Mario Kart Tour - out now for mobile, if you really must

[MK-1601]

I can see why they've put in the subscription from the start, the strength of the brand and the track record of supporting games like Splatoon, MK8 and Smash as ongoing services are likely to get a lot of players subscribing early on.

 

 

[Strafe]

5 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

 

Yes, spend your own money on it just to annoy them!

 

That’ll show them!

yeah, gutted by this 

[SteveH]

I can't get to grips with the steering in this at all. I've never played a mobile racing game before, so it's all new to me.

 

Plus holding the iPad in portrait mode to play it just feels clumsy, I wish you could play in landscape mode. 

[Alex W.]

4 hours ago, MK-1601 said:

I can see why they've put in the subscription from the start, the strength of the brand and the track record of supporting games like Splatoon, MK8 and Smash as ongoing services are likely to get a lot of players subscribing early on.

 

That comparison would be stronger if the subscription came with all of the characters or tracks or something - the kind of stuff the Smash season pass provided. Unlocking a different type of F2P loot and one game mode? So you still have to do the whole F2P grind to actually get most of the game content, including much of the subscription content, while paying £60 a year? It's like they wanted to warn people that this won't be supported the same way as Splatoon etc.

[CheekyLee]

7 hours ago, HarryBizzle said:

If microtransactions ever make it into their Switch games, it will be because of people like you. 

Personally, I think the idiots paying full price for FIFA, Assassin's Creed, and COD every year and then going on to buy the loot crates are ahead of me in the queue to assign blame. It's a free-to-play game, and I'm happy to do my bit to support the Devs. 

 

I've played some more, and I enjoy it more. Like Mario Run before it, it's a different type of game to the full version. Play the game it is, rather than the one you hope it will be, and there's a good time ahead of you.

[DeDeDe]

21 hours ago, Eighthours said:

Or pay £4.99 and get 100+ curated games on Apple Arcade (with a MONTH'S free trial). Hmmmm, what a dilemma.

 

Yeah, I'd agree with this. I feel like Apple Arcade has really taken the wind out of this mobile Mario Kart's sails. Not in terms of quality, but just approach and variety.

 

I like this Mario Kart. I had some problems at first trying to adapt to the controls, but once I chose gyro controls, it's been smooth sailing since. (I wish the game could be played in landscape mode, though.) The courses chosen for the cups have been very good choices so far, and the music is great.

 

There's a place for a game like Mario Kart on the App Store. I think freemium is a viable strategy. But I'm not excited about it (and I don't own a Switch, or have even played a Mario Kart game in years.) This game feels like it was developed at a stock-holders' meeting.

 

It's really a shame. I was expecting more from Nintendo's efforts. I didn't take to Dragalia Lost, but that was a step in the right direction, I think. I've been quietly addicted to another F2P game made by Nintendo--Rusty's Real Deal Baseball on the 3DS, and that's a really compelling, really fun game. Nintendo can make great mobile games. But this Mario Kart is too conservative, even by their standards.

[Radish]

1 hour ago, CheekyLee said:

and I'm happy to do my bit to support the Devs. 

 

I've never understood this - devs aren't entitled to your cash just because they're game developers, they should make something you genuinely enjoy if you're going to give them money, not just give it to them because of a generic "they deserve it" statement or you want to "annoy internet crybabies" (defined as that for holding a different opinion to you). 

 

It also shows how out of touch you are when you lump Assassin's Creed in with the yearly "release the same game" method of CoD, Fifa etc. You should look into Odyssey, it's going to blow your mind if you think a gacha MK game with a subscription is good value for money and deserves rewarding. 

[DC Lemon]

There’s so much that’s genuinely fun and fresh, though. If they released it for £40 on Switch with no IAPs and proper controls, everyone would be raving about it. And that’s without any multiplayer. The points and combo systems are the best thing to happen to the series in a long time.

[SozzlyJoe]

Some people just have to fork out when thet get the stimulus though. Like your knee jerking when they hit it with the little hammer.

