Despite what some out of touch people claim, you never really age out of video games. There are plenty of games designed for adults, but a lot of my childhood favorites are still my favorites today. I started my Pokemon journey when I was nine years old and I’m still a Pokemon enjoyer today. I've got friends that have maintained the same Minecraft server for over a decade, and everyone I know that grew up playing Crash and Spyro also played the modern remakes. There might be a few educational games I’ve grown out of - I’m probably not going to make time for Jumpstart Fourth Grade or Mario Teaches Typing anytime soon - but by and large I still enjoy all of the games I loved as a kid.
The one big exception is Nintendo multiplayer games, but it’s not because I changed, it’s because my environment has. When I was in grade school I’d speᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚnd most afternoons playing Super Smash Bros., Mario Tennis, or Mario Party 2 on a 12-inch Panasonic TV (and VCR combo) out in my garage with other kids in the neighborhood. There were so many kids around all the time that we had to take turns or pass the controller between rounds. Whether it was sleepovers, family gatherings, or just me and my little brother hanging out on the weekend, there was always someone to play Nintendo with. That’s not my life anymore, and I’m not sure today’s youth enjoy video games the same way I did an🅷ymore either.
Mario Party Is Secretly The Best Mario Sports 𓆉Game ꩵ
Mario Party 🌱encapsulates the underdog feeling of sports better than most sports titles could dream of
I’m sure Nintendo’s games are still big with families, especially in households where the parents grew up playing Nintendo, but when you look at the most popular games kids play today, they’re all online. Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, and Among Us are the biggest games in the world, and none of them can be played sitting side by side on a couch. Nintendo still makes multiplayer games the way it did🐬 when I was a kid, but no one really plays games like that anymore.
Nintendo is known for being slow to adapt, but at this point I consider a𒉰ll of its multiplayer-focused games to be poor investments. It makes no sense to pay full-price for a game like Mario Tennis Aces or Mario Strikers Battle League knowing that it’s going to be content-light, have very little post launch support, and terrible online functionality. Even Mario Kart 8, for all its millions of sales, must have one of the worst dollars-earned to time-played ratios out there. Nintendo wants to sell multiplayer games, but it doesn’t seem to care if people actually play them.
Super Mario Party: Jamboree was one of the highlights of this week’s Nintendo Direct. It’s got 110 mini-games and seven boards, which is more than we’ve seen in the last four entries. Most exciting is its online mode, which supports up to 20 players. The trailer suggests the group will be broken up into four or five smaller groups that each play separate boards, then come together for massive 20-player mini-games at the end of each round. I’d love to relive my Mario Party glory days with a robust mainline entry like this, especially after a long run of rehashes and half-baked entries. Unfortunately I have to assume that, like most Nintendo games, there won’t be anyone playing it after the first few weeks. Getting eight players for an online game of Battle League is nearly impos﷽sible today, there’s no way Jamboree is going to fill lobbies with 20.
Like it or not, games these days need to incentivize play. There’s just too many online games all competing for our limited free time, and if there isn’t a solid reward structure with fun progression and desirable rewards, people just aren’t going to stick around for long. It may sound🥃 like sacrilege, but Jamboree should have a seasonal battle pass full of cosmetic rewards to unlock. Different costumes for the characters, vehicles for the Roll ‘Em Raceway board, emotes, and avatars will keep people engaged and keep the lobbies full. Even something as simple as a particle effect that trails off the character as you run around a board, or different skins for the dice, would help keep people playing.
Nintendo charges a monthly subscription fee to play games online, so you'd expect it to invest in keeping its online games alive.
I know microtransactions are a four-letter word. Believe me, no one is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:more critical of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:predatory monetization in games than me. But high-value progression systems are not inherently predatory, and they’re necessary for the long-ter🌟m health of online games. There’s no reason we should have stopped talking about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate completely after the final DLC character was revealed. There’s no reason we should have three Splatoon games that are exactly the same. There’s no reason to spend $60 on a Mario sports game that you can’t even find an online match for a few months later. The way Nintendo marches to the beat of its own drum is a big part of its charm and its enduring success, but when it comes to online games, it’s time t✅o make a bigger effort to catch up to the rest of the industry.
Super Mario Party J🌄amboree Revealed, Launching This🐟 October
A new Mario Party game is launching this October, Super Mario Pa🌌ꦬrty Jamboree.
