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Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

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Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#71

Post by bitwize »

thmsths wrote: post #41
MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you feel that way in 2005 when the Xbox 360 was released and $60 was the new standard? Because $60 in 2005 has the same buying power as $97.41 today. This game, in real terms, is cheaper than Xbox 360 games were.

I understand this, but the economics of software in general is that you have high upfront costs and then the marginal costs are minimal. Better tooling has helped keep these upfront costs from growing too much (developing a game in 2025 is MUCH easier than in 2005), the distribution costs have shrunk too and the size of the market has exploded. Given these is it really unreasonable for consumers to expect the prices…

The economics of video games is that they are enterprise software, at least major releases from large companies are. They have large teams made up of intercommunicating subteams, large budgets, even bigger marketing budgets, corporate mission criticality (failure of a game can break a company or studio), and significant server infrastructure that must be kept online and maintained. These days they're even usually written as customizations to existing frameworks (called Unity or Unreal rather than Java EE or Spring).

So there are significant upfront and ongoing costs to releasing a game like Mario Kart World. $60 per copy just isn't going to cover those costs. The only options are to charge more upfront or introduce purchasable cosmetics and the like to extract that value from the customer another way.

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#72

Post by moepstar »

eochaid wrote: post #62
bee_rider wrote: post #6

I wonder if it will be fun. The open world Zelda game kinda made sense to me because those games have always been pretty open. You could always wander around. When I was a kid, I played Ocarina of Time as an open world game, I just wandered around and made up the NPC interactions in my head. And the 2D entries in the series had pretty big worlds. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if the trick can repeat outside tha…

It's really hard to say exactly how this will land with fans. The article mentions using kishōtenketsu in the game design of the Grand Prix mode, "now players have to drive to their next race, instead of being automatically transported", and the wiki page for kishōtenketsu mentions use of that concept in game design of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D World, both well received with 97 and 93 Metacritic scores re…

Did you play Xenoblade Chronicles X on the WiiU?

That was the open world game to me, it never felt boring (although the game itself had a lot of grind) and, if memory serves me right, about 400 square km to explore.

I sunk about 300 hours in it…

…and wish they already would release X 2.

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#73

Post by woleium »

DistractionRect wrote: post #56
bee_rider wrote: post #6

I wonder if it will be fun. The open world Zelda game kinda made sense to me because those games have always been pretty open. You could always wander around. When I was a kid, I played Ocarina of Time as an open world game, I just wandered around and made up the NPC interactions in my head. And the 2D entries in the series had pretty big worlds. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if the trick can repeat outside tha…

Yeah, it doesn't really elaborate on why openworld might be more fun than standard tracks/cups. Sure, I can drive around in it and look at it, but what makes than fun? This article basically tells us large scale level design takes a lot of effort, but no more. Zelda makes sense to a degree, but IMO they lost the plot on what made Zelda games interesting. Old Zelda games were kinda open, but had (mostly) fixed sequenc…

i suspect it will be grand theft auto for kids

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#74

Post by treetalker »

So, the fungal fruiting body on Toad is his head, not a hat; yet in the game it sometimes becomes a hamburger, and the player should consider what it really is.

This is one of the deep secrets of the universe — and clearly the most important part of the article. More questions than answers …

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#75

Post by JamesSwift »

woleium wrote: post #73
DistractionRect wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it doesn't really elaborate on why openworld might be more fun than standard tracks/cups. Sure, I can drive around in it and look at it, but what makes than fun? This article basically tells us large scale level design takes a lot of effort, but no more. Zelda makes sense to a degree, but IMO they lost the plot on what made Zelda games interesting. Old Zelda games were kinda open, but had (mostly) fixed sequenc…

i suspect it will be grand theft auto for kids

But thats 'Sneaky Sasquatch'. Which is a really good game.

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#77

Post by soupfordummies »

eochaid wrote: post #62
bee_rider wrote: post #6

I wonder if it will be fun. The open world Zelda game kinda made sense to me because those games have always been pretty open. You could always wander around. When I was a kid, I played Ocarina of Time as an open world game, I just wandered around and made up the NPC interactions in my head. And the 2D entries in the series had pretty big worlds. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if the trick can repeat outside tha…

It's really hard to say exactly how this will land with fans. The article mentions using kishōtenketsu in the game design of the Grand Prix mode, "now players have to drive to their next race, instead of being automatically transported", and the wiki page for kishōtenketsu mentions use of that concept in game design of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D World, both well received with 97 and 93 Metacritic scores re…

Sounds similar to Mario Wonder as well, where basically the world map is playable with stuff to do and find. I think I see what they're going for now. Probably some collectables, stunts, hidden levels, etc.

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#78

Post by whoisyc »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #25
op00to wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games are more expensive, but the market of gamers is larger. We can do this back and forth all day! The clear fact is that when consumers are getting squeezed, there will be backlash against price raises like this. I have never missed a Nintendo console since the Wii. I won’t be buying a switch 2.

Super Mario Kart for the SNES cost $55 in 1992 ($128 in today's money). If it was worth it then, then surely a much bigger game for 60% of the price is an even better deal. The complaints don't really seem based in reality.

The complaints are likely coming from heavy gamers who are more exposed to game prices because they buy more games and are also way more vocal online. Nintendo sold 151 million switches but only 1,391 million games [1], meaning on average a Nintendo switch user bought less than ten games. I doubt spending maybe an extra $20 a year would be considered unacceptable by the average Nintendo customer especially considering these games are never cheap to begin with.

[1] https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.htm...

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#79

Post by whoisyc »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #26
bee_rider wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pithy but actually I think it benefits too much from not defining with it is. I mean, it is a game, they are a game studio, if they “can” make a fun game with a reasonable amount of developer effort, they should. If they can’t they shouldn’t. The quote relies on there being some horrible side effect of creating the thing without thinking whether or not they should do it. I think there’s no chance that this go…

I grew up during the age of fads, and "Open World" is very much one of them that keeps on recurring. There's no reason whatsoever for mario kart to be open world.

What’s the reason for Need for Speed Underground 2 (2003) to be open world?

What’s the need for Forza Horizon (2012) to be open world?

Re: Mario Kart designers had to rethink everything to make it open world

#80

Post by jdonaldson »

DistractionRect wrote: post #56
bee_rider wrote: post #6

I wonder if it will be fun. The open world Zelda game kinda made sense to me because those games have always been pretty open. You could always wander around. When I was a kid, I played Ocarina of Time as an open world game, I just wandered around and made up the NPC interactions in my head. And the 2D entries in the series had pretty big worlds. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if the trick can repeat outside tha…

Yeah, it doesn't really elaborate on why openworld might be more fun than standard tracks/cups. Sure, I can drive around in it and look at it, but what makes than fun? This article basically tells us large scale level design takes a lot of effort, but no more. Zelda makes sense to a degree, but IMO they lost the plot on what made Zelda games interesting. Old Zelda games were kinda open, but had (mostly) fixed sequenc…

Zelda series has always been a showcase for great low level aesthetic gameplay design choices. I love how they handled simple things like grid-based movement : https://dev.to/robotspacefish/game-studies-link-s-movement-i...

I feel like the dungeons in BOTW all resemble the rooms in Portal. I.e. they feel highly artificial and contrived. However, this lets the player focus on the puzzle itself, rather than worry about the story at that moment. The puzzles there really force you to "get good" at a particular maneuver the game requires of the character. Rather than getting an item or advancing a world event, the player's reward is simply to suck less by accomplishing the task.

Plus, let's be honest, Zelda's story is really pretty fungible. The linear progression was mainly due to hardware limitations rather than aesthetic choice.

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