With it’s delayed start yesterday, Super Mario Run has more than made up for the fact that it was late in its release. Within the first twenty four hours of being released, the app was downloaded by nearly five million people, beating out Pokemon Go’s original numbers.
According to Apptopia, within the first day alone, Super Mario Run got 2,850,000 downloads compared to that of Pokemon Go, which saw 900,000. This margin can be contributed to the fact that Super Mario Run, was released everywhere all at once, whereas, Pokemon Go was only released in few markets at a time. However, App Annie, says that Super Mario Run got 3.5 million downloads alone within the first 14 hours of being released.
App Annie also made a point that Super Mario Run reached the top spot in the app store’s Overall, Games, Arcade, and Action categories within 4 hours. Pokemon Go took one hour more to reach the top spot, falling just short of Super Mario Run.
One part of Super Mario Run’s release that didn’t fare well so far have been its reviews. Most, if not all, of the one star reviews had issues with the fact that while the app is free to download, to get all the functions unlocked, players will have to pay up $9.99.
Many people have turned on the game due to the lack of content available for free. After only three levels, players get promoted that to continue playing, they’ll need to pay the $9.99 fee to unlock the rest. The other big gripe is focused around the fact that you need constant internet connection to play the game, otherwise it won’t work properly.
One review that stuck out was written by someone with the username Angry Businessman. In his review he talked about how he wasted $10 on the game. When he first downloaded it and got through the first 3 levels, he decided to fork over the $9.99 to continue playing. Instead of purchasing the game to unlock on the phone, its treated like an in app purchase and requires you to log in with a Nintendo account. Angry Businessman didn’t have an account and decided to use his friends log in so he could jump right in and continue playing. In doing this, the $9.99 he paid to unlock the content was turned over to his friends account as it is an “in-app purchase”. Now he gets locked out of his game if his friend logs into his Nintendo account to play anything else.
As on right now, the game only has about a 2.5 star in the app store. It would seem that Super Mario Run is not exactly being welcomed with open arms as they continue to get negative reviews over the way they have handled the payment process for the game.