Super Mario Run

Development

Super Mario Run was a joint project between Nintendo and DeNA. Takashi Tezuka designed the game, while Shigeru Miyamoto acted as both producer and director. This marked Miyamoto's first close involvement with a game's development since Super Mario Galaxy in 2007. The team was largely made up of the same people who worked on the original Super Mario games. Its visual style uses 2.5D graphics similar to those in New Super Mario Bros. The three gameplay modes were created at the same time by different groups within the team. The Unity engine powered the game. Before launch, Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aimé confirmed it would not appear on the Nintendo Switch because of differences in development architecture.

Nintendo was initially reluctant to enter the mobile market in the early 2010s, wanting to keep its characters exclusive to its own hardware. Company president Satoru Iwata believed that making mobile games would mean they would "cease to be Nintendo" and lose their identity. By 2014, however, the company saw that the mobile market's growth was hurting its finances, with hardware and software sales falling and a $240 million loss for that year. The following year, Iwata changed his stance and led Nintendo into a partnership with DeNA to bring five planned Nintendo titles to mobile. The first of these was Miitomo, which used Mii avatars. Separately, Nintendo worked with Niantic and The Pokémon Company on Pokémon Go.

Release and updates

Shigeru Miyamoto revealed Super Mario Run at Apple's annual iPhone event on September 7, 2016. The game first became available in 150 countries with support for 10 languages. It launched for iOS devices, including both iPhone and iPad, on December 15, 2016, and later arrived on Android on March 22, 2017. Nintendo used a freemium model but avoided ongoing payments: the first world was free as a demo, and a single one-time fee unlocked the rest.

This pricing was designed to be clear for parents buying the game for their children. To prevent piracy, Nintendo required a constant internet connection through always-on DRM. According to Polygon, Nintendo chose iOS first due to its stronger security and more uniform ecosystem compared to Android. Updates to Super Mario Run mainly expanded Nintendo account features or altered gameplay.

In January 2017, an update added Easy Mode, reduced the Toads lost in Toad Rally, and included Korean language support, coinciding with the game's launch in South Korea. An April 2017 update let players use Miitomo through their Nintendo Accounts to add friends and customize Mii icons with owned costumes. A major update in September 2017 introduced Daisy as a playable character, along with World Star and the Remix 10 game mode.

Reception

When Super Mario Run launched, critics gave it a mostly positive reception, earning a 76 out of 100 on Metacritic. Glixel noted that while finishing a level seemed easy, mastering the deeper gameplay was genuinely rewarding. IGN highlighted the game’s addictive nature and strong replay value in its coin-collecting challenges, praising how it kept the classic Mario feel but criticizing a lack of fresh gameplay ideas typical of new series entries. Players, however, were far less impressed.

The BBC reported that after just three days, the game’s user rating on the App Store had fallen to 2.5 out of 5 stars. The main complaints centered on the requirement for a constant internet connection and the fixed $10 price tag, which felt steep compared to other mobile games. The Toad Rally mode also split the player base: some enjoyed it, while others worried that its competitive design made it hard for less skilled players to progress in building their Mushroom Kingdom, and that the Rally Ticket system felt unnecessary in a game without microtransactions.