-game are worth a multiple of 200 gems. But when you buy the gems with cash, they're somehow only offered in multiples of 500 that are also not multiples of 200. You end up buying a few extra that maybe you didn't want, and they can later hook you in with the 'well, you already have some in your wallet' approach.
kome 4y ago
"super mario run" is another mobile game by nintendo, you pay 10 dollars and it's yours forever. plenty of content, extremely well crafted and fun. I download it in 2016, and i still use it to this day. but people criticized it for having to pay up front. and it was a commercial failure. so, people gets what they deserve i guess. (btw, "super mario run" is still updated, if you have kids just buy it, it's well worth the money)
sli 4y ago
If you're going to force directional inputs to read your slideshow, support WASD as well as the arrow keys, please.
MollyRealized 4y ago
Their "case studies" RSS feed seems broken, as it doesn't reflect the linked-to story.
nsmog767 4y ago
Never seen this site before but love the interactive + visual content. Found this one which is more broadly applicable: https://growth.design/case-studies/mental-models https://growth.design/case-studies/mental-models
- andrew-dc 4y ago
  Yeah, I know the format might not be everybody's cup of tea, but they have some pretty decent breakdowns and a lot of great information that would be great tools in any product or designers toolbox.
Cypher 4y ago
The state of gaming is sad especially from Nintendo who stood against mobile exploitation for a long time.
allmadhare 4y ago
Is there a way to read it without the ass-backwards UI?
- Invictus0 4y ago
  There it is!
siliconc0w 4y ago
I know I'm probably not their demographic but this garbage really kills the experience for me and is the reason I stopped playing diablo immortal.
surfsvammel 4y ago
What ever happened to just playing a game, without having to install deamon programs on your PC, without having to consent to them tracking you, without having to create fifteen new accounts, without having to endure in game ads, without having to constantly be reminded that I don’t have the special in game currency that is the only way to get that pink hat? Of course I understand what has happened. But it’s kind of taken the fun out of gaming. Or maybe I’m just old, grumpy and nostalgic.
- phreack 4y ago
  Nowadays I've just taken a hard stance against all of this crap. Any game I see where the previews let you immediately understand there's going to be a bunch of these dark patterns to hide the fact they're just gambling aimed at kids, I don't ever look at again. Luckily, beyond mobile apps there's still a thriving market of Just Games, particularly indies, and they're better than ever.
Yhippa 4y ago
This is the sad tale of gaming even 10 years ago. The first games that had in-game currencies, like MMOs had a lot of these elements, albeit not as sophisticated as what was laid out here. For me, and I wonder for other people, when you play one of these games you come to a point where you either keep playing or stop. Is the game fun? Is progression reasonable? Is this achievable without dumping huge amounts of cash into it? If any of those is "no", I quit. The problem is that newer games pop up and I'm sure they're going to get even more subtle about getting you to part with your money. Pretty gross.
rektide 4y ago
The submission yesterday on TV streaming systems all being jank/getting worse[1], Mario Kart getting the rough treatment: it's all so much enshittifcation. I feel like I should get a decent sized rubber stamp: #enshittification[2]. Alas that I cant stamp it that all over web pages & apps. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23621907/streaming-tv-boxes-roku-amazon-google-apple-nvidia https://www.theverge.com/23621907/streaming-tv-boxes-roku-am... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35051353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35051353 [2] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479
ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
>Use your keyboard arrows to view the story! closes the browser tab on their phone
Aeolun 4y ago
I had the same thing when I was playing Sonic Racing on iOS. I have it through Apple Arcade, but it’s so clearly designed as a pay to win game. The quality of your racing is unrelated to the result, and your opponent’s behavior is either a previous race someone else did, or otherwise completely made up.
PheonixPharts 4y ago
Sort of funny that after all those slides, building up a narrative about the way a product that seems fun can be deceptive, it turns out this presentation itself is just ad for his email list.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  I will say, it was an effective presentation though. I rarely see slides used in this sort of editorial (advertorial?) format.
appleflaxen 4y ago
This is so gross, and so disappointing to see from Nintendo.
gruez 4y ago
>In order to have 100% chance of getting Peach, I'd have to spend more than ~$3,400... I don't think the author understands probabilities. They mention the probability of getting Peach in each roll is 0.25%, but assuming that each roll is independent, there's no way to guarantee (ie. "100% chance") that you get Peach, because it's possible to fail each roll no matter how many times you roll. If we take the author's dollar amount and work backwards to see what the overall probability is we end up with 91.2%, which is high but nowhere near 100%.
- objectivetruth 4y ago
  They're not independent. (At least the last time I played,) they pull prizes out of the pool when you win them. So if there is 1 Peach in a 100-prize pipe, at most you have to buy 100.
  - gruez 4y ago
    Source? I searched around and the first source[1] seems to confirm what you say >you can only receive a certain number of rewards from each rarity level per 100 Pipe uses but further down it says >Additionally, as long as you haven’t exhausted the quantity by rarity for its category, you can receive duplicates of a reward from the Pipe. However, it also says >In fact, you’re guaranteed to receive at least one reward of each type by the time you’ve used 100 Pipe pulls — though the exact reward you’ll get is random for all categories except High-End Spotlight. I agree that each roll isn't independent and you can't model it as such, but I don't think there's any mechanism to guarantee you a prize given enough rolls, and I still suspect the author messed up the math. [1] https://www.gamerevolution.com/guides/600991-mario-kart-tour-character-odds-pipe-driver-kart-and-glider-drop-chances https://www.gamerevolution.com/guides/600991-mario-kart-tour...
sizzle 4y ago
I'll stick to Mario Kart 64, keep your slimy addiction-enabling loot boxes Nintendo, sad to see how the mighty have fallen.
CKMo 4y ago
SP had it right. Freemium - the 'mium' means "not really"
ccvannorman 4y ago
Off-topic but, Normally, I know people like to dunk on non-traditional scrolling websites, and I almost always agree. But I actually REALLY enjoyed this right-arrow format.
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
I downloaded it because I wanted to see how addictive it is. I noped out of there and uninstalled immediately when it said I need to link my Nintendo account. I don't have a Nintendo account and I hate signing up for things and getting spammed.
Fatnino 4y ago
They got rid of this pipe gambling thing last year. How old is this article? Nowadays you just outright buy whatever character you need with rubies. Rubies can be earned by playing normally, or you can buy rubies for money. The prices for characters is a little bit steep but not so bad you can't earn enough rubies free each tour to buy what you need. Another decent strategy is to pick a tour where you will just let things slide and you just grind coins and rubies. I haven't spent a cent and I've been playing for almost 2 years.
NickC25 4y ago
Absolutely fantastic presentation. Sad that gaming these days has devolved into the state it has. I love gaming, and have loved gaming since I got a SNES at age 5. Micro-transactions suck, and constantly make me feel like I'm paying to let the developer get away with not finishing the actual game, rather than me paying for a fully developed game. Nintendo, in this case, is being fucking lazy by allowing this to tarnish their brand - they are owned by 1. a family that is probably worth a few hundred million (the Yamauchi family) and has no need for a quick buck, and 2. the Saudi PIF, which has trillions of dollars at its disposal and zero need for a quick buck. To this day I play almost zero mobile games, the one exception is the LiChess app, which is free and has zero IAPs. Occasionally I'll do the daily New York Times Crossword mini and Wordle, which is also free. Disclaimer: when the game in question came out, I put a few good hours into Mario Kart Tour, and enjoyed the core game itself, but hated the lootbox experience. On a complete side note: does anyone else feel that gaming, especially since the advent of mobile gaming, has really changed for the worse? It seems nobody plays together anymore, which was a big part of my childhood, teenage, and college years.

