Excessive Monetisation
I have numerous happy memories from playing Super Mario Kart on the SNES back in the early nineties. It was at the time and remains so today, a truly great game because it’s fun, very accessible and inherently social. Hence over the years there have been multiple iterations of Mario Kart across all of Nintendo’s platforms. All of which have been well received and provided gamers with what they want. In many ways it is one of key titles that have made Nintendo a global success as a gaming company and a brand. If you see any advertising featuring Mario and friends in go-karts, then it can be taken as read that the game will be a yet another great instalment of the franchise. Or can it? Which brings me neatly (and sadly not happily) to Mario Kart Tour; Nintendo’s latest foray on mobile platforms.
Regulating the Gaming Industry
2017 was the year that microtransactions, loot boxes and other egregious business models common to gaming finally came to the attention of the mainstream. The debacle that surrounded the launch of Star Wars: Battlefront II finally dragged this matter into the limelight and subsequently put in on the radar of various global, legislative and regulatory bodies. The genie is now well and truly out of the bottle and it’s now a question of waiting to see what happens next. I suspect that the EU may likely be one of the first regions to tackle the issue and that it may well be the mobile game industry that is first to fall upon its sword. If there’s a change in government in the UK, then there is scope for matter to be tackled here. There is already a strong lobby against current gambling legislation and it doesn’t take much of an imagination to envisage a tabloid led campaign against the iniquities of smartphone game addiction and it’s pay-to-win culture. Then there’s the issue of virtual items resold for real money via auction websites and the question of whether loot boxes are or are not gambling. Apples recent statement about games publicly declaring the odds of winning in advance, shows that the world is indeed slowly turning against this business model.
Is Vanity the Achilles Heel of the Game Industry?
On the eve of the launch of Star Wars Battlefront II last Friday, DICE General Manager Oskar Garbrielson released a statement stating that paid microtransactions were to be disabled in the game for the immediate future. It was a major reverse of policy after several weeks of increasing debate and acrimony about the subject from Star Wars fans and wider gamers. It has now come to light that the decision was due to pressure from the rights holders themselves. Disney Head of Consumer Products and Interactive Media Jimmy Pitaro is apparently the driving force behind this U-turn. Naturally with a major movie release only weeks away and the prospect of huge merchandise sales over the holiday season, no one at Disney wanted to see a media circus that could impact upon their bottom line. What happens in the new year when the controversy has died down and the movie leaves the cinemas, remains to be seen. I suspect we have not seen the back of the loot crate issue but for the meantime the problem has been side-lined.