Nintendo Stock Plummets After Poor Super Mario Run Reviews
Nintendo's plight highlights the issues in the mobile gaming market.
The launch of Super Mario Run was meant to be a moment of triumph for Nintendo. Even though it's the company's first major foray into the mobile market, Super Mario Run was anticipated to be a huge success. Although there's no indicator that the game is doing badly, or that it's a bad product, Nintendo stock has steadily declined in price after the initial spike that came with Super Mario Runs debut.
From a high of around 30,000 yen per share ($255.99 USD) on December 10, Nintendo's stocks today are going for 24,540 yen ($209.40 USD). The reason for this massive decline in stock price is poor customer reviews for Super Mario Run, the majority of which are not because the title is a bad product, but because the full version of the game is $9.99.
Nintendo Co Ltd. Stock
Nintendo is suffering from an issue that many Apple App Store developers have faced. There seems to be a ubiquitous view from those who predominantly game on mobile devices that paying a one-time fee to purchase a game is undesirable. This customer outrage at having to pay a premium price for a premium is what's led to the rise of the free-to-play model in mobile gaming. Apple App Store customers main argument against Super Mario Run is that Nintendo is making a "cash grab" by charging $9.99 for the game and that it should be "free."
Nintendo has released Super Mario Run in a way that the first three levels of World 1 and the Toad Rally mode are free. This decision allows customers the chance to demo the game before they choose to purchase the full product. Nintendo has made clear that Super Mario Run is going to be sold at a one-time premium price since the Apple Keynote where it was revealed. However, customers are viewing Nintendo's decision to allow customers to demo the game then requiring a one-time payment for the full product as a "bait and switch," even though all these facts are clearly marked in the product description on the Apple App Store.
It seems that Nintendo's desire to avoid the timers and premium currency that plague mobile gaming has had the opposite effect. In a desire to make Super Mario Run appealing to everyone, it's alienated the mainstream mobile gaming crowd that would rather wait 6 hours to play another Toad Rally race or buy $100 in premium currency to build their Mushroom Kingdom.
Hopefully, this doesn't sour Nintendo's feelings on mobile gaming, or force it to start offering a much less customer friendly product filled with the things that make most mobile games frustrating and practically unplayable. For now, though, Nintendo will have to find some way to deal with the fact that public misunderstanding of Super Mario Run has lead to what looks to be an unfair devaluation of its company's stock.
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replyJason Faulkner posted a new article, Nintendo Faces Stock Crisis After Poor Super Mario Run Reviews
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I don't have a problem with the price. I think that's appropriate for a quality mobile game that's more than just a simple mechanic. Although, I think $5 is the tipping point for the masses, today. I think the industry needs to keep working on the public's mindset that paying $5-10 after some free content is acceptable. The early iPhone devs wrecked it for everyone by doing the whole disposable game bit.
I really believe the mobile gaming work would be vastly different had Nintendo started developing for iOS right off. I get why they wouldn't. But, just imagine what if Nintendo showed the world how to do DS quality titles on iOS/Android instead of the stream of disposable games we got instead?-
I agree. I was fine to pay $10, but then they tried to play scrooge mcduck by not allowing other devices on the same account have access to the other levels. Thankfully a re-install + a linked account lets you free that up (but even still only one copy can run at a time, whatever).
The problem for me is the game isn't fun. Sure it is pretty, and the music is wonderful, but it's not like playing NSMB for the DS years ago (which I *loved*). If they can't match the experience of a game that came out 10 years why bother in the first place?
I don't know how to fix the early ios dev game thing. When you allow *anyone* to submit games to the store for any price, it's a race to the bottom. Maybe that was the main reason for not allowing indie developers on consoles for the longest time. I think it is interesting to see how Steam doesn't fall into this trap now that greenlight is a thing. There was a post a while back about how a huge percentage of all steam games were added to their store THIS year.-
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why are you expecting one purchase to be allowed to be shared with infinite family members?
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it's how Apple decided everyone must run their business. It's not how anywhere else works. You wonder why mobile games suck and it's policies like this. Not only can you not even charge $10 for a game but you can't charge per person, you're just expected to have a limit on sales of one per family.