337 points by andrew-dc 4y ago

I don't know why people are surprised by Nintendo doing something like this. They pioneered releasing two of the same game at full price (Pokémon).

lxgr 4y ago
How is that comparable? iPhones, cars, clothes and much more are available in more than one color as well. If anything, the different color editions made trading among friends more interesting. I don't know anyone that actually bought both color editions of the same generation game.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  > How is that comparable? iPhones, cars, clothes and much more are available in more than one color as well. The iPhone, the car, the clothing, etc., are all functionally identical and frequently, but not always, cost the same amount. Pokemon is different in that the two versions of each game contain all the creatures, but artificially exclude some from being caught in each title, which is absolutely a dark pattern. > I don't know anyone that actually bought both color editions of the same generation game. I'm not sure when they started the practice, but the most recent revision of Pokemon includes a SKU that includes both colors. https://twitter.com/nintendouk/status/1532018639565627399 https://twitter.com/nintendouk/status/1532018639565627399?
  - lxgr 4y ago
    > Pokemon is different in that the two versions of each game contain all the creatures, but artificially exclude some from being caught in each title, which is absolutely a dark pattern. This is to get you to trade with your friends! The same thing is true for the three starter Pokémon – the only way to log all three is to trade with other players. How would you even trade with yourself?
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Many people had to buy a second console and the other game if they wanted to fill out the pokedex.
      - lesuorac 4y ago
        Definitely much better in the good ol' days where games didn't get patches and you could use glitches to get all 151.
      - bentley 4y ago
        I’m sure Nintendo wouldn’t have complained if people did that, but trades with friends were how the game was marketed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Oh4YiMNNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Oh4YiMNNw I was as big a Pokémon freak as anyone, lived in an extremely rural area, and still managed to complete the Pokédex without duplicate/paired games by trading with friends. (And nobody had to complete the Pokédex anyway! The games had a complete storyline without it.)
        mod50ack 4y ago
        That was something that played on Pokémon as a social phenomenon. And, more than that, you didn't absolutely need to do that to play and enjoy the game. It was a multiplayer element. If you were a diehard, yeah, you could buy a second Game Boy and a second game, but that would require playing the full game twice to get all the exclusives in both. That was beyond what the developers expected the player to do. All of that would make the game harder! On the other hand, players of FTP games are encouraged to make micropayments, which make those games "easier."
shaunsingh0207 4y ago
Noone buys both versions of the pokemon game though, its always been a nice novelty. Me and my mates always used to get opposite games so we could trade everything up. Its good fun.
- minimaxir 4y ago
  > Noone buys both versions of the pokemon game though Enough do that Nintendo offers a SKU for buying both versions simultaneously: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/pokemon-scarlet-and-pokemon-violet-double-pack-switch/ https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/pokemon-scarlet-and-...
  - dooglius 4y ago
    Or pairs of people coordinate on such a purchase to do as GP describes

