What’s the problem with Super Mario Run?
By Yuji Nakamura
Here in Japan, during the winter, you’ll find that seats on trains are heated, making them an ideal place to plop down and play a smartphone game.
Take a ride on any subway line and you’re guaranteed to find plenty of folks tapping away on their phones (last year the nation spent $9 billion on mobile games, compared with $3 billion on console games). Because I report on tech, I can’t help but look over people’s shoulders to see what’s popular. It’s just research. Really.
But even though Nintendo’s long-awaited Super Mario Run came out two weeks ago, I haven’t seen it on many screens. It was the fastest iOS app in history to hit 40 million downloads, but I’m guessing that a lot of people played the (free) first three levels for a few minutes, were prompted to pay $10 to unlock the rest, and quit playing. Many flocked to the App Store to complain, calling the game a rip-off. These opinions weren’t limited to Japan; they were common around the world.
Is $10 really too high a price to ask for a well-made app?
Stock traders and investors noticed too. They sold Nintendo’s shares, wiping out more than $3 billion from the Kyoto-based company’s market value since Super Mario Run’s Dec. 15 debut.
Is $10 really too high a price to ask for a well-made app? Then I remembered the whales: or what the industry calls someone who’s willing to spend thousands of dollars on mobile games. The dirty little secret is that they are the pillar of the free-to-play, or freemium, business model that almost every popular smartphone game developer has embraced. Instead of charging up-front lump payments, many of these puzzle-based games give away content for free, only to encourage gamers to buy in-app items.
In the course of an evening, they’d spend the equivalent of hundreds of dollars, sometimes as much as $2,000 to $3,000.
Essentially, whales subsidize casual gamers who are only willing to spend small amounts of money to keep playing, generating enough income for new content, characters and levels. I got to know a few whales while reporting for an article earlier this year, and their stories are sometimes astonishing. One fellow in his 40s, who works for a shipping company, said he liked to gather with other big spenders at his house once or twice a month to play games. When one of them unlocked a rare weapon or character, they’d celebrate by chugging a drink. Not surprisingly, in the course of an evening, they’d spend the equivalent of hundreds of dollars, sometimes as much as $2,000 to $3,000. The numbers don’t lie: in Japan, less than 10 percent of players account for more than 90 percent of revenue. Analysts say the ratio is similar abroad as well.
By design, Super Mario Run won’t have any whales. The most anyone can spend is $10, to unlock the entire game. While this probably makes it a better title for kids, it also effectively puts Super Mario Run in the same category as console and handheld games. While the mobile game has an option to build your own world, the unlocked levels can be conquered in a few short hours, while offering few incentives to keep coming back.
Super Mario Run was supposed to be Nintendo’s first big test in the world of mobile gaming, a market that it shunned for years. Even though Mario is the company’s most well-known and beloved character, it’s hard to tell whether he’ll be embraced with the same fervor on smartphones. Nintendo has promised to release two more mobile titles early next year, so we’ll see. Even after Super Mario Run’s debut, though, it’s clear that Nintendo still has a lot to prove.
This originally appeared in Bloomberg Technology’s newsletter Fully Charged. Sign up here.
