Mario games are 12 for 12 this gen -- All million-sellers

[Final-Fan]

Erik Aston said:
Of course Mario has been in more games than any other character in history. No person will argue otherwise. Well, actually, I've seen people argue otherwise, and they need to STFU.

And of course the Mario name helps the games sell.

Starting with Mario Kart, people started to expect a certain type of gameplay from Mario games... The sports titles, then the party titles... And Nintendo largely delivered that type of gameplay consistently. Other than the yearly Party iterations, they still protect their star by only doing sequels once per generation. Paper Mario, Mario and Luigi, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, and the rest have only appeared once each gen so far, and have never really been low quality titles. And so they've managed to avoid wearing out consumers on the brand. And when they do something new like Mario Strikers (or whatever), consumers still trust the brand more than they would "We Love Soccer" (or whatever).

I'm not sure there's really any "blame" at all. Mario games sell. The developer (rarely Nintendo), the publisher (Nintendo), the whole distribution chain, and the consumers are all a part of making them sell. And that's just a fact; it isn't necesarily a bad thing. The games are what they are and people shouldn't lament it.

Nearly 100 million games sold over the last two generations alone is obviously a winning strategy.

QFT. Erik Aston nailed this one and no one even mentioned it. Mario does have a crapload of games coming out, but he's not flooding the market because they're mostly in different genres. Mario has stayed fresh all these years by not saturating any genre. Nintendo has managed what no one else has been able to do -- have a mascot that can be exploited, milked, whatever you want to call it -- and yet still have only one or two games in a given genre in a console cycle. Famine, you have a problem for some reason with seeing Mario in games ranging from his homeland of platforming to kart racing (a genre, by the way, that exists thanks to Mario) to various sports games (almost the only non-realistic ones currently being made AFAIK) et cetera et cetera. I really don't know why. But you do. You're just really bad at telling us about your dislike. "I had no qualms with the Mario franchise, just my beef was that Mario is just in so many games, in so little time." "Can you name me one game developer that has used one character in as many games?" Any reasonable person would have supposed that you are complaining about the number of games with Mario in them, not the number of game genres with Mario in them. Anyway, I think that, despite appearances, Nintendo is actually a model of restraint. Mario's lasted for a quarter century now; I doubt many other companies would have been able to refrain from overexploiting him in any [edit: or, arguably, more than one] particular genre. There are exceptions, but as a rule Mario games are good -- often very, very good. They all share the same characters that his fans love, and a certain playful style. Mario fans get to explore new genres with the same much-loved characters; Nintendo makes scads of money; sometimes (as with Mario Kart) new gaming possibilities are revealed to the industry. Who loses in this equation, aside from those who just hate Mario's face? What has Nintendo done wrong, if succeeding beyond any other company's wet dreams is not a crime?