Super Mario Run, perhaps the most coveted game of the year along with Pokémon Go, is about to turn one week on the App Store. Located daily as number one in the list of most downloaded free applications (Although in reality it is NOT a free game since from level three you must make an in-app purchase worth € 9,99 if you want to continue playing), its download success is also a critical success.
With just two stars on the App Store, negative reviews are everywhere. A good number of players criticize its excessive simplicity, that it is not possible to control the speed at which its protagonist runs or to go backwards and, especially, the price and the modality they have chosen to launch it. But despite all this, from Nintendo they seem to be so happy that they announce that, at least for the moment, They have no plans to expand Super Mario Run with new content.
Super Mario Run, a highly criticized success
Before and after its official launch on Thursday, December 15 in the App Store for iPhone and iPad (and for iPod Touch, which we almost always forget to mention), both Nintendo and Apple launched their powerful propaganda machines fueling an expectation that was already tremendously high.. First was its early announcement (on September 7) with the mystery of a "late-year release"; later the rain of rumors; and when the launch was imminent, Miyamoto appearances on television and of course, an App Store dressed in red where there seemed to be nothing other than Super Mario Run.
As expected, Super Mario Run figures on the App Store did not disappoint, quickly reaching the first places both in the top of downloads and in the top by income. The trick had worked. A free game that is not really free, which undoubtedly encourages many users who finally ended up not buying it, to download and try it, thus pushing it to the top of those lists.
Nintendo, via Miyamoto, he pointed that one of the great objectives that they tried to achieve with Super Mario Run (the first game of the Japanese company exclusively for mobile devices), was to recover the original simplicity. And that's how a game came about for which you don't need more than a hand (a finger, actually), and a permanent connection to the internet (something that very few liked).
Investor concern
But a week after its official release, Super Mario Run Looks Like It Doesn't Live Up To Nintendo Investors' Expectations (nor of many users), or at least this is what is stated from The Wall Street Journal.
Apparently many Nintendo investors are concerned about the overall profitability of the game, according to the report, as well as by the first criticisms of the players.
So are the ratings that Super Mario Run users are issuing in the App Store
In Super Mario Run you have a single purchase within the app that, for € 9,99, unlocks the entire game. Nevertheless, Investors consider that games like Pokémon Go have a higher profitability thanks to the variety of scattered purchases within the app that offer incentives to improve the game experience. In short: many small purchases that stimulate the user with a better experience produce more income than a single purchase of greater value.
Some hoped that Nintendo was planning to introduce additional content to make the game more profitable, but according to the report, Nintendo isn't planning any additional content for Super Mario Run on iOS, neither free nor paid, according to a company spokesperson.
Obviously, and this is personal opinion, after having offered a full game experience for a single payment, introducing additional paid content (which would nullify that promise of full experience) could be considered little less than a hoax.
But this, for investors, may also frustrate some gamers who expect Nintendo to go big on iOS as a gaming platform, albeit does not prevent the company from releasing new games in the future.
The truth is that, despite the criticism of many players, the content does not seem to be among their concerns.