Dr. Mario World, the smartphone game introduced a few years back by Nintendo, is soon to be no more. Nintendo put out an End of Service notice on the game’s official website today announcing the game’s conclusion.
“The Dr. Mario World game service will end on November 1, 2021, (Mon),” the announcement reads. “We would like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who has played the game since it began service on July 10, 2019.”
Two months’ notice is pretty standard for a shutdown notice. However, big fans of the game might be disappointed to find out Nintendo has already shut down sales of in-game currency (diamonds) as of today, with no prior warning.
The news only gets worse from there. This isn’t just Nintendo ceasing support for Dr. Mario World — no, after November 1 the mobile game will cease to work entirely. Players who open the app after that date will be greeted by a message letting them know they’re no longer able to play the game.
Underwhelming free-to-play experiment —
Nintendo’s forays into smartphone gaming have been very hit-or-miss. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp managed to bring in about $50 million in its first year of sales and has now racked up about $242 million in sales; Fire Emblem Heroes has hit an enormous $891 million since its release in 2017.
Dr. Mario World hit pretty massive download numbers upon its first release in July 2019; in the first 72 hours of being available, the game was downloaded more than two million times. All those downloads only added up to about $100,000 in sales during the first two weeks of play, though — a meager amount compared to Nintendo’s console game sales.
In the two years since its release, the game has brought in about $13.9 million for Nintendo. Mario Kart Tour, which launched two months after Dr. Mario World, has made more than $222 million for the company.
We’ll always have our memories, I guess —
Nintendo’s decision to shut Dr. Mario World down entirely most likely rests upon its meager fan base. The cost of turning it into an offline game or maintaining the current servers likely wouldn’t be worth it for Nintendo.
Some fans on Twitter seem upset about not being able to play the puzzle game anymore — but more are upset Nintendo is basically trashing all the money they’