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Mario Kart Tour Beta Draws Criticism Over Loot Boxes

• Mike Guarino
• May 23rd, 2019

Nintendo has released several of their most famous IPs in mobile form now, and overall they’ve enjoyed success. However, one of their biggest series of all is set to make its mobile debut, with Mario Kart Tour set to launch later this year. However, a recent closed beta is already drawing criticism over the game’s loot boxes.

The controversy stems from there being several tiers of loot boxes, and some of them reportedly actually have an impact on gameplay. If this is true, then this is obviously pay-to-win nonsense and Nintendo will be at the receiving end of a lot of backlash. However, the good news is that we’re still in beta and it’s entirely possible that the company will be making changes to how these things work by the time it fully launches.

Game Revolution reports that there are three different kinds of loot boxes: one unlocks characters, one unlocks karts and one unlocks gliders. While all of these are cosmetic, the characters earned through loot boxes actually get gameplay bonuses depending on the track they play on. For example, if Luigi plays on the Luigi’s Mansion course he’ll get access to three items instead of two.

Now, it’s possible that Nintendo will balance this out prior to the full launch, but right now people are reporting that certain characters from loot boxes flat out have an edge for certain races. This sounds horrible and hopefully Nintendo realizes it long before the game actually launches.

Outside of the loot boxes that impact gameplay, there is also the ancient “stamina system” that only lets you play a certain amount of races per hour. This is something that many mobile games have used in the past, and it definitely isn’t something that’s fun to deal with. It remains to be seen just how restrictive this will end up being, but we’ll bring you more information as soon as we have it.