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

PaulHoule 4y ago

It told me about keyboard navigation although I was viewing on an iPad. That said, it worked great. They showed restraint in asking for an email only at the end.

cameronfraser 4y ago

Mobile games don't really strive to be anything other than what was described. Seems pretty expected.

bogwog 4y ago
I feel like most of the fault lies on Apple and Google, which explicitly incentivize these types of extremely profitable games, for obvious reasons. Further proof that the app stores need to be regulated, since they're not going to do the right thing on their own.

blobbers 4y ago

Pay to win on mobile?? This is revolutionary!!! /s

mattnewton 4y ago
It’s more disappointing because I think people thought Nintendo was holding out on this kind of thing on principle. You had all the EA’s and Activisions of the world trying to replicate the economics of mobile casino apps in their AAA titles, but Nintendo was over in the corner still taking your $60 one time for a finished and complete game. Now its pretty clear that they are happy to sell their AAA brand titles to the mobile casino people. And people worry that means that maybe Nintendo isn’t principled on this issue, just conservative and slow to adopt these things in the same way they were slow and conservative on online multiplayer. If that’s true, maybe soon after showing crazy profits this kind of crap is coming for all of their beloved franchises in mainline titles on Nintendo hardware.
- mcphage 4y ago
  > maybe soon after showing crazy profits this kind of crap is coming for all of their beloved franchises in mainline titles. It's possible, but I'd worry more if it starts showing up on their own consoles, instead of mobile titles that exist mostly to get people interested in playing on Nintendo's own hardware. Which isn't to say that Nintendo doesn't do weird things with DLC elsewhere—there was a 3DS game where you could purchase minigames with real money, but let you haggle with the seller in-game to get a better price.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    That’s what I mean. I worry about DLC packs for the new Zelda that gate out core content instead of mostly supplemental stuff like the BotW dlc. You could imagine them selling the master sword DLC again and making some dungeons just not work without it because weapon durability is too low or something
- mxkopy 4y ago
  Have you noticed that their old games are barely discounted from the price they were originally at when they released? Super Mario Galaxy is still $60, for example. I wonder if Pandora's box has been opened and everyone wants in on those insane P2W margins, or if the old way of doing things just isn't profitable anymore. And if the second option, why? Why don't they just charge $65?

Naga 4y ago

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.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
minimaxir 4y ago
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)
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
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.
- robotnikman 4y ago
  I remember the iOS pp store having tons of creative games when it first launched. You paid once and that was it. I miss those days.
  - guessbest 4y ago
    There still is, but they don't make it to the top of the grossing charts.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
    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.
4y ago

gambiting 4y ago

What sort of nonsense website is this. It tells you that it works best in landscape mode when on mobile, but switching to landscape renders half of the page off screen.

jimktrains2 4y ago
It also refuses to render for me in fennec. It sayd I'm not supported.
- olyjohn 4y ago
  Cant use it in Lynx either. Fucking worthless website.
  - dankwizard 4y ago
    Please don't swear this is a childrens website
  - popcalc 4y ago
    How many people use Lynx? Regardless the ones who do are more likely to be NEETs living in their parent's basement and less likely to hire you as a growth consultant a la the author. At some point you have to deprecate. It's delusional to expect people to find a way to both accommodate their vision and support your stallmanesque compulsions. >Fucking worthless website. What value have you brought to this thread?

