Reviews mixed for ‘Super Mario Run’ smartphone game
Shares of Nintendo sunk Monday following the launch of its first video game, which received mixed reviews over pricing.
On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Nintendo closed down more than 7% three days after the arrival of
Super Mario Run for Apple’s iPhone.
The game features Nintendo icon Mario, who automatically moves during the game, with players tapping the screen to jump.
Reviews of the game on its iTunes page have been mixed, with many players complaining over the game’s payment model. Its average consumer rating on iTunes is 2.5 stars out of 5.
It’s free to download, but only a select number of levels are available to play.
To unlock the full game, players must spend $9.99.
The majority of popular games on mobile are free to play, with players receiving the option to spend money on key items such as in-game currency to speed up their progress. Nintendo has said it will not introduce additional events or items players must pay to earn.
The pricing structure didn’t stop iPhone or iPad owners eager to play their first Mario game on an Apple device.
According to research firm SensorTower, Super Mario Run was downloaded more than 25 million times worldwide last weekend. That’s even faster than Pokémon Go, which needed 11 days to hit the 25 million mark.
Nintendo was years late to the mobile gaming trend, only taking the leap when it recognized it was missing out on a group of potential users who might find the console game too complicated.
Before launch, it had explained the unusually high pricing as a way to avoid dinging players with additional, frequent charges as they played.
“We’re not going to continue to release little packets of additional content that people will have to pay for,” Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto told USA TODAY before the launch.