It shouldn’t come in as a surprise that mobile games rocking popular monikers and microtransactions can make monetary units like there’s no tomorrow. And if an unknown or known company is behind this popular franchise on mobile, then you can bet money is around the corner much like Nintendo’s case with Mario Kart Tour.
The company is pulling is so much money via microtransactions from Mario Kart Tour that they can afford to lose an entire country and walk away unscathed.
According to YouTuber HeelvsBabyface, he took up the opportunity to play the game to find out how bad the racing game’s loot-boxes and microtransactions are in practice. Spoiler alert, they are bad:
Yes, Mario Kart Tour wants gamers to actually spend $4.99 a month through a subscription fee called the “gold pass” to get gold items
in the game and unlock the 200cc mode. A shame, a real shame I tell you given that that mode is free in other Mario Kart games.
The YouTuber also highlighted that around 10.1 million people downloaded the game laden with microtransactions, which means the likelihood of fans dishing out large sums of money is high.
In an attempt to stifle said behavior of throwing money to get ahead in a game, Belgium put its foot down, in this case, to uphold its law on gambling and that means Mario Kart Tour is unavailable in the country known for its waffles.
Publication site 9to5mac.com picked up on this info and reported:
“Nintendo’s Mario Kart Tour was released for iOS and Android on Wednesday, and despite all its success, there has been some controversy over its freemium model. That has already been reflected in its availability in some regions. According to the Brussels Times, the company has opted not to launch Mario Kart Tour in Belgium, as loot boxes are prohibited there.
Players must pay $4.99 a month to unlock all the content. There are also loot boxes that randomly offer more characters and karts that require a “ruby” virtual coin that can be easily purchased by some dollars. That, specifically, is not allowed in Belgium, due to Belgian Gambling Authority regulations that associate payment for unknown content in games as gambling.”
So there you have it. Nintendo is sailing the seas of money to the lucrative mobile island, and although Belgium has the racing game banned, Mario Kart Tour is still pulling in quite a crowd to compensate for the loss of the sovereign state in Western Europe.
Mario Kart Tour is available for free across both iOS and Android devices.
