Topic: Is the Wii becoming over-saturated with Mario games?

[Plugabugz]

Actually, yes. Have you ever heard of inflation? A dollar bill is worth so much, but then when the government prints too much dollars it dilutes its value and that's why stuff seems to cost more and more every year. Decades ago you could buy everything really cheap, but its not really that stuff was cheaper then its just that money had more value in those days.

And gold is kinda the same way. Gold is valuable because it is scarce. Are rocks valuable? No, because rocks are abundant. But if Gold suddenly became very abundant it would not be worth as much. This sort of thing actually happened in events like the Gold Rush and when Spain took over the Aztec/Inca gold. Those events increased the supply of precious metals, and as a result they became a bit less precious.

So does having two gold nuggets make the first nugget less valuable? Yes, actually it does... and then if you have 100 million gold nuggets then it will REALLY make it less valuable.

And franchises probably work the same way. They can experience "inflation" with the more titles that are released.

Having two gold nuggets might make the first slightly less valuable, but in no way, shape or form will you be worse off by having two.  If a gold nugget is worth $100 and suddenly you find a second which makes them each worth $95 you'd be better off with both (worth $190) than you were before.

His point is economically valid though. By diluting the market with too much X too much vudu the price simply goes down because its rarity decreases and people no longer have to pay more to obtain it.

James Cameron made only one film in all of the 2000-2009 decade, and so (with a million other reasons) people were highly anticipating Avatar's release. If he cranked out releases every 6 months that hype train would stop cold.

Same applies to Mario.

[Ian Sane]

I don't feel as if videogames should be held to the same standards and expectations as school or work. Videogames aren't people. 50 is the average of 100, it makes no sense to me that anyone wants to claim some other arbitrary number as being average.

But that's just not how reviews work.  The reviews are graded more like a grade in school.  You can't just decide "well 50% should be the average" because that's not how it is being done.  If a game gets below 70% the reviewer is saying "this game sucks".

That's my problem with many reviews today. Most of them seem aimed at the "hardcore" audience and are largely useless to the average consumer, which I'd say is at least 95% of the Wii userbase. Reviewers don't judge a game based on its own merits and instead feel the need to compare it to every game under the sun, even games on other systems. If that's what you want in a review then that's fine, you have your tastes. I, myself, find little relevance with such comparisons.

The hardcore audience is the readership of the sites that do the reviews.  Is NWR going to write a review for someone who doesn't read their site?  The thing is the average consumer doesn't care about reviews.  They go see a movie that every critic craps on because the ads suggested to them that they would like it.  That's their "review" - marketing.  Critics are for people who aren't as susceptible to marketing.  And those people are usually more like the critics in that they're familiar with a broader scope of work.  If you made reviews for the average consumer then there would be NOTHING to indicate to the more savy consumer what is worth looking into.  The thing is the "elitist" reviews would be created anyway.  If IGN didn't cater to this group, someone else would. And if you want average customer reviews than go check out the user reviews on Amazon.  Reviews for this market exist, they're just not found on videogame web sites who, by definition, appeal to people with a more hardcore interest in videogames.  I don't criticize a hot rod magazine for not telling me about the gas mileage of a KIA.

[Mop it up]

I've not seen a reviewer claim that a game sucks when they score it lower than 70%. I think that's just your own selfish perception of reviews and scores.

Maybe the average consumer would read reviews if they were more helpful and informative. I see no reason why a review can't contain enough information for both "hardcore" gamers and the less experienced. I have seen some reviews which make comparisons to other games but also still judge a game on its own merits, thereby providing information to someone uninformed of that series or genre. This is an example of what I find to be a good review.

I'm an informed consumer and I still found most reviews of Mario Super Sluggers to be lacking. Some of them just complained about how similar it was to the previous Mario baseball game and mentioned little else. How am I supposed to make a decision on the game if reviews never discuss the good points? I bought the game and love it, it is one of my top ten most-played Wii games. I thought it was much better than Mario Superstar Baseball. I can't help but wonder if some reviewers had a hidden agenda...

Being an informed consumer means seeing through review bias and thinking for myself.

[Stogi]

I agree with everything that has been said and will be said!

[NWR_insanolord]

The problem is that what is average varies from site to site and reviewer to reviewer. At some places 70 or 75 percent is average, but NWR specifically states that a 5 is average.

[BeautifulShy]

Mop_it_up beat me to all the responses that I wanted to respond with to Ian.

As far as if Mario is overused or not I think that each game has its own merits and the genres are different for the most part (except the platformers,but I am not going to complain about those). Mario can be in pretty much every genre so I am ok with that.

[BlackNMild2k1]

and when judging on a 5 or 10 pt scale the half way point should be average.

The Rating Scale as BNM see it:

0-3 (1-1.5/5):
absolute garbage, shovelware at it's worse and never should have been released

4-5 (2-2.5/5):
very average and very forgettable. Possible good concept with very poor execution or vice versa.

6-7 (3-3.5/5):
above average to good. Could've used some more work in certain areas, but enjoyable. Solid effort. Might be a buy, but a rental at the very least.

8-9 (4-4.5/5):
It just missed the mark somewhere, but it's still a very good game. Worth a purchase if you were interested, but a little more polish might have done the trick.

10 (5/5):
This is a must buy for anyone even considering a purchase. May not be perfect, but it does everything it needs to very well. An A+ effort, would buy again.

                 


That's how I see the rating system working.

[Kytim89]

As long as the quality of the games are good, it really does not matter how many Mario games are on the wii.