Accacin 4y ago

Sadly, people play and buy these games as evidenced by the dumpster fire that was Diablo Immortal. I love Diablo, but there was no way in hell (lol) that I'd download that game and even play for free. I feel like these mobile games need regulating heavily, but it's also down to use to not support these games.

bogwog 4y ago
> but it's also down to use to not support these games. Not really true. Gambling is heavily regulated for a reason, it's just that these games haven't been officially categorized as gambling under existing gambling laws (yet). If you ever meet a gambling addict, try telling them to "just stop gambling" and see how well it works. There's something about the human brain that's highly vulnerable to this particular vice.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Gambling is more addictive than drugs or alcohol because it actually DOES pay (sometimes).
  - anthk 4y ago
    Are you sure? Read about the Delirium Tremens, when withdrawing can be letal.
    - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      If you ask a therapist who specializes in addiction, they will likely say that gambling addictions are the hardest to treat. The reasoning is that when one gambles, one actually wins sometimes, even after many years of gambling. It’s that occasional reward that makes it difficult to treat. Drug and alcohol addiction, after years of abuse, do not result in “wins” of any kind (NB I did not say in the beginning of the addiction… but years later)
- fullshark 4y ago
  There's two issues going on imo: 1. Technology has moved faster than regulation (a given). 2. There was a massive secular culture war victory in the west for shutting down those who decry vice and immorality among the religious, to the point that it's associated with mostly negative things: elitism, bigotry, patriarchal thinking, etc. It's simply not cool to say "gov't should regulate phones cause they are vice dispensary machines." Think of Helen Lovejoy from the Simpsons. So many times I've seen people here comment that "Elvis caused a moral panic" too or whatever basically agreeing with that point while we all work trying to get our cut. I don't know, maybe it takes a generation going through adolescence with these things everywhere for anything to happen. Maybe these industries will self police, but I don't get why any of us would want to work on games like this, or give them to our children.

preinheimer 4y ago

First, that was an amazing breakdown of what's happening. If you enjoyed reading that you might like Folding Ideas breakdown of Fortnite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0 Second, I've personally become very wary of any mobile app that introduces multiple currency types. There's gold, and rubies, and power balls, and stardust! At some point pretty early on I decide it's not worth it to figure out how much things /actually/ cost and delete the thing. My understanding is that the math shows companies that microtransactions are the winning move over and over again. I hope that eventually there's enough grumpy consumers both parties become worth serving better.

xmonkee 4y ago
Folding Ideas is the greatest youtuber
klodolph 4y ago
Multiple currency types are a key part of freemium / microtransaction games, but there are other reasons to have multiple currency types, and it’s becoming more and more common across all types of games. In a sense, games are often about managing resources. Currency is a resource. If you have one currency type, you can come up with a dominant strategy that maximizes production of that particular currency type. If you make multiple currency types, which are difficult / inefficient to exchange for each other, it encourages people to interact with more portions of the game. You can also have certain currency types tied to key parts of the game’s progression. Take a look at games like Hades or Control. Hades has obol, darkness, gems, chthonic keys, ambrosia, titan’s blood, diamonds, and nectar. That’s 8 different currency types, the way I count it. No microtransactions—you purchase the game and play it until you are satisfied. There are a ton of game design reasons why those different currency types exist, rather than using a single currency type. The freemium / microtransaction model just needs one more currency type—something that is slow to acquire, but you can buy it with cash, that directly translates into gacha or something similar, and can be easily converted to other currency types. If Hades had microtransactions, it would probably just have 9 currency types instead of 8.
- 4y ago

CM30 4y ago

It's a shame the game is so predatory with its monentisation tactics, since the actual content (tracks, characters, items, etc) is actually rather good. It's just most of it is buried under this pay to win, limited time bullshit. Still, at least Nintendo does provide a way to get this stuff without being subject to Tour's lootboxes. The Booster Course Pass DLC for 8 Deluxe on Switch offers much of the same content, except it's a simple one time purchase and in a game that isn't trying to exploit you at every turn.

falcolas 4y ago
> in a game that isn't trying to exploit you at every turn. With as profitable as these tactics are, I wonder for how much longer they’ll keep those tactics off their Switch games. Or, more cynically, “… game that isn’t trying to exploit you yet…”
- goosedragons 4y ago
  They've been pretty good so far. Mario Kart Tour is 4 years old at this point, Fire Emblem Heroes is 6 years old. We've seen 3 non-spinoff Fire Emblem games since the release of Heroes and AFAIK they aren't microtransaction filled nonsense.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    They walk an awfully thin line, offering “expansion passes” and Amiibos. Not to mention locking game content behind two different tiers of subscription plans.
    - bentley 4y ago
      What feels most offensive to me is that people’s previous digital purchases of classic games through Virtual Console are permanently stuck on their Wiis and 3DSes, and can’t be transferred to the Switch, which only supports emulating classic games through paid subscriptions. Compare that to the PC market. I signed up for Steam in 2010 to buy Orange Box—Half‐Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal—for $10, and for over a decade that entire game pack has remained downloadable and playable on every PC I’ve owned, including most recently the Steam Deck.

nathanwh 4y ago

Something about how this article was animated out hurt my brain to look at. It had a lot on page telling me about how much there was too much information on the screen of the phone which was nested inside the page. And then every arrow press would move around the dialog boxes (some of which jiggled to fight for my attention extra hard) and update the little avatar. The content was interesting but it felt kind of ironic that a product psychology website was this mentally taxing to use.

