Mario's smaller online presence despite his popularity

[winstein]

A lot of popular game properties naturally leads to a lot of online presence from fans, and one way that can be gauged is through forum activity. Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and even Sonic are among such video game series that have strong online presence, but Mario didn't seem to have as strong an online presence compared to them. In fact, there are few forums that have notable online presence. From what I can find, these are forums that I would consider having some online presence, not counting Reddit:
- MKBoards
- Mario RPG Universe
- Wario Forums
- Mario Party Legacy
- The Mushroom Kingdom

Even then, the other forums aren't quite robust with activity, and of the forums I linked, only the Mario Kart boards have a strong online presence since the games since Mario Kart DS has online, which naturally leads to a community that is able to connect. The other forums' last posts were added days ago as of this topic. In fact, I daresay that the Super Mario Boards is the only Mario forums with the most activity, and it's very likely because the Wiki draws in new fans, similar to how The Mushroom Kingdom was the go-to place for Mario resources but that didn't last, leading to a weaker online presence in the forums.

I am not certain of the Mario forums in other languages, but I won't be surprised if the Japanese Mario forums have a decent fan presence. If you know where to look, please tell us more about it.

Why is it that Mario doesn't seem to have that strong of an online presence compared to his other popular peers?

Thank you for reading.

 

[Lakituthequick]

Probably the target audience. The Mario franchise is primarily targeted at kids that are not of an age to be on the Internet that much.

 

[Mcmadness]

Many of em aren't as insane as we are.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

When it comes to Mario, maybe there's not much to talk about outside of the gameplay? Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Sonic arguably have some story and characterization while Pokemon has this whole strategy thing going. Pokemon is game where there are a ton of game mechanics and a massive amount of things to do as well as having active manga volumes and an anime. Sonic, despite having an unimpressive library has his comics and whatever characters as well as developers that are pretty receptive to fan input. Not too sure about Final Fantasy, but that also has quite a bit of story and characters so maybe that invites to a bit of speculation. I suspect fanbase lore discussion and whatever has a part to do with it while maybe, maybe Mario's limited crazy universe doesn't exactly spark fan imagination? Not saying fan imagination doesn't exist, but a lot of Mario fans, I think, don't really care that much about continuity and stuff, and they generally bring up "lore" ironically.

Mario has pretty much just video games, and characters and story are pretty much one-note. The gameplay is solid, and the games are really good, but... I'm not sure if there's that much else to talk about.I personally don't see books on Mario concept art (and that Mario encyclopedia thing is well, no one knows when that piece of trash is going to be released) or just Mario stuff in general, which can provide an extra venue for Mario fans to discuss. Super Mario Odyssey is good, but honestly, give it a few months without updates and people will probably stop talking about it and move on to more general discussions. This in contrast to Pokemon and Smash Bros..

I don't know what the average Pokemon, Sonic, and Final Fantasy fan expect honestly. But as a Mario fan, I do expect just games and merchandise mainly and I do think those former three offer more than games and merchandise. The games are also simple to begin with, and none of them have really any sort of replay value. Single player Mario games don't have that much of a shelf life.

On the other hand, having a small community is always good and if the few active Mario-related stuff remain active, I don't see it as necessary a bad thing. That being said, I do bring up the lack of Mario stuff outside of video games and merch, at least outside of Japan (though even then, Super Mario-Kun is the only active one?) as a possible contributing reason.

 

[winstein]

When it comes to Mario, maybe there's not much to talk about outside of the gameplay? Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Sonic arguably have some story and characterization while Pokemon has this whole strategy thing going. Pokemon is game where there are a ton of game mechanics and a massive amount of things to do as well as having active manga volumes and an anime. Sonic, despite having an unimpressive library has his comics and whatever characters as well as developers that are pretty receptive to fan input. Not too sure about Final Fantasy, but that also has quite a bit of story and characters so maybe that invites to a bit of speculation. I suspect fanbase lore discussion and whatever has a part to do with it while maybe, maybe Mario's limited crazy universe doesn't exactly spark fan imagination? Not saying fan imagination doesn't exist, but a lot of Mario fans, I think, don't really care that much about continuity and stuff, and they generally bring up "lore" ironically.

That's true. That's why I kind of wished that there is a modern Mario animated series and/or comic book that best represent English territories (with Martinet providing character voicing as part of the promotion if possible), because if there's one thing that expands the brand reliably, it's through more accessible forms of media. That's why it's a great thing there's a film in the works.

In regards to Final Fantasy, the lore and characters are one thing, but there are other facets in where you can see it's an active community. For one, Final Fantasy 5 is one of the most replayable games since every year there is a "Four Job Fiesta", where players complete the game using a designated Job system, and this goes hand-in-hand with how every Job is viable to the completion of the game. That's not mentioning how they have two MMOs under their belt, both of which are still going on today.

Despite Mario's relatively small popularity, it spawned a surprising range of fan art, not to mentioned the variety of "meme" for lack of a better word (I wish there's a better wording for it). Which is something I am grateful about.

What do you mean when you mentioned that Mario's crazy universe is "limited"?

On the other hand, having a small community is always good and if the few active Mario-related stuff remain active, I don't see it as necessary a bad thing. That being said, I do bring up the lack of Mario stuff outside of video games and merch, at least outside of Japan (though even then, Super Mario-Kun is the only active one?) as a possible contributing reason.

I actually find it refreshing that the Mario community isn't that big compared to the other video game series, because it felt just right for me. The first community I joined is disadvantaged in that the game series is too obscure in English-speaking territories, and that obscurity is hurt by the only English community where their focus on a certain aspect is detrimental to others. The second community I joined was Pokemon and while I enjoyed the huge population of fans it could feel overwhelming, so I don't always join them. The Mario community? It's popular so I don't feel too bad loving Mario, yet at the same time the smaller community allowed me to know more people a lot better than the Pokemon community.

Thank you for reading.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Well, sometimes, I think a general lack of direction can stifle creativity rather than encourage it because there's not much to work on. Fan speculations just aren't taken really seriously in the Mario games and they're generally hand-waved because there's no canon. I'm not saying it doesn't happen or that people don't like speculating, there just isn't much of an emphasis on it. I myself don't speculate all too often as I view the Mario series as simply a bunch of mainly unrelated episodes. Speculation CAN go too far though, and it can get tiresome and the whole thing about "lore" and all, well, maybe I put too much emphasis on it, but I'm bringing it up just because it's an idea I feel worth sharing and thinking about.

That's not to say Mario has a paucity of fan art. I'm not sure how much fan art Mario gets in the grand scheme of things, relative to others. I do know Mario gets quite a bit OCs created after him (I still remember my Mario mod for Left 4 Dead 2 getting so popular people made recolor variants of it; yes, I'm flattered but also rolling my eyes). Mario has quite a bit of memes and dumb stuff too but I can't say for sure relative to other communities.

So with Final Fantasy, I do think replay value plays a role here. But Sonic doesn't have much of a replay value (in my opinion) and his games are just... meh but the fanbase is big and maybe it's because Sonic has several venues to connect to potential fans especially that comic, but also the TV show and maybe the character writing.