[ThePerm]

well i think there are multiple outlooks on how games are reviewed. I just suppose you have to know your reviewer. Ian's scale is pretty much how I review games, but I think Mop_it_up's system also works perfectly well. Numbers are a quantifiable way to review a game, but obviously it helps to read the verbal qualiity review for some context. It really depends on your standards, what you can afford, and how you define the level of ****/greatness. I mean at some point things go from ****, to being forced to play it only in hell levels. Really Ian's review system is just a 5 point scale transposed onto a 10 point scale where things below 5 would actually be -1 to -5 on a mop_it_up review. At some point you like want to call someone and tell someone how bad a game is and try to find the person who made the games number and personally berate them and demand your time back, possibly violence for sending humankind backwards.

[Chozo Ghost]

I think our finite amount of time and money to enjoy games also contributes to why overexposure is a bad thing.  I think we all can agree that too many Guitar Hero games have been released.  Do you know what really makes me disinterested in them?  It's simply the fact that because they come out so frequently I don't have the time to fully enjoy them.  One game comes out while I'm still getting mileage out of the other one.  It becomes apparent I'll have to skip one or, if I want to play all of them, put off getting the next one until I'm done with the one I'm on.  But if the rate is too frequent then I never catch up and the whole thing becomes intimidating and a big chore.

This reminds me of when Thoreau went to some library in Concord or thereabouts, and after seeing all the books he wept because he realized he couldn't possibly read all of those books in his lifetime, no matter how much he read.

Video games are now at or near that point too, and they come out a lot faster than it is humanly possible to play them all. Back in the 16-bit generation and earlier, someone could probably keep up on all the games (or at least ones worth playing) provided they had enough money to afford them, but now that's impossible.

There are so many games I've missed out on and continue to miss out, and I will never have the time to go back and pick those games up because new ones are piling up too fast to keep up with.  There are so many great games that come out and DESERVE to do well, but they don't do well because they are drowned out by the 10 millionth reiteration of call of doody, Madden, and so forth. These are real time eaters. They're fun and definitely worth it if you like that sort of play (if they weren't people wouldn't keep buying them), but it forces you to miss out on the new I.P.s. Some players get sick and burned out on these games, but there are too many others who keep buying them for them to ever really fade away like they should.

I think this is why new quality IPs like No More Heroes flop... everyone is buying 20 different versions of Mario for their Wii, so they have little time or money to try out new stuff.

[Mop it up]

I think this is why new quality IPs like No More Heroes flop... everyone is buying 20 different versions of Mario for their Wii, so they have little time or money to try out new stuff.

Though I see your point, I don't think this was the best comparison. No More Heroes is a completely different type of game than any Mario game, I don't think there are very many people out there who buy both. In my case, I haven't bought No More Heroes because I'm not really interested in it.

[Stogi]

I think this is why new quality IPs like No More Heroes flop... everyone is buying 20 different versions of Mario for their Wii, so they have little time or money to try out new stuff.

Yeah and that's why Wii Fit, Music, and Resort all flopped.

[ThePerm]

I think our finite amount of time and money to enjoy games also contributes to why overexposure is a bad thing.  I think we all can agree that too many Guitar Hero games have been released.  Do you know what really makes me disinterested in them?  It's simply the fact that because they come out so frequently I don't have the time to fully enjoy them.  One game comes out while I'm still getting mileage out of the other one.  It becomes apparent I'll have to skip one or, if I want to play all of them, put off getting the next one until I'm done with the one I'm on.  But if the rate is too frequent then I never catch up and the whole thing becomes intimidating and a big chore.

This reminds me of when Thoreau went to some library in Concord or thereabouts, and after seeing all the books he wept because he realized he couldn't possibly read all of those books in his lifetime, no matter how much he read.

Video games are now at or near that point too, and they come out a lot faster than it is humanly possible to play them all. Back in the 16-bit generation and earlier, someone could probably keep up on all the games (or at least ones worth playing) provided they had enough money to afford them, but now that's impossible.

There are so many games I've missed out on and continue to miss out, and I will never have the time to go back and pick those games up because new ones are piling up too fast to keep up with.  There are so many great games that come out and DESERVE to do well, but they don't do well because they are drowned out by the 10 millionth reiteration of call of doody, Madden, and so forth. These are real time eaters. They're fun and definitely worth it if you like that sort of play (if they weren't people wouldn't keep buying them), but it forces you to miss out on the new I.P.s. Some players get sick and burned out on these games, but there are too many others who keep buying them for them to ever really fade away like they should.

I think this is why new quality IPs like No More Heroes flop... everyone is buying 20 different versions of Mario for their Wii, so they have little time or money to try out new stuff.

its also become harder to keep track of new releases, I used to be able to do it failrly well, but missing the train on Mass Effect proves its just getting tougher, or im just getting older. Orochimaru wants to learn all the Ninja techniques there are, but realizes he can't do it in a lifetime. however, im betting some Ninja techniques are pretty useless.

[Ymeegod]

See, the problem is even NWR rated 28/30 of the latest games above average and it's RARE for a game to get 5.0 or below.  If everybody's getting above average scores the the curve has to move up.  7.5 is a C game, passable and some might find enjoyment out of it and overlook it's flaws.

Do I play C rated games?  Depends on the genre and the flaws.  I tend to be an RPG nut so I tend to play even the c rated games, but if it was an FPS then why bother since there's dozens of GOOD FPS to play so I usually only play B rated or better.