Super Mario Run and the fact that UX includes more than Gameplay

Almost everybody I know wants to play Super Mario Run when it will be released on the 15th of December. This game will be a smash hit.

Now Nintendo has announced the game won’t work without an Internet connection. And that’s a shame.

To top things of, the official reason states piracy concerns.

My Twitter Feed has no good words about it either.

We need to discuss this, because there’s a broader point about the whole mobile gaming industry.

I remember when the first single-player video game required online product activation — and the community outcry that followed. In mobile, perhaps because of a more amateur-gamer demographic, there was never such a thing. Remember, a desktop PC has a much higher chance of stable internet communication. However, all of the major PC game publishers backpedaled to some degree and introduced offline modes.

Another offender has to be EA Sports, which remodeled their entire mobile line-up in Free-to-Play (controversial topic on its own). While FIFA 14 had a working offline mode, the following titles erased Career Mode, Penalty Kicks Mode and Manager Mode, instead “focusing” on Ultimate Team — An online mode that could as well have been offline, since you only play against the computer.

There are even guides filtering out the few titles that are still offline playable. But to include Plants vs. Zombies 2 borders on hypocrisy.

This is what you see after updating the App, leaving you in the dust if you have no connection available.

Sure, we live in an Always On-World, and by leveraging this you can built stunning games that were unimaginable a century ago.

But more often than not, online access is only used in hostile ways: 1) To track user behaviors, and 2) To eliminate piracy. In these cases the community needs to take a stand.

There are at least 5 different scenarios where a required online connection is a real deal-breaker:

• Places where you get no network coverage, like planes or the subway
• Places where you get very little network coverage, like rural areas or your basement
• People (often kids that are the perfect target group for games) that only have an iPod Touch or WiFi-only tablet
• People with a metered/limited allowance of internet per month (throttled connections are not good enough to log you in to most services)
• People who are travelling abroad and have no or a very expensive roaming contract

If you see these only as fringe use cases, then I invite you to come down from your ivory tower. Mobile games are played in a much more versatile environment (like the doctor’s waiting room or the commute to work) and by all kinds of demographics.

These are only the disadvantages when everything works smoothly in the background. The afore mentioned FIFA 15 was not playable after release, because the servers couldn’t take the load. Your ISP or mobile carrier can encounter technical hiccups, too.

Of all smartphone apps Games should be the one category where you need internet the least. The basic rule of thumb:

You only use an Internet connection when there’s a customer need that can’t be dealt with otherwise.

Good design decisions cut out the least possible amount of users. Not that there aren’t good examples. Candy Crush allows fans to play offline, and then sync the progress once an internet connection is present.

Back to Super Mario Run: This game was supposed to be all about simplicity and accessibility. By confining the game in such a basic way, it makes a fool out of an otherwise good mobile UX.