archi42 4y ago
It's pretty well executed on desktop. Maybe revisit it, if you're interested in the visuals or want to learn about how that Mario Kart title drains your wallet.
- jjulius 4y ago
  Am on desktop, and was genuinely interested in learning about the subject, but stopped reading 1/3 through because I didn't want to have to keep clicking and watching an animation after every sentence.
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    Oh well. Someone else will complain they didn't want to read a multi page article on the topic, and others will complain about having to watch a video that doesn't let them move at their own speed. Can't make everybody happy.
- thecatspaw 4y ago
  I am on desktop, and on a technical level, its well executed. But it was so much more exhausting to read than a simple text article with pictures. I initially visited the site, saw how the navigation etc worked, figured it wasnt worth the read. Only after reading some comments here I figured I'd bear through it. Wasnt worth it in the end imho
inkcapmushroom 4y ago
I liked that they took all the time to decry all these dark practices, and then hit you at the end with "Do you want a summary of the presentation? Click this button!" which I'm sure requires you to sign up for their email newsletter and start on their customer pipeline.

honkycat 4y ago

This stuff needs to be illegal. It is programming kids into gambling. ...also as a nice side effect it would make the video games I like to play cheaper and better.

tarotuser 4y ago
You oughtta see what Roblox is doing. Nothing else quite like encouraging loot crates, minors working on semi-business ventures, stock markets, AND foreign exchanges. Kids have lost tens of thousands of dollars on their platform. And I'm guessing if they were sued, none of it is binding, because minors. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/roblox-criticized-for-lack-of-safeguards-for-children-stock-market-like-collectibles https://www.gamesindustry.biz/roblox-criticized-for-lack-of-...
bippingchip 4y ago
There’s a (short) list of countries where loot boxes are illegal [1]. Japan is on that list as well, though I think the Mario Kart micro transactions and gambling like mechanisms are still legal. Belgium probably has one of the strictest laws: “Looking at various games, such as FIFA 18 and Overwatch, Belgium determined that the randomized risk/reward system innate to loot boxes is tantamount to gambling.” Mario Kart Tour, for example, is simply not available there. [1] https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-illegal-japan-china-belgium-netherlands/ https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-microtransactions-il...

KhalPanda 4y ago

I (sadly) don't play any mobile games for this reason. _Every_ game seems to revolve around engineering you to buy to speed up progress. It's just one step worse (maybe two) than everything being a subscription. I prefer buying games(/software) once and being left to enjoy the game.

strictnein 4y ago
What sucks is that they've gone back and added so much of this junk to older games too. Games like Plants vs Zombies and Angry Birds used to just be skill based journeys through increasingly difficult levels. The last time I opened one of those games I hardly recognized them.
- christoph 4y ago
  What's particularly galling is that many of those games had a reasonable up-front cost with an unwritten agreement you were buying a complete product, then as time and updates have gone by, they've totally junked the original product you paid your money for. I'm basically done with anything on mobile that has IAP or potentially might at a future date.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  I just installed and played Plants vs Zombies (the original) on Android a few days ago. I did not see any way to purchase anything…. Yet
  - strictnein 4y ago
    I think I may have been conflating PvZ 1 and 2.
    - robotnikman 4y ago
      Yeah, its PvZ 2 which has all the added bs
- techsupporter 4y ago

andrew-dc 4y ago

Because of this kind of practice, I act as a content curator for my kids. I do my best not to shelter (challenging, but doable), but to educate and train them to spot these kind of subtle (and not-so-subtle) schemes. Are you playing the game, or is the game playing you? It's half an inside joke and half serious in our house, but I quote WOPR in War Games to the kids every so often: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." The good news is that there are loads of great alternatives to these casino-like experiences, and it's just a matter of avoiding this stuff, and choosing the good.

ghostbrainalpha 4y ago

The design of these case studies is pretty freaking awesome.

ProjectArcturis 4y ago

This site has awful UI. Unreadable on mobile.

CE02 4y ago

Great breakdown, enjoyable read. I think it highlights why more and more tech firms are hiring employees with psychology and economics backrounds. The attention economy combined with the ever-growing presence of a razor and blades style market with in-game purchases in pay-to-win games is insane. I understand it from a profitability perspective. In addition it allows for more enduring cashflows. From a less direct perspective I remember vividly when my mom would be shook at the idea of a $30 Pokemon game for the DS. Now we pay $60 for a game and expected to pay up to $60 in DLC's not including ingame currency purchases. Oh how times have changed.

nerdponx 4y ago
I think DLC is a matter of inflation. publishers don't want to raise sticker prices, but their input costs are actually increasing, so they need to increase prices directly somehow. Also, expansion packs for AAA games have always been a thing, and it's always felt kind of painful to buy them.
- bentley 4y ago
  Another reason to produce DLC is that it keeps market attention on your existing game (thus diverting eyeballs from your competitors) without having to devote the resources required to develop a whole new game since most of the base is provided by the previously finished game.
- CE02 4y ago
  I think it’s the pain more than anything of paying $60+ for a game only to have paid expansions and in game currency.
em500 4y ago
SNES and N64 games were usually $50-$60 in the 1990s, when salaries where a lot lower.
frumper 4y ago
I remember a few SNES games being $79 at release. One example I remember buying was Street Fighter II.

