The Mario series is a series that started in 1985. Our mustachioed plumber, who previously appeared in Donkey Kong as Jumpman, becomes a worldwide hit when Shigeru Miyamoto takes advantage of the crisis in the game industry and gets his own separate game. The name Shigeru Miyamoto is very important, because he is a very respected name in the game world. He has a hand in every "flagship" Mario game released for 35 years. This corresponds to more than twenty games. Returning to the series, the explosion of the first game opens the door to sequels and turns into Nintendo's highest-grossing series along with the Zelda series. There are more than 200 Mario games on the market, with the side characters' own games. Yes, 200. TWO HUNDREDS. Of course, as Turkish players, we haven't played most of these games due to our distance from Nintendo games. But in countries such as America and Japan, most of the big-budget Mario games have been a hit. Nintendo, which sticks a Mario and Zelda game to every console it releases, released Super Mario Maker to the Wii U console as part of Mario's 30th anniversary. This game, in which you can use the themes of four different Mario games and make your own Mario episodes, has sold millions. How can you not sell? After all, we were going to make our own episodes for our beloved Mario and share them with the world. The Wii U special release (in fact, there is also a 3DS version, but you couldn't share the parts you made there) caused it to be unknown in countries like ours, which are far from Nintendo. In the rest of the world, it started to appeal to a niche audience after a while. Because most people who bought the game got bored after a while (in a way that I don't understand why). So what made the game so popular and made Mario Maker different from other games on the market? Of course, the “IKEA effect.”
The IKEA effect is a theory put forward by Michael Norton of Harvard University in 2011. According to the theory, consumers like the products they create by combining their parts more. For example, consider Lego toys, the consumer gets more pleasure from combining hundreds of pieces and creating a Darth Vader than from a ready-made Darth Vader toy. The research reveals that consumers prefer products that they buy from IKEA and put together with simple hand tools at home. Even if there are missing parts in the products or problems occur during assembly. In fact, the consumer is even willing to pay more for these products. Many companies are trying to be more successful by transferring the results of this study to their own business models. This effect, which is the cornerstone of companies such as Build-a-Bear and Lego, has now taken its place in our libraries as a completely different game thanks to Super Mario Maker.
Why was Super Mario Maker 2 loved?
The concept of "level editor" in the game world, of course, goes back to before Mario Maker. It is actually a fact level editor that we often see in games of different genres such as StarCraft and Football Manager. But the difference of Super Mario Maker was that this level editor was released as a game on its own. Nintendo released an item that other game companies might add as DLC or free content to a game, as a separate game, causing Super Mario Maker to become a separate "franchise" and also the path to the formation of a community within the game itself. opened. Integrating it into any Mario game is quite a challenge, as Mario Maker is built with themes from four different Mario games, rather than themes from a single Mario game. Moreover, all of these four Mario games were games released on old consoles. Considering the technology at the time Super Mario Bros. (the first game of the Mario series), adding a level editor to this game would be more than a dream.
Although we do not have any evidence that Mario Maker was influenced by the IKEA effect, I think that this is the reason behind the love of the game and the formation of its own community. Most of all, I think that the statement that the product is loved by the consumer, even if it is broken, fits Super Mario Maker very well. Otherwise, people wouldn't have made an episode by simply stacking fifty goombas on top of each other. “What a great episode I did!” they must be thinking.
The success of Super Mario Maker, after the release of Nintendo Switch, "Will Mario Maker 2 come to the Switch?" It certainly led to the question. Because there were many users who did not have Wii U but bought Switch, and most of these users were watching Super Mario Maker like crazy on Twitch and YouTube. I'm not saying this, Twitch and YouTube statistics are saying it. You can take a look at the statistics of publishers such as GrandPooBear, ryukahr, Aurateur (watch the videos, of course). So, Nintendo also stopped and stuck the answer: It was announced that Super Mario Maker 2 will come to the Switch platform with a statement made in February 2019. I've been playing the game, which was released on June 24, 2019, since 6 o'clock in the morning (not kidding). Although I had to take a break for special reasons, Super Mario Maker 2 is one of the most enjoyable games I've played in my life. Every time I turn it on to clear my mind, it gives me exactly what I've been waiting for: a peaceful gaming session. Although I have attempted to make my own parts a few times, I have not published any of my "works" because they were not of the quality I wanted. But with the latest update, I have a feeling of restlessness and gnawing. Now I have to contribute to the “hot garbage” category and share my dissimilar parts with the world.
Super Mario Maker 2 added a multiplayer mode on top of the first game. So you can get together with your friends (or match with people you don't know) and start a race to see who can finish the level faster. In this online mode, you can do all sorts of crap to beat your opponents. For example, you can grab your opponents and throw them off a cliff. Or if your opponent has taken the key to a door, you can jump on his "head" and steal the key from him. While designing the episodes, you can design two people together with the co-op mode.
Mario Maker 2 brought many innovations on top of the first game when it first came out. However, with the two major updates that followed, it went beyond those innovations and guaranteed that we would bury hundreds more hours in this game. It's definitely one of the best games on Nintendo Switch right now, with thousands of content and near infinite combinations that can be used while making episodes. In addition to the pleasure created by the IKEA effect, when people play the parts you make and make good comments, the pleasure from the game is multiplied. Already, Mario is one of my personal favorites, both as a character and as a series. Super Mario Maker 2 is an amazing game that reminds me why I love this series so much. Hopefully we'll see more Mario games added in the future. Who knows, maybe one day we'll make our own Super Mario Odyssey.