Season pass? Brilliant, now I have a reason to earn all those grind-o-points! And GOLD items you say? Who doesn't like GOLD? "Supporting the devs", "throwing/dropping a chunk of change", "less than a cup of coffee" are the signature calls, smoothing self-justifications for someone being gulled into paying out actual cash for fuck all.

It's not even their fault though, they have been identified and laser-targetted as being prone to this exact method.

[Alex W.]

2 hours ago, DC Lemon said:

If they released it for £40 on Switch with no IAPs and proper controls, everyone would be raving about it.

Yes, if they took out the bits that made it bad it would be good.

[Capwn]

Game analysts always wind me up. They actually get paid for saying things like;

 

Quote

“The expectations are sky high for Mario Kart Tour because it’s such a big (intellectual property) and it’s such a big franchise,” said Serkan Toto, CEO and founder of industry consultancy Kantan Games

.

 

Quote

Asymmetric Advisors’ Amir Anvarzadeh agreed, telling CNBC that the launch of Mario Kart Tour is “very, very big.”

 

Quote

“Mario Kart will be probably the biggest game title for Nintendo’s mobile venture, if you like, ever,” said Anvarzadeh, a market strategist at Asymmetric Advisors. “It’s always been a multiplayer title that’s got everybody involved, it’s always been the best-selling of all the titles that Nintendo have sold over the generations.”

 

Quote

“What’s interesting in this particular game as well is that, you know, you will have a lot of opportunities to spend money on in-game content sales (such as) buying different cars or different characters,” he said.

 

Quote

He added that the game is likely to be “much more profitable” than Nintendo’s past attempts at cracking the mobile gaming space.

 

Oh ok? Bigger than PokemonGO? Ok mate, yeah sure...

[Not Thread Owner]

5 minutes ago, Capwn said:

Oh ok? Bigger than PokemonGO? Ok mate, yeah sure...

 

Well, it made a lot but only a fraction of that goes to Nintendo. And it isn't a Nintendo product, so they mean actual Nintendo titles like Animal Crossing, Dr Mario and Fire Emblem.

 

And, it's short term of course, but:

 

Mario Kart Tour Becomes The Top Free iPhone App In 58 Markets

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/09/mario_kart_tour_becomes_the_top_free_iphone_app_in_58_markets

[DC Lemon]

The controls aren’t a negative for a mobile game once you set them up right. Obviously steering assist needs to go. That became obvious as soon as the game prevented me from taking shortcuts with it on. Acceleration being automatic makes no difference because you never took your thumb off the accelerator anyway (before 200cc came along in MK8 and we don’t need to worry about 200cc in this).

 

I got another go on the pipe just for logging in today. How exciting. Another duplicate. My excitement was premature. I still have zero desire to hand over money just to be disappointed.

[CheekyLee]

I should probably capitalise and bold the first 2 syllables of my screen name. There's a big clue in it as to the nature of some of the things that I say.

 

So, since I have to be deadly serious, here's my take on the monetisation aspect. I've already played and enjoyed enough to suggest that I'll partake of this daily for at least the foreseeable future. My interest may or may not wane once I've done everything singleplayer available to me, but once mutliplayer is added then this might become a goto game somewhere along the way. I work for a mobile developer who have created a competitive multiplayer game, and I see daily the number of players who are absolutely playing the hell out of it. Trust me, I have massive insight into what goes on with free-to-pay games in general.

 

I'm happy to pay for such an enjoyable experience, I feel no pressure at all because I know that this is the model being used. I bought some stuff in Pokemon Go, but have never made a payment in many other mobile games, some of which I did play daily. I'm not interested in the Season Pass, at least until such time as I know I'll get my money's worth. I'm an adult, in control of my own finances, and my own impulses. I'll pay if I want to, won't if I don't, and no amount of pressure in either direction is going to steer me otherwise. My "internet crybabies" statement was nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek comment, and I would venture the number of successful bites it achieved says more about the respondents than it does about me.(But then, I'm not actually a psychologist, so maybe it doesn't.)

[Rudderless]

3 hours ago, DC Lemon said:

There’s so much that’s genuinely fun and fresh, though. If they released it for £40 on Switch with no IAPs and proper controls, everyone would be raving about it. And that’s without any multiplayer. The points and combo systems are the best thing to happen to the series in a long time.

