Super Mario 3D Allstars

Another win for the scalpers

How many years has it been since Super Mario Allstars? 27 years! Can you believe that? Almost 30 years since we got that blinding collection of Super Mario remakes that bought colour to the early years of the mushroom kingdom! Getting the chance to play through all those classic Mario days with the presentation of Super Mario World to back it up (albeit, not with that title's arguably superior gameplay) was quite the revelation that any Nintendo fan would be remiss not to try out. (And in fact, Nintendo Switch owners can right now because Nintendo just added it to their virtual console line-up. Way to play to the crowd.) But it would take something of similar gravitas and value to justify Nintendo invoking that holy Allstars name once again, but what could possibly be the next step forward? The next evolution? What would become of the Allstars name if we stuck the Red Stone of Aja upon it's brow? Well you read the title, didn't you? It's Super Mario 3D Allstars.

I'm frankly shocked and a little appalled that this hasn't ever happened sooner, why has it taken up until now for Nintendo to put their full weight behind remakes of their beloved 3D offerings. These are games often touted as some of finest examples of 3D platforming ever constructed by human hands, so in the tail age of this 'age of remakes', why haven't we already received at least one of these titles?  Well I guess there's no need to split hairs over wasted past, because today we have an impending re-release of some of the greatest Mario games of all time to look forward to. I'm talking Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Sunshine, all together at last in one glorious package. All for the price of one full price triple A game. (Geez Nintendo, you sure know how to put a price on nostalgia!)

Yes, in the vein of remakes this does come with some improvements upon the base game, although nothing as drastic as a full recolouring like we saw from the base Allstars. Instead it's all just graphical upgrades with an additional soundtrack mode thrown in there for those mega fans who just cannot live without the music of their childhood. Now I'm not saying that Nintendo absolutely had to do some drastic here like throw in brand new bunch of stages or a a second Luigi mode for 64, but I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with a simple resolution update. The big news here is the availability of these games that Nintendo have made a habit of artificially stifling in order to drum up the value of the games in question. It's actually rather ugly when you think about it, to hold such a ransom on important pieces of gaming history. One can only wonder the battle that had to be won within the corporate boards to get this pack approved as one collection and not three separate full-priced HD remakes.


Of course, when the announcement hit the Nintendo lovers of the Internet went absolutely wild. These are the kind of folk, remember, who invented the 'Old is always best' model of fandom so they couldn't have been catered to in a more absolute way if Nintendo tried. I'm not even really a part of any of those groups and I've still been flooded with videos of excited fans recording themselves practically giving birth to this announcement. And good for them, it's nice to have something to be excited about in this crappy year and if Nintendo don't have any other big Mario game coming out in the near future than this makes absolute sense for them to put out. It's a wonder, in fact, that something inexplicably moronic and despicable hasn't been instituted in order to wholly sour this whole event. I mean, that would be on-brand for this year, right?

Oh wait, that's exactly what happened because Nintendo can't help themselves. (I swear, these people are the worst sometimes.) So what did they do? Well, do you remember all the way back in the days of Amiibo figurines when Nintendo thought it was smart to artificially strangle the market to create false scarcity and drum up perceived value, only to play it competely dumb when this gave rise to an age of scalpers? (Who could have ever guessed that 2+2 makes 4?) Well they've done that again by announcing that this impending collection pack, which is obviously destined to be in high demand, will only be available for 6 months. (That includes the digital versions.) And as you can imagine the scalpers are already up and about selling off their preorders. That's right, Nintendo have managed to make an unreleased game a collector's item. (Good job, Arses)

This really does anger me, as someone who want's so desperately to buy into Nintendo's image as the 'friendly face of the games industry'. They imitate this Disney-esque persona of kindness and wholesomeness and use it as a mask to obfuscate from all the draconian and anti-consumer practises that they propagate. What possible benefit does it give the Nintendo team to limit the copies of a game which just about every devout Nintendo fan on the globe is going to want? It'll light a fire under folks for some early sales, maybe shore up this annual's earnings a bit, but in the long run it's invented a brand new bottleneck that will result in overpriced scalping jobs for literal years to come. Good job, Nintendo, you're literally promoting some of the grossest practises in the independent market yet again. (Why not just produce to meet demand? Is that a crazy thing to ask for?)

Already markets are getting flooded with 200$ prices for preorders and things will only get worse in the months to come. It won't be long until the game comes out and then Nintendo Switches with it installed will start hitting Ebay; these guys probably won't even wait for the game to come off the storefront next March. If you can't tell, I have no love for scalpers and their culture, all I want is to play good games and whenever I see a company intentionally get in the way of that goal I can't help but scratch my head and wonder why. No, literally why? Is it for bragging rights? So they can boast to their investors about creating another false-scarcity crisis? Please, someone explain why it is that Nintendo can't just be a normal game company who bring out games. I need to know!

At the end of the day, this probably means that folk like me won't get the chance to pick up this game when it's available, as I never buy at full price and you can bet this title will never see a sale. It's a shame that these are the sorts of practises that Nintendo stand, and have always stood, for. I'm lucky enough not to be too big of a Mario fan that I'd fall for this, but imagine if the same thing happened for Zelda, I'd be a goner! I'd like it, one day, if someone at Nintendo could wake up and realise the many ways in which they've been a toxic force in a industry they should be champions in. Heck, maybe they do know and they just don't care. (That's a sobering thought.) Hey, who knows. Maybe this whole dumb decision will be reversed and the digital download will lose it's cut-date. (But I seriously doubt it.)