helf 4y ago

[dead]

OatmealDome 4y ago

It should be noted that the pipes (loot boxes) have recently been replaced with a shop where you directly pay for things using rubies instead of gambling. [1] That being said, the prices in the shop are quite expensive from what I've heard from people who play the game. [1] https://twitter.com/mariokarttourEN/status/1565585887303532544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/mariokarttourEN/status/15655858873035325...

minimaxir 4y ago
For emphasis, the reason that many games recently are switching from the loot box model to the non-loot-box model (such as Overwatch 2), even at the point of putting microtransactions at super high prices, is several countries such as Belgium have banned loot boxes and there could be pressure to ban them elsewhere.
etiam 4y ago
At first glance I read rubles... which I guess would be at least a little bit like gambling, lately.

tetha 4y ago

Yeah this isn't even subtle. They aren't even hiding the pointlessness of the free to play coin grind by limiting it to 300 coins per day. And I'm somewhat sure there is more math in there that a limited time offer for X days needs like 290X - 310X coins to unlock to make it look somewhat grindable but it's not. And from a players perspective, this is even more strange. Look at how much players stick to a good racing game, like trackmania or the new zeepkist and such. Just be straightforward, bring out cosmetic DLC and some free functional thing every few month for a few bucks and it's an honest thing.

m000 4y ago

It would be interesting if someone could check if the game is available in Belgium, where loot boxes are illegal. And if it is available, is Nintendo blatantly ignoring the ban pretending that "firing the pipe" is not a loot box? Or have they tweaked the in-game economic mechanics to be compatible with the Belgian law?

snthd 4y ago
Not available in Belgium or Vietnam for exactly that reason.

bastard_op 4y ago

It's rather sad even Nintendo has devolved to this sort of mobile gaming trap too, you would think the old guard would have some respect for themselves to purposely NOT contribute to this modern epidemic. I play no mobile games, they're all some cash trap like a vacuum cleaner, and simply not fun when you realize you'll never truly win anything unless you pay and pay hard. What do YOU really get for the money? I guess knowing you're paying for Nintendo's old guard's retirements and health care.

minimaxir 4y ago
> It's rather sad even Nintendo has devolved to this sort of mobile gaming trap too, you would think the old guard would have some respect for themselves to purposely NOT contribute to this modern epidemic. They tried with Super Mario Run (https://supermariorun.com/en/ https://supermariorun.com/en/), which was a premium pay-once game introduced by Miyamoto himself at an Apple keynote. That didn't work, then Fire Emblem Heroes made a billion dollars.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  Yeah I remember they explicitly wanted to avoid the "free-to-play" schemes back when SMR came out.
  - groovybits 4y ago
    An interesting game that Nintendo made early on in their mobile saga was Dragalia Lost [1], which was probably the most generous 'gatcha' [2] mobile game ever released. It was so player-friendly, that it underperformed for much of it's 4 years, and ultimately shut down in November 2022. It was unfortunate that mobile gaming is in the state that its in, but Nintendo had some good ideas in the mobile space. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragalia_Lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragalia_Lost [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gacha_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gacha_game
bakugo 4y ago
> It's rather sad even Nintendo has devolved to this sort of mobile gaming trap too, you would think the old guard would have some respect for themselves to purposely NOT contribute to this modern epidemic. Nintendo is no better than any other game publisher, they're just behind on predatory industry trends by 5-10 years, that's it. They're just now entering the "cut out content from games to sell it as DLC that you announce before the game is even released" phase that the western gaming industry went through ages ago, and even adopted the more recent "live service multiplayer game with endless daily grinds and battle passes that demands your constant attention" model with Splatoon 3.

silveira 4y ago

Unless it is some sort of open-source game project, I don't play free games.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pxc 4y ago

Much of the text (the last few words of each chat bubble) is unreadable in Firefox for Android due to misalignment issues (falls outside the chat bubble). In both Chrome and Firefox, global dark styles (whether built-in or via Dark Reader) also render the chat bubbles unreadable due to contrast issues (the text color gets set to something very light, but the chat bubble backgrounds remain white). That sucks because the design otherwise seems cute and fun to me. :(

gnicholas 4y ago

As a longtime fan of Mario Kart, this makes me sad. The games cost like $60 in the good old days, and now it's $24 for one character? Ridiculous. I guess all mobile games are actually just one game: whale hunter. The dev is the player and the "players" are the prey.

leroy-is-here 4y ago

What kinds of internal pressures is Nintendo feeling to OK this kind of design? The current gaming market has been lambasted for these practices since Bethesda tried to charge $2 for horse armor, but nearly every AAA title has some sort of micro-transaction system now. I don’t think it’s going away, but I do think Nintendo was wise to not try this in a flagship title. I guess gaming did start off with literal nickel-and-diming at the arcade. I’m glad I experienced the golden age of gaming where buying a game was the only transaction needed for 50 hours of enjoyment.

