from Hacker News

Mario Kart Tour Triggers You into Gambling Your Money

by andrew-dc on 3/7/23, 6:04 PM with 239 comments

• by Naga on 3/7/23, 6:17 PM

  Nintendo has such a great, family friendly brand. If I was in charge, I wouldn't want my brand to be anywhere close to being associated to this type of thing.

• by preinheimer on 3/7/23, 6:28 PM

  First, that was an amazing breakdown of what's happening. If you enjoyed reading that you might like Folding Ideas breakdown of Fortnite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0

  Second, I've personally become very wary of any mobile app that introduces multiple currency types. There's gold, and rubies, and power balls, and stardust! At some point pretty early on I decide it's not worth it to figure out how much things /actually/ cost and delete the thing. My understanding is that the math shows companies that microtransactions are the winning move over and over again. I hope that eventually there's enough grumpy consumers both parties become worth serving better.

• by gruez on 3/7/23, 11:42 PM

  >In order to have 100% chance of getting Peach, I'd have to spend more than ~$3,400...

  I don't think the author understands probabilities. They mention the probability of getting Peach in each roll is 0.25%, but assuming that each roll is independent, there's no way to guarantee (ie. "100% chance") that you get Peach, because it's possible to fail each roll no matter how many times you roll. If we take the author's dollar amount and work backwards to see what the overall probability is we end up with 91.2%, which is high but nowhere near 100%.

• by andrew-dc on 3/7/23, 6:39 PM

  Because of this kind of practice, I act as a content curator for my kids. I do my best not to shelter (challenging, but doable), but to educate and train them to spot these kind of subtle (and not-so-subtle) schemes. Are you playing the game, or is the game playing you?

  It's half an inside joke and half serious in our house, but I quote WOPR in War Games to the kids every so often:

  "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

  The good news is that there are loads of great alternatives to these casino-like experiences, and it's just a matter of avoiding this stuff, and choosing the good.

• by bastard_op on 3/7/23, 7:38 PM

  It's rather sad even Nintendo has devolved to this sort of mobile gaming trap too, you would think the old guard would have some respect for themselves to purposely NOT contribute to this modern epidemic.

  I play no mobile games, they're all some cash trap like a vacuum cleaner, and simply not fun when you realize you'll never truly win anything unless you pay and pay hard. What do YOU really get for the money?

  I guess knowing you're paying for Nintendo's old guard's retirements and health care.

• by KhalPanda on 3/7/23, 6:34 PM

  I (sadly) don't play any mobile games for this reason. _Every_ game seems to revolve around engineering you to buy to speed up progress.

  It's just one step worse (maybe two) than everything being a subscription. I prefer buying games(/software) once and being left to enjoy the game.

• by OatmealDome on 3/7/23, 6:56 PM

  It should be noted that the pipes (loot boxes) have recently been replaced with a shop where you directly pay for things using rubies instead of gambling. [1]

  That being said, the prices in the shop are quite expensive from what I've heard from people who play the game.

  [1] https://twitter.com/mariokarttourEN/status/15655858873035325...

• by nathanwh on 3/7/23, 6:32 PM

  Something about how this article was animated out hurt my brain to look at. It had a lot on page telling me about how much there was too much information on the screen of the phone which was nested inside the page. And then every arrow press would move around the dialog boxes (some of which jiggled to fight for my attention extra hard) and update the little avatar. The content was interesting but it felt kind of ironic that a product psychology website was this mentally taxing to use.

• by xg15 on 3/7/23, 8:48 PM

  This was a really great writeup and an amazing way to present it.

  My hunch is, there is another dark pattern hidden which he didn't discuss yet: the quantities in which you buy gems. You'll often land just one or two gems short of the number you actually needed. Then you can either buy the 3 gem pack for the worst relative price or buy another larger pack, encouraging you to come back later.

  It seems hard to really spend all your gems and come out at zero. Usually there is a small amount left that on its own is useless but lures you into buying more.