 

"If this bad game was completely different, everyone would like it!"

[DC Lemon]

24 minutes ago, Rudderless said:

 

"If this bad game was completely different, everyone would like it!"

That doesn’t reflect what I wrote which was that there is much to like about how this freshens up the Mario Kart experience. I didn’t say it was a bad game on its current platform.

[Alex W.]

Well, that’s it really. It depends on whether you’re assessing its merit in the context of the current mobile games environment or gaming as a whole. As a Mario Kart game it’s atrocious but as a mobile game it’s not particularly remarkable in its bald avarice and mechanical shallowness.

[Bacon Horsemeat]

Onto the Yoshi Cup now, it's quite fun. Just narrowly beat Bowser in a photo finish on Rock Rock Mountain, he was literally sniffing Peach's arse as we flew down the finishing line.

[TehStu]

8 hours ago, CheekyLee said:

I should probably capitalise and bold the first 2 syllables of my screen name. There's a big clue in it as to the nature of some of the things that I say.

 

Sorry, I missed the nature of your post. My fault! I guess my arsey reaction is just a huge frustration in the way many games have gone on mobile. I just can't be doing with it any more, no matter how good the game is. My time is so limited that it's worth way more than the few bucks here and there these games cost (in the sense that I'm doing the dad gamer thing, with bugger all free time), so I need to invest it wisely.

 

But it's all good, as long as it coexists alongside people continuing to make games you 100% buy up front, sans IAPs and ads. Like Stardew Valley, which I would have bought at some point, had it not come bundled with Play Pass (unsure if I'll stick with this).

[MK-1601]

"doing your bit to support the devs" - See, I don't mind this in the context of a game like this, that lives or dies by people playing it and paying money, that has the potential to get better over time if enough people stick with it.

 

It's when people say it for things like buying blatant cash-in 'bonus content' skins in full price AAA games that they sound like penises.

[DC Lemon]

All good things come to those who grind.

 

[Festoon]

Super Mario Flail.

 

This is awful. Control scheme from hell. Ugly, ugly interface.

[ZOK]

I had a quick go. For all it’s dressed in Mario Cars gladrags, fifty percent of the time I was pulling some sweet drifts and fifty percent of the time I was going sideways in the wrong direction.

 

An awful game.

[TehStu]

Sounds like my lad's 5th birthday party, where some were holding the joycon vertically, and half of them were looking at the wrong quarter of the screen anyway. 

[DarhkFox]

After playing it for a couple of hours, the controls are mostly fine. It takes a bit of getting used to but i don't generally have issues sliding all over the place anymore.

[Flub]

20 hours ago, CheekyLee said:

I should probably capitalise and bold the first 2 syllables of my screen name. There's a big clue in it as to the nature of some of the things that I say.

 

 

 

Top bants m8

[dumpster]

I'll buy my fruit and veg locally to support local business. I will buy a t-shirt to support that podcast i like. I'll stick a fiver in the tin to support MacMillan Nurses.  But £5 a month to support the developers?  It amazes me that people think this way. This isn't some indie studio struggling to get by. It's Nintendo, and their game is currently the number one selling game in 58 countries. 

 

Buy it if you can afford it, and if you like it.  But don't buy it to "support the devs" when it's one of the worlds biggest companies in their field.

[dumpster]

Just to add, subscriptions and in game loot, all well and good in the right game. Choose to play it, or play something else, there's more choice than ever out there and you don't NEED to play this game especially.  But putting IAPs and Loot in a racing game? Every race won by the person who bought the most power ups? 

 

Did we learn nothing from EA's Tetris Blast, a score based puzzle game with a high score table filled with the people that bought the most bombs?

[Harsin]

I just filled up my car and then pumped an additional 2 gallons down the nearest drain because I like to support Esso.

[DarhkFox]

its unlikely i will buy stuff in this. it doesn't seem like stuff like that it restricting me from anything? so whats the big deal?

 

I understand 200cc is locked behind a paywall but 150cc is fine for me.