Faces stay glued to cell phones. Incoherent blabber rattles the halls. Phrases like, “Finally! I five-starred Yoshi Circuit!” and “There’s no way I just got red-shelled!” adhere to a student’s regular vocabulary. It’s hot, it’s exciting, and it’s only one month old. 

Mario Kart Tour has already amassed a gargantuan fanbase and a whopping five-star rating on the IOS store. Released on September 25, Mario Kart Tour has swiftly become a trendy discussion among internet personalities. Although freshly released, it is not immune to criticism from some hardcore Nintendo fans.

Apple Insider, in “‘Mario Kart Tour’ on the iPhone and iPad falls short on nearly every front”, points out the new game’s fatal imperfections. The well-respected technology news source speaks on Mario Kart Tour’s clunky control scheme and extensive in-app purchases. An in-app purchase is a microtransaction that can be bought in order to give the player an unfair advantage.

However, this isn’t Nintendo’s first venture into the mobile game market. Titles such as “Super Mario Run” (released in late 2016) and “Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp” (released late 2017) by Nintendo encountered similar complaints from players. Although free to initially access, Super Mario Run would eventually build a ten-dollar paywall for players to experience the full game. 

After an entire month, I found Mario Kart Tour to be exponentially less successful than I expected. The amount of internet crowding and players in real life have decreased over the last month greatly.Still receiving constant updates, it’s almost shocking to see the player base and fanfare around the game die so quickly. Many expected the game to follow the success of mobile game “Pokemon Go” which swept the entire world during the summer of 2016.

The Mario Kart phenomenon has certainly reached the halls of NAI.

Flynn McGurrin, when asked about the game’s popularity, stated “I don’t think it will be super huge for a long time- it’s gonna die off very soon.”

Similarly, Dane McDermot, a freshman,  claimed “I think it’s a really cool idea to have Mario kart on your phone, but the game is too simplistic to keep people invested for a long time.”

Overall, Mario Kart Tour is found to be quite disappointing to many players. Clunky controls and bland levels corrupted the app’s popularity. With no sign of its promised multiplayer function, it looks like Nintendo’s newest mobile game wasn’t as long-lasting as many thought it to be.