• by Accacin on 3/7/23, 6:21 PM

  Sadly, people play and buy these games as evidenced by the dumpster fire that was Diablo Immortal. I love Diablo, but there was no way in hell (lol) that I'd download that game and even play for free.

  I feel like these mobile games need regulating heavily, but it's also down to use to not support these games.

• by CM30 on 3/7/23, 6:31 PM

  It's a shame the game is so predatory with its monentisation tactics, since the actual content (tracks, characters, items, etc) is actually rather good. It's just most of it is buried under this pay to win, limited time bullshit.

  Still, at least Nintendo does provide a way to get this stuff without being subject to Tour's lootboxes. The Booster Course Pass DLC for 8 Deluxe on Switch offers much of the same content, except it's a simple one time purchase and in a game that isn't trying to exploit you at every turn.

• by tetha on 3/7/23, 6:56 PM

  Yeah this isn't even subtle. They aren't even hiding the pointlessness of the free to play coin grind by limiting it to 300 coins per day. And I'm somewhat sure there is more math in there that a limited time offer for X days needs like 290X - 310X coins to unlock to make it look somewhat grindable but it's not.

  And from a players perspective, this is even more strange. Look at how much players stick to a good racing game, like trackmania or the new zeepkist and such. Just be straightforward, bring out cosmetic DLC and some free functional thing every few month for a few bucks and it's an honest thing.

• by alliao on 3/7/23, 8:43 PM

  I played an ultra exploitative game for "fun" for a bit, these things are WILD. It should be illegal, it competes not with other games, but with beer/tobacco/casino aka predatory to those with addictive disorders.

  it's called cookie run kingdoms and it triggers me on two points, not only it's exploitative model it's at the same pushing sugar, I called myself diabetical or something to raise however slim hope of awareness.

  crazy times.

• by gambiting on 3/7/23, 6:19 PM

  What sort of nonsense website is this. It tells you that it works best in landscape mode when on mobile, but switching to landscape renders half of the page off screen.

• by leroy-is-here on 3/7/23, 8:01 PM

  What kinds of internal pressures is Nintendo feeling to OK this kind of design? The current gaming market has been lambasted for these practices since Bethesda tried to charge $2 for horse armor, but nearly every AAA title has some sort of micro-transaction system now. I don’t think it’s going away, but I do think Nintendo was wise to not try this in a flagship title.

  I guess gaming did start off with literal nickel-and-diming at the arcade. I’m glad I experienced the golden age of gaming where buying a game was the only transaction needed for 50 hours of enjoyment.

• by m000 on 3/7/23, 7:29 PM

  It would be interesting if someone could check if the game is available in Belgium, where loot boxes are illegal.

  And if it is available, is Nintendo blatantly ignoring the ban pretending that "firing the pipe" is not a loot box? Or have they tweaked the in-game economic mechanics to be compatible with the Belgian law?

• by lykahb on 3/7/23, 8:29 PM

  I ignore games that require connectivity or have purchases that can be done more than once. One-time purchase to remove ads or to unlock levels is fine. Anything else hints that the game would be manipulative trash.

  It's nice that iOS shows the list of purchases on the app page. If only it had a filter too.

• by gnicholas on 3/7/23, 8:00 PM

  As a longtime fan of Mario Kart, this makes me sad. The games cost like $60 in the good old days, and now it's $24 for one character? Ridiculous.

  I guess all mobile games are actually just one game: whale hunter. The dev is the player and the "players" are the prey.

• by rektide on 3/7/23, 9:59 PM

  The submission yesterday on TV streaming systems all being jank/getting worse[1], Mario Kart getting the rough treatment: it's all so much enshittifcation.

  I feel like I should get a decent sized rubber stamp: #enshittification[2]. Alas that I cant stamp it that all over web pages & apps.

  [1] https://www.theverge.com/23621907/streaming-tv-boxes-roku-am... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35051353

  [2] https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479

• by nsmog767 on 3/7/23, 9:19 PM

  Never seen this site before but love the interactive + visual content. Found this one which is more broadly applicable: https://growth.design/case-studies/mental-models

• by honkycat on 3/7/23, 6:33 PM

  This stuff needs to be illegal. It is programming kids into gambling.