NotYourLawyer 4y ago

Mobile games aren’t even fun. They’re just designed to addict children and encourage microtransactions. No thanks. Gimme some KSP or a NES emulator.

Gordonjcp 4y ago

Is there a not-annoying way to read this?

lykahb 4y ago

I ignore games that require connectivity or have purchases that can be done more than once. One-time purchase to remove ads or to unlock levels is fine. Anything else hints that the game would be manipulative trash. It's nice that iOS shows the list of purchases on the app page. If only it had a filter too.

alliao 4y ago

I played an ultra exploitative game for "fun" for a bit, these things are WILD. It should be illegal, it competes not with other games, but with beer/tobacco/casino aka predatory to those with addictive disorders. it's called cookie run kingdoms and it triggers me on two points, not only it's exploitative model it's at the same pushing sugar, I called myself diabetical or something to raise however slim hope of awareness. crazy times.

xg15 4y ago

This was a really great writeup and an amazing way to present it. My hunch is, there is another dark pattern hidden which he didn't discuss yet: the quantities in which you buy gems. You'll often land just one or two gems short of the number you actually needed. Then you can either buy the 3 gem pack for the worst relative price or buy another larger pack, encouraging you to come back later. It seems hard to really spend all your gems and come out at zero. Usually there is a small amount left that on its own is useless but lures you into buying more.

boringg 4y ago
How much time and effort went into producing that? I'm curious how such a project got put together and why. Video games are really becoming way too exploitative.
genocidicbunny 4y ago
> the quantities in which you buy gems This is a fairly common tactic when you have intermediate in-game currencies that you actually use to buy stuff in the game. For example, you can only use gems to buy stuff in-game, and most items in-game are worth a multiple of 200 gems. But when you buy the gems with cash, they're somehow only offered in multiples of 500 that are also not multiples of 200. You end up buying a few extra that maybe you didn't want, and they can later hook you in with the 'well, you already have some in your wallet' approach.

kome 4y ago

"super mario run" is another mobile game by nintendo, you pay 10 dollars and it's yours forever. plenty of content, extremely well crafted and fun. I download it in 2016, and i still use it to this day. but people criticized it for having to pay up front. and it was a commercial failure. so, people gets what they deserve i guess. (btw, "super mario run" is still updated, if you have kids just buy it, it's well worth the money)

sli 4y ago

If you're going to force directional inputs to read your slideshow, support WASD as well as the arrow keys, please.

MollyRealized 4y ago

Their "case studies" RSS feed seems broken, as it doesn't reflect the linked-to story.

nsmog767 4y ago

Never seen this site before but love the interactive + visual content. Found this one which is more broadly applicable: https://growth.design/case-studies/mental-models https://growth.design/case-studies/mental-models

andrew-dc 4y ago
Yeah, I know the format might not be everybody's cup of tea, but they have some pretty decent breakdowns and a lot of great information that would be great tools in any product or designers toolbox.

Cypher 4y ago

The state of gaming is sad especially from Nintendo who stood against mobile exploitation for a long time.

allmadhare 4y ago

Is there a way to read it without the ass-backwards UI?

Invictus0 4y ago
There it is!

siliconc0w 4y ago

I know I'm probably not their demographic but this garbage really kills the experience for me and is the reason I stopped playing diablo immortal.

surfsvammel 4y ago

What ever happened to just playing a game, without having to install deamon programs on your PC, without having to consent to them tracking you, without having to create fifteen new accounts, without having to endure in game ads, without having to constantly be reminded that I don’t have the special in game currency that is the only way to get that pink hat? Of course I understand what has happened. But it’s kind of taken the fun out of gaming. Or maybe I’m just old, grumpy and nostalgic.

phreack 4y ago
Nowadays I've just taken a hard stance against all of this crap. Any game I see where the previews let you immediately understand there's going to be a bunch of these dark patterns to hide the fact they're just gambling aimed at kids, I don't ever look at again. Luckily, beyond mobile apps there's still a thriving market of Just Games, particularly indies, and they're better than ever.

