The new Super Mario Run, developed by Nintendo, broke the former record of Pokemon Go of most downloads in a single day. According to Apptopia, the new Mario franchise game got 2,850,000 downloads on the premiere day, while the Pokemon Go app got to 900,000.
This comparison, however, is not completely fair for Pokemon Go. In the opening day of this game, its availability was in only five countries worldwide. Super Mario Run, on the other hand, was available in over 150 countries globally, and this maybe explains a bit the huge difference between both games.
The availability is not the only thing that could have helped Nintendo. Long before the launching day, the Japanese company made enormous efforts regarding marketing. Back in September, Nintendo’s designer and producer (and also the creator of Mario), Shigeru Miyamoto, was the main star in the Apple Annual Event, where the technology company announced its partnership with Nintendo and the upcoming launch of Super Mario Run.
In addition to continuous news coverage, the game even had a special appearance in the famous late talk show The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, a week before the official premiere.
Basically since September, Super Mario Run has been one of the most waited apps in the history of the App Store, or at least that´s what Apple developers wanted to demonstrate. The application was the first one ever to present the “Notify” option 3 months before the official launching. The game was listed in the App store before the premiere, as never seen before.
This created great hype among Apple users. and smartphone users in general, including the Nintendo’s fanbase who has waited for a Mario franchise title since quite a long time. It was impossible to any Apple user not realizing that this Thursday Super Mario Run was debuting. It got primary promotional banners all over iTunes and the App Store, along with the fact that Super Mario Run is a free app, which opens the market of mobile game users even more.
In an interview with the Verge last week, Miyamoto explained how this new app comes like a measuring method to understand how users see and want Mario and if this will translate into an upcoming evolution of the franchise.
There was backlash on the opening day
The fact that Super Mario Run is free is both a good thing and a bad thing for users. The primary critic that was reported by Apptopia, was that the amount of free play that is available was very low and at times unenjoyable. The game currently has 3 levels in the free version, and users can get access to the other 21 when paying $9,99. Right now, the app has over 33,000 one-star ratings, and most of the negative comments demand more free levels.
Maybe Nintendo will consider a drop in the price of the full game in order to obtain possible customers from users that download the game for free on the first place.
Despite all the critics, Super Mario Run only needed 6 hours and a half to become the number one downloaded app in the U.S. Also, in that time the app got the number seven spot in the Top Grossing Apps list. According to the firm Sense Tower, Pokemon Go needed five hours to achieve those listings.
According to the intelligence App Annie, Super Mario Run now sits in as the Top Grossing App in 8 countries. In other 23 countries is among the Top Ten Grossing Apps and in almost 50 countries is the first downloaded free app.
Regarding the Gameplay: Super Mario Run makes justice to its predecessors?
According to Forbes collaborator Dave Thier, Super Mario Run is an “exceedingly short game”. The full $10 game version offers 24 levels that can be completed in about one or two hours. This is the first reason why the game is not going to be like its predecessors, at least not in game duration.
The story is pretty much the same. Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach and Mario has to rescue her. In addition to this classic challenge, the user will have the opportunity to rebuild the kingdom. Also, classic scenery like Goombas, Koopas, and green pipes are in the game, although how you play the game is very different.
In the app, Mario will always run forward, and the primary action the user can perform is to jump. This endless running game shows a significant difference regarding past titles, but also proves Nintendo’s intention on becoming a mobile game reference.
There are three types of coins, each one unlockable when acquiring all the samples of the first category. Pink coins are the easiest ones, while there are 5 per level. Then, there are the purple ones and finally the black ones. According to Thier, this last kind of coins represents a true challenge for users. This high difficulty gives the game a set of layers that seems fascinating, while users are in charge of determining if the game’s value really is $10.
Source: Tech Crunch