Nintendo has announced today that Mario Kart Tour will cease to exist at the end of September. And this time there won't be a way of playing the game offline, like there is with the Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp - Complete Edition. It doesn't really affect me, because I have only tried the game once and didn't like it, but it's an interesting view into the nature of such service games.
First of all, this sucks for everyone who has invested in the game somehow. But let that be a lesson learned to not invest into this form of gaming, where your ability to play the game depends on some online service that is likely to shut down once the game stops being profitable. You want to stay as far away from it as possible.
(And I perfectly know it's not easy to resist. If Nintendo were to release a Zelda mobile game with micro transactions, I would still play it. And as a fan of classic Arena Shooters, I'm also still playing Quake Champions, where I had recently praised Bethesda for keeping it alive, as the franchises has reached its 30th anniversary. But with this week's lay-offs from Microsoft, things are looking very bad for the game. More on that later.)
Free-to-play became a new standard for multiplayer games, because everyone is doing it and a price tag is therefore creating a barrier. But I can still play those Arena Shooters from the old days, because the community is keeping them alive. And I can still play Mario Kart Wii whenever I want, with community mods even online.
Anyway, the silver lining is that a lot of the contents from Mario Kart Tour found their way into either Mario Kart 8 Deluxe via the Booster Course Pass, or into Mario Kart World. The latter mainly got the characters and costumes, where hopefully they will add more of them in the future. It would be nice to finally have Dixie Kong playable in a console Mario Kart game. And all-but-one of the exclusive courses made it into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where they are preserved. Only the Piranha Plant Pipeline (also known as Pipe Canyon) will be fully lost.
Well, three years ago I was an advocate of a second Booster Course Pass to truly preserve as much as possible, but what we got was already quite good. And the lost course will eventually return in the future, maybe already as DLC for Mario Kart World. It is even in the current rotation of Mario Kart Tour, where it may be the last chance to play the Piranha Plant Pipeline in the game. But best not to start now...
3 comments:
I happen to be one of those Tour players. I began almost four years ago.
Part of me is sad to see it end, but I'm also surprisingly relieved. This game was becoming an annoying chore, dragging down my other gaming habits. And I'm a believer that games have to end eventually.
Played pretty much every track available, and unlocked a sizeable amount of drivers/karts/gliders. Controls were always subpar, but the leveling up and race scoring systems were the addictive part.
I only wish I had some way to safeguard all that progress in some form of save file. All of my Tour progress is theoretically linked to my Nintendo account, so I assume some part of it is still going to be protected even after the game is gone. Or maybe not. At least I got the full experience while it lasted.
I got the achievements long ago. I now have one final goal until the inevitable shutdown: fully level up and max out at least one of the super-rare items. I've been working on these for years (it takes forever to cover all the tracks with high end players with enough of a level for competitive rankings). The game is now showering us with level up items and rubies for this final push. Toad Tourist and its shower of giant bananas was my trump card on many ranked matches. I got it to level 7. Level 8 is the final one.
Thanks for sharing.
I can relate to this feeling of relief and that at some point you just want to be done with a game, but without missing out. Of course, you can theoretically always just stop playing, but once you're invested and you generally like the franchise/series/whatever, it can be hard to just quit.
For me it's similar with Fire Emblem Heroes, though I play that a lot more casually and usually with some background entertainment, but it has still turned into a bad habit. As a result, I'm a lot more conscious about games with any sort of FOMO and time-limited events today, which may prevent me from touching them in the first place.
Donkey Kong Bananza is a good example. The base game looks great and I still might get it one day, but that DLC...? I just want to stay away from that.
I've actually started playing Bananza for the first time last week (partly because of the timed DK Challenges that expire in September). It's been fun. Plays very much like Odyssey, but harder and on steroids. Haven't got the DLC yet though.
I'll probably give it a shot, but not with the intent of playing for endless eons. Maybe dabble in Emerald Rush once or twice. It's the same mindset that made me put away Mario Run. I got all the characters, therefore I don't need to grind Toad rallies for trinkets whose only use is to decorate the world map. I only come back to that one when there's a movie tie-in challenge pack.
Post a Comment