Yhippa 4y ago

This is the sad tale of gaming even 10 years ago. The first games that had in-game currencies, like MMOs had a lot of these elements, albeit not as sophisticated as what was laid out here. For me, and I wonder for other people, when you play one of these games you come to a point where you either keep playing or stop. Is the game fun? Is progression reasonable? Is this achievable without dumping huge amounts of cash into it? If any of those is "no", I quit. The problem is that newer games pop up and I'm sure they're going to get even more subtle about getting you to part with your money. Pretty gross.

rektide 4y ago

The submission yesterday on TV streaming systems all being jank/getting worse[1], Mario Kart getting the rough treatment: it's all so much enshittifcation. I feel like I should get a decent sized rubber stamp: #enshittification[2]. Alas that I cant stamp it that all over web pages & apps. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23621907/streaming-tv-boxes-roku-amazon-google-apple-nvidia https://www.theverge.com/23621907/streaming-tv-boxes-roku-am... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35051353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35051353 [2] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479

ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago

>Use your keyboard arrows to view the story! closes the browser tab on their phone

Aeolun 4y ago

I had the same thing when I was playing Sonic Racing on iOS. I have it through Apple Arcade, but it’s so clearly designed as a pay to win game. The quality of your racing is unrelated to the result, and your opponent’s behavior is either a previous race someone else did, or otherwise completely made up.

PheonixPharts 4y ago

Sort of funny that after all those slides, building up a narrative about the way a product that seems fun can be deceptive, it turns out this presentation itself is just ad for his email list.

chrisco255 4y ago
I will say, it was an effective presentation though. I rarely see slides used in this sort of editorial (advertorial?) format.

appleflaxen 4y ago

This is so gross, and so disappointing to see from Nintendo.

gruez 4y ago

>In order to have 100% chance of getting Peach, I'd have to spend more than ~$3,400... I don't think the author understands probabilities. They mention the probability of getting Peach in each roll is 0.25%, but assuming that each roll is independent, there's no way to guarantee (ie. "100% chance") that you get Peach, because it's possible to fail each roll no matter how many times you roll. If we take the author's dollar amount and work backwards to see what the overall probability is we end up with 91.2%, which is high but nowhere near 100%.

objectivetruth 4y ago
They're not independent. (At least the last time I played,) they pull prizes out of the pool when you win them. So if there is 1 Peach in a 100-prize pipe, at most you have to buy 100.
- gruez 4y ago
  Source? I searched around and the first source[1] seems to confirm what you say >you can only receive a certain number of rewards from each rarity level per 100 Pipe uses but further down it says >Additionally, as long as you haven’t exhausted the quantity by rarity for its category, you can receive duplicates of a reward from the Pipe. However, it also says >In fact, you’re guaranteed to receive at least one reward of each type by the time you’ve used 100 Pipe pulls — though the exact reward you’ll get is random for all categories except High-End Spotlight. I agree that each roll isn't independent and you can't model it as such, but I don't think there's any mechanism to guarantee you a prize given enough rolls, and I still suspect the author messed up the math. [1] https://www.gamerevolution.com/guides/600991-mario-kart-tour-character-odds-pipe-driver-kart-and-glider-drop-chances https://www.gamerevolution.com/guides/600991-mario-kart-tour...

sizzle 4y ago

I'll stick to Mario Kart 64, keep your slimy addiction-enabling loot boxes Nintendo, sad to see how the mighty have fallen.

CKMo 4y ago

SP had it right. Freemium - the 'mium' means "not really"

ccvannorman 4y ago

Off-topic but, Normally, I know people like to dunk on non-traditional scrolling websites, and I almost always agree. But I actually REALLY enjoyed this right-arrow format.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

I downloaded it because I wanted to see how addictive it is. I noped out of there and uninstalled immediately when it said I need to link my Nintendo account. I don't have a Nintendo account and I hate signing up for things and getting spammed.

Fatnino 4y ago

They got rid of this pipe gambling thing last year. How old is this article? Nowadays you just outright buy whatever character you need with rubies. Rubies can be earned by playing normally, or you can buy rubies for money. The prices for characters is a little bit steep but not so bad you can't earn enough rubies free each tour to buy what you need. Another decent strategy is to pick a tour where you will just let things slide and you just grind coins and rubies. I haven't spent a cent and I've been playing for almost 2 years.

NickC25 4y ago

Absolutely fantastic presentation. Sad that gaming these days has devolved into the state it has. I love gaming, and have loved gaming since I got a SNES at age 5. Micro-transactions suck, and constantly make me feel like I'm paying to let the developer get away with not finishing the actual game, rather than me paying for a fully developed game. Nintendo, in this case, is being fucking lazy by allowing this to tarnish their brand - they are owned by 1. a family that is probably worth a few hundred million (the Yamauchi family) and has no need for a quick buck, and 2. the Saudi PIF, which has trillions of dollars at its disposal and zero need for a quick buck. To this day I play almost zero mobile games, the one exception is the LiChess app, which is free and has zero IAPs. Occasionally I'll do the daily New York Times Crossword mini and Wordle, which is also free. Disclaimer: when the game in question came out, I put a few good hours into Mario Kart Tour, and enjoyed the core game itself, but hated the lootbox experience. On a complete side note: does anyone else feel that gaming, especially since the advent of mobile gaming, has really changed for the worse? It seems nobody plays together anymore, which was a big part of my childhood, teenage, and college years.