  ...also as a nice side effect it would make the video games I like to play cheaper and better.

• by CE02 on 3/7/23, 6:53 PM

  Great breakdown, enjoyable read. I think it highlights why more and more tech firms are hiring employees with psychology and economics backrounds. The attention economy combined with the ever-growing presence of a razor and blades style market with in-game purchases in pay-to-win games is insane. I understand it from a profitability perspective. In addition it allows for more enduring cashflows.

  From a less direct perspective I remember vividly when my mom would be shook at the idea of a $30 Pokemon game for the DS. Now we pay $60 for a game and expected to pay up to $60 in DLC's not including ingame currency purchases. Oh how times have changed.

• by NickC25 on 3/8/23, 4:32 PM

  Absolutely fantastic presentation.

  Sad that gaming these days has devolved into the state it has. I love gaming, and have loved gaming since I got a SNES at age 5. Micro-transactions suck, and constantly make me feel like I'm paying to let the developer get away with not finishing the actual game, rather than me paying for a fully developed game.

  Nintendo, in this case, is being fucking lazy by allowing this to tarnish their brand - they are owned by 1. a family that is probably worth a few hundred million (the Yamauchi family) and has no need for a quick buck, and 2. the Saudi PIF, which has trillions of dollars at its disposal and zero need for a quick buck.

  To this day I play almost zero mobile games, the one exception is the LiChess app, which is free and has zero IAPs. Occasionally I'll do the daily New York Times Crossword mini and Wordle, which is also free.

  Disclaimer: when the game in question came out, I put a few good hours into Mario Kart Tour, and enjoyed the core game itself, but hated the lootbox experience.

  On a complete side note: does anyone else feel that gaming, especially since the advent of mobile gaming, has really changed for the worse? It seems nobody plays together anymore, which was a big part of my childhood, teenage, and college years.

• by surfsvammel on 3/7/23, 9:50 PM

  What ever happened to just playing a game, without having to install deamon programs on your PC, without having to consent to them tracking you, without having to create fifteen new accounts, without having to endure in game ads, without having to constantly be reminded that I don’t have the special in game currency that is the only way to get that pink hat?

  Of course I understand what has happened. But it’s kind of taken the fun out of gaming. Or maybe I’m just old, grumpy and nostalgic.

• by pxc on 3/7/23, 7:42 PM

  Much of the text (the last few words of each chat bubble) is unreadable in Firefox for Android due to misalignment issues (falls outside the chat bubble).

  In both Chrome and Firefox, global dark styles (whether built-in or via Dark Reader) also render the chat bubbles unreadable due to contrast issues (the text color gets set to something very light, but the chat bubble backgrounds remain white).

  That sucks because the design otherwise seems cute and fun to me. :(

• by ccvannorman on 3/8/23, 3:40 AM

  Off-topic but, Normally, I know people like to dunk on non-traditional scrolling websites, and I almost always agree.

  But I actually REALLY enjoyed this right-arrow format.

• by kome on 3/7/23, 8:56 PM

  "super mario run" is another mobile game by nintendo, you pay 10 dollars and it's yours forever. plenty of content, extremely well crafted and fun. I download it in 2016, and i still use it to this day.

  but people criticized it for having to pay up front. and it was a commercial failure.

  so, people gets what they deserve i guess.

  (btw, "super mario run" is still updated, if you have kids just buy it, it's well worth the money)

• by NotYourLawyer on 3/7/23, 8:20 PM

  Mobile games aren’t even fun. They’re just designed to addict children and encourage microtransactions.

  No thanks. Gimme some KSP or a NES emulator.

• by zoklet-enjoyer on 3/8/23, 4:33 AM

  I downloaded it because I wanted to see how addictive it is. I noped out of there and uninstalled immediately when it said I need to link my Nintendo account. I don't have a Nintendo account and I hate signing up for things and getting spammed.

