MarioWiki Poll Discussion

The Doctor said:

Sure, you won't have as much as the players who spend money on it,

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Therein lies the crux of your argument, and the aforementioned predatory monetization schemes. Weaponizing FOMO and taking advantage of addictive personalities, lots of them belonging to minors, in an attempt to maximize profits. Gacha is a scam.

You don't need to defend Nintendo. They will neither thank you nor care. Nintendo is a for-profit company, not a cuddly, well-meaning friend.

Dr. R. Bushroot said:

Therein lies the crux of your argument, and the aforementioned predatory monetization schemes. Weaponizing FOMO and taking advantage of addictive personalities, lots of them belonging to minors, in an attempt to maximize profits. Gacha is a scam.

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I kinda should've worded that better, I'm sorry.

While I do agree that the monetization schemes seem wack, there are ways to prevent addictive personalities and FOMO. One way is to establish limits on how much you play and blocking in-app purchases. This is a feature that everyone can use so they don't get greedy and spend money on every little item the game offers.

Since we're on the subject of gacha games, I'd like to bring a personal example to my side: I play the game Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem, a free RPG mobile game where you can get characters and level them up to fight in battles. Similar to Mario Kart Tour, the game has events constantly with new characters being added every week.

You can achieve these new characters by playing the game normally. No microtransactions, no cheap tricks, just playing in the event campaigns and doing challenges will allow you unlock the character.

I can honestly say that I have never spent a single penny on the game. My team with 78000 power was built from events, playing the campaigns, and completing challenges.

Do I play the game every day? Yes, but I only play it for a little bit in the morning before I go to school. I don't touch it for the rest of the day. Just today, I unlocked two new characters through events, and even got enough event currency to unlock another character.

If I miss a character, I don't shell out money to get them, I just move on to the next event and keep playing, knowing that the character will be available again in the future.

And this is a free to play game. I haven't spent any real money on it and I'm doing good. I know that this is a Mario forum, but I wanted to share my experience playing WOM so you can get (hopefully) what I was trying to say in regards to the discussion on MKT's (admittedly) horrible microtransactions.

Having a purposefully unfinished at beginning game every now and then isn't bad; it's when that's all any of the new games are that is when it gets much more problematic.

Alright, here is the major surprise I mentioned: A complete updating of the chart I started during my February 'Shroom section on the Poll Committee Discussion, the Unanimity section. This ranks all of the most popular options from polls and all of the least popular options from polls on the 12th Poll Committee, from most popular to least popular and most unpopular to least unpopular respectively. The final poll, based on whether voters had played certain Nintendo franchises, is wonky in terms of using IPs instead of voters, so I will show results both with and without it.

Gonna spoil both because there's quite a bit of course.

The Doctor said:

While I do agree that the monetization schemes seem wack, there are ways to prevent addictive personalities and FOMO. One way is to establish limits on how much you play and blocking in-app purchases. This is a feature that everyone can use so they don't get greedy and spend money on every little item the game offers.

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On a very general surface level sentiment, people should take an effort to try to track and curtail their spending such as general goods, and people shouldn't be spending too much time playing video games to the point of skipping meals and suffering from dehydration, you have to know there's the other side of the equation, and it's how the game is designed to wear down the psychological barriers you have to get you to spend. Always remember the game is designed by people who study general human psychology, and the game itself is extremely calculating. You're up against masters of trickery and deceit, and they know most people would be initially resistant to the idea of spending, but all it takes for people to get involved is to spend ANY amount of money in the game to get people now realize they made an investment and need to make their spending WORTH it, and then try to hook them more with event passes and whatnot.

The convoluted currencies and extremely confusing menus and shops are for a reason (and why our wiki page is a disgusting monster of a page on events and currencies rather than a page about a kart racer), it's to obfuscate and confuse people so they can't figure out the real price of the things they're paying for. It's no accident those ruby bundles, for instance, those aren't random numbers, those are numbers designed to get you spending an optimal amount, but not too much and not actually the amount you need for the most efficient spending.

Even if you're completely unaffected by all those psychological tugs and you still find fun in Mario Kart Tour, keep in mind you are not the target demographic they're trying to prey on. Belgium banned this game not because it's some sort of meanie pants but there are authors of a study who are acutely aware of the gambling tricks, study and research very intensively about the surrounding context of the game, study the design of these mobile games, and found this game running afoul of gambling laws.

Finally the argument that people need to take steps to just not be addicted reminds me of the arguments that people with ADHD just need to "try harder" and "remember stuff" and "learn good behaviors". It's true that we should always strive to be better, but that argument can easily overstep into "you're not trying hard enough" and overall disrespecting and downplaying the significant struggles of ADHD, that it is something you can unlearn and overcome the struggles. I don't think you truly understand the psychological torrents that run in addiction, and I don't either but I read stories of addicts falling prey and I believe them.

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I do not like Nintendo's current practice of releasing these inadequate games and then drip-feeding updates later. I want to like Battle League but it's not worth the money. I know it sold well but I can only imagine it'll encourage Nintendo to continue making these half-hearted attempts of sports games. I don't fully buy the HD costs of games argument. I feel it's a grain of truth, but I find it a tough swallow to think developers can plead poverty exactly.

I voted I like it, because regular updates keep the game relevant and people play for longer. (Option 3)

I felt that the trend in updating the game long-term is mainly used for the Mario sports games, if we are only focusing on the Mario series. To which I can understand, because Mario sports titles are typically not strong sellers compared to many of the Mario stuff. With Mario Kart and Mario Party, they have a stronger online presence, so they can justify the one-and-done approach and still have a long-term impact, even if they will eventually have additional content down the line.

Now, it's certainly optimal if a game has all the available content at launch, because that would be more time to explore. But unlike Mario Kart and Mario Party, the Mario sports titles are kind of riskier in that aspect, because if they did not have a high-enough reach, then later-purchasers might have a more difficult time encountering others to play with. I am not sure how easily you can encounter others to play online with Mario Golf: World Tour, but with that game selling less than a million, it might be kind of difficult.

In terms of games where I felt that the long-term update is a good approach, Mario Tennis Aces strikes to mind. The reason being that, being a game focused around 1 vs. 1 matches and a huge roster even from the start, there will inevitably be a need to balance things out so that a character is not necessarily dominant and overused as a result. The updates can help to gradually smoothen out any weaker or stronger parts in the characters, like how Bowser Jr. (and to a lesser extent Waluigi) used to be a dominant force for being too defensive. And then there's of course the Super Mario Maker series, which while is not a sports series, its course creation is versatile that even if there is seemingly not much tools at the beginning, what's currently available would keep players/creators busy.

I am not sure about if this approach fits Mario Strikers: Battle League well, but maybe it could've started things with more content, like I guess starting it with the first update (the one that added Daisy and Shy Guy) alongside.

So basically, I think the approach is not a dealbreaker, and in some scenarios, it is a good way to keep the engagement a bit longer.

Thank you for reading.