1.$80 is too much to spend on a game.
Well, there actually does seem to be a story there.
Remember pages back when I said they were probably charging $80 for this game because it's probably had development troubles?
Mario Kart World Direct!
www.allspark.com
Mario Kart World Direct!
www.allspark.com
Well, it seems like I was more or less right.
Come learn about this and more interesting tidbits from behind the scenes of the game's development!
www.nintendojo.com
This article has been translated from the original Japanese content. This interview was conducted before the game was released. In this 18th volume of Ask the Developer, an interview series in which developers convey in their own words Nintendo's th…
www.nintendo.com
Mario Kart World started development as a Switch 1 game in 2017. They couldn't get it to run they wanted while still keeping all the features in. Then they moved development to the Switch 2, where they could actually get it to run. Mario Kart World has been in development for the better part of a decade.
So, a lot like with Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo is charging more for the game due to the amount of development time it took. Instead of the actual finished product, necessarily. It's less about the content IN the game, and more about how long it took them to make it.
I have...mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I want the creators to be able to get paid, and not have to work themselves to death pushing something out for a deadline. But, on the other hand...this DOES kind of feel like Nintendo is charging us more because they couldn't manage a project properly. If they couldn't get the game they were trying to make to actually run, they should have changed the scale or pivoted to a different idea. But, they seemed to be pretty stubbornly set on the idea they had, no matter how long it took. In some ways, that's admirable, but it's also equally foolish. I don't know if this is behavior to be encouraged or not? If a project clearly isn't working on the hardware you're working on...maybe save that idea for later and do something else? I mean, that sounds easier than it probably is, but as some point these project managers need to learn how to pivot and adapt.
So, it's entirely possible that Mario Kart World will really be the only $80 game that Nintendo itself releases on the Switch 2. No other game may have that long of a development window, to justify the increase in the price. It was just VERY poorly timed, because it's literally the first game on the system, and it sets the tone for the rest of the generation.
I just don't know if I like the idea of charging more for a game just because it took longer to develop. It just feels like that would encourage MORE poor time management, not less. At some point, I'd rather the developer be forced to eat some of those costs, if it's a result of their own mistakes. It encourages them to learn lessons from it, rather than just repeat those same mistakes for projects in the future.
But, honestly? For me, it's less about the $80 price point, and more that it was Nintendo doing it...for a racing game. Frankly, it's a genre that rarely gets my attention in the first place, so that's part of the problem for me personally. But, also, it's Mario Kart. It's a game EVERYONE wants to buy just to play with friends. It's a "party game". I don't know, I just see "party games" in a lower tier than a full-on platformer or adventure game. It "feels" like it should take less "effort", even though it probably doesn't? Plus, it's less about Nintendo doing it this one time, and more that Nintendo doing this gives all the other publishers "permission" to do it, too. For games that might not really "need" it in the same way that a game with a 8 year development cycle would. Nintendo has opened the gates to possible abuse, and I understand why people are worried about it.
Plus, if Nintendo CAN afford to sell World for $50 via the bundle...maybe the game should just be $50? Or at least make the digital version $50? I don't know, again, a lot of this is "optics" and "marketing" stuff that just makes them look bad. And now we'd be getting into a whole argument about how maybe digital games should be priced differently than their physical counterparts, which is a whole other conversation.
I don't like it. I kind of understand it. But, I just don't like it. And, honestly, I'm kind of glad there's been at least a bit of backlash, so Nintendo might think about that for next time. But, World also seems to have sold VERY well, so they probably didn't learn the lesson that I wish they did.
Honestly? Nintendo's actually being the most upfront about this out of any of the major video game companies. Most of the time, video games hide that kind of caveat on the back of the box. But, Nintendo is requiring companies to have this big, ugly symbol right smack dab on the front of the box boldly declaring the full game isn't in here. And I actually applaud them for that. It's very obvious, and it helps inform the consumer about what they're actually buying. The symbol is actually very pro-consumer.
...Normalizing paying full-physical prices for what are essentially digital games, I'm less happy about. The "key card" games really should have a lower price, to balance things out. At least $10 less than a full game.
But, I don't really feel like this part is Nintendo's fault. The entire video game industry (honestly, the entire ENTERTAINMENT industry as a whole) is slowly going more and more digital. Again, I don't like it. But, there's not a lot Nintendo themselves can do. I think Nintendo has actually done it's job fairly well, and made sure the consumer can be informed about what they're buying. I hope Playstation and XBox follow suit and requires larger symbols of their own on their boxes. It makes for ugly box art, but at least you can tell what you're getting in the box.