• by Yhippa on 3/7/23, 9:55 PM

  This is the sad tale of gaming even 10 years ago. The first games that had in-game currencies, like MMOs had a lot of these elements, albeit not as sophisticated as what was laid out here.

  For me, and I wonder for other people, when you play one of these games you come to a point where you either keep playing or stop. Is the game fun? Is progression reasonable? Is this achievable without dumping huge amounts of cash into it? If any of those is "no", I quit.

  The problem is that newer games pop up and I'm sure they're going to get even more subtle about getting you to part with your money. Pretty gross.

• by ThePowerOfFuet on 3/7/23, 10:56 PM

  >Use your keyboard arrows to view the story!

  closes the browser tab on their phone

• by Fatnino on 3/8/23, 6:05 AM

  They got rid of this pipe gambling thing last year. How old is this article?

  Nowadays you just outright buy whatever character you need with rubies. Rubies can be earned by playing normally, or you can buy rubies for money. The prices for characters is a little bit steep but not so bad you can't earn enough rubies free each tour to buy what you need.

  Another decent strategy is to pick a tour where you will just let things slide and you just grind coins and rubies.

  I haven't spent a cent and I've been playing for almost 2 years.

• by PaulHoule on 3/7/23, 6:09 PM

  It told me about keyboard navigation although I was viewing on an iPad. That said, it worked great. They showed restraint in asking for an email only at the end.

• by sli on 3/7/23, 9:17 PM

  If you're going to force directional inputs to read your slideshow, support WASD as well as the arrow keys, please.

• by Aeolun on 3/7/23, 10:41 PM

  I had the same thing when I was playing Sonic Racing on iOS. I have it through Apple Arcade, but it’s so clearly designed as a pay to win game.

  The quality of your racing is unrelated to the result, and your opponent’s behavior is either a previous race someone else did, or otherwise completely made up.

• by PheonixPharts on 3/7/23, 10:50 PM

  Sort of funny that after all those slides, building up a narrative about the way a product that seems fun can be deceptive, it turns out this presentation itself is just ad for his email list.

• by ghostbrainalpha on 3/7/23, 6:47 PM

  The design of these case studies is pretty freaking awesome.

• by siliconc0w on 3/7/23, 9:49 PM

  I know I'm probably not their demographic but this garbage really kills the experience for me and is the reason I stopped playing diablo immortal.

• by allmadhare on 3/7/23, 9:29 PM

  Is there a way to read it without the ass-backwards UI?

• by sizzle on 3/7/23, 11:59 PM

  I'll stick to Mario Kart 64, keep your slimy addiction-enabling loot boxes Nintendo, sad to see how the mighty have fallen.

• by ProjectArcturis on 3/7/23, 6:52 PM

  This site has awful UI. Unreadable on mobile.

• by Cypher on 3/7/23, 9:23 PM

  The state of gaming is sad especially from Nintendo who stood against mobile exploitation for a long time.

• by cameronfraser on 3/7/23, 6:17 PM

  Mobile games don't really strive to be anything other than what was described. Seems pretty expected.

• by MollyRealized on 3/7/23, 9:06 PM

  Their "case studies" RSS feed seems broken, as it doesn't reflect the linked-to story.

• by silveira on 3/7/23, 7:41 PM

  Unless it is some sort of open-source game project, I don't play free games.

• by appleflaxen on 3/7/23, 11:30 PM

  This is so gross, and so disappointing to see from Nintendo.

• by CKMo on 3/8/23, 1:21 AM

  SP had it right.

  Freemium - the 'mium' means "not really"

• by Gordonjcp on 3/7/23, 8:22 PM

  Is there a not-annoying way to read this?

• by blobbers on 3/7/23, 6:17 PM

  Pay to win on mobile?? This is revolutionary!!! /s

• by have_faith on 3/7/23, 6:37 PM

  I don't know why people are surprised by Nintendo doing something like this. They pioneered releasing two of the same game at full price (Pokémon).