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consumers suffer when sustainable business models aren't available. Apple is seeing the consequences of these policies on the iPad too with a lack of good pro apps.
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I am not sure if that applies, here. Nintendo full well has the capability to use the business model that they want.
If you're saying that Apple created an environment where people expect certain business models...that's not really on them, is it? Consumers must want/like a particular businesss models, and the developers cater to it. Apple is just a store-front.
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Nintendo can only use what business models Apple allows. Saying they're just a store front is a cop out. They dictate policy. Does your business model involve a trial? Well their store front doesn't have support for that. So how do you get people to try your expensive game? You could try to work around it and manually publish a Lite version but this has a variety of additional costs. Say you do it and make a Lite and Full version. Well now your full version is subject to Apple's store policy that your app must be shareable between 5 family members at no additional cost. Maybe better to just make the game cheap with IAP then. What about a subscription model? Or paid upgrades? All not supported either. So every dev flocks to free with IAP since that's the de facto only well supported business model. Now you can't charge for games. And since pro apps don't work in this way at all you just get very few pro apps.
An individual consumer doesn't care about business models. They're going to choose "free" every time. That doesn't mean making everything free is the best thing for consumers long term. If only one type of product can make money that way (shitty mobile games) then consumers suffer in the long run and then Apple suffers for their platform being less attractive. Apple's job is to manage the long term health of their platform and the store policies are a huge part of that.
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a $30-40 game that can be shared under certain circumstances with one other person who has already contributed $150+ to the company (via their own DS) in order to incentivize them to buy their own copy vs splitting a $10 purchase 2-5 ways so that other people never have to spend anything. DS sharing is a trial to get someone to buy. This is just making an already cheap purchase even cheaper.
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or it's an indicator the market can't support this type of game anymore
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that's what Nintendo's own hardware is for, the whole point of a mobile entry is to make something for a wider market
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"This customer outrage at having to pay a premium price for a premium is what's led to the rise of the free-to-play model in mobile gaming."
The customer outrage is due to the race-to-the-bottom pricing that developers & publishers engaged in a few years ago (assisted by Apple's hands-off approach to the app store and allowing way too much crap in).
They only have themselves to blame.-
You say that, but there's also a camp that says Apple is too restrictive on what they allow on their store. They can't win either way, so they might as well go with what makes the money.
I am fine paying $10 for a good mobile game, but I am not used to the other restrictions Nintendo put in place, effectively making me buy multiple copies.-
Apple is both too restrictive and yet also incentivizes unsustainable business models. For their talk about app store devs seeing success, the reality is that the overwhelming majority are complete failures economically.
The only one that model benefits is Apple, who has a ton of free/cheap content for their platform. -
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There is so much garbage on the App Store and now it is on Steam too :(
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Just look at the top of the sales charts.
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They appear to be doing the opposite.
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Might be worth linking to this article: http://www.shacknews.com/article/98123/game-trader-should-you-buy-nintendos-stock somewhere in there?
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Nah. No one wants to listen to that idiot.
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When I went to see Star Wars last week I overheard someone saying "What, you can only play a couple levels and then they make you pay? Bunch of scam artists!"
That really annoyed me. This guy thinks the people who made a product and are selling it are scam artists because they're not giving it away.-
Which closely mirrors the overwhelming majority of the bad reviews on the app store when I checked; people are mostly claiming that they're being ripped off by Nintendo because the game isn't free.
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no they think it's a scam because nothing in the store indicates what it is. They have plenty of reasons to expect it to actually be free like Temple Run. If Apple just properly supported trials then consumers could've had the correct expectations here.
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I wish there were more levels. $10 is steep for a 1-2 hour single player game. Multiplayer is fun though.
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it's not really about one game, it's about an expectation that Nintendo can turn mobile into another highly profitable pillar of the company whe their traditional ones are under siege
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I don't care for NSMB series in general but I like this a lot. I think its because of Toad Rally, perfect pick up and play mode that scratches my competitive itch.
If you don't like coin challenges and Toad Rally then there isn't that much for you, certainly, but that's what the demo is for. -
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Thats in the pipeline. Can't wait.
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thats in the works and thats definitely going to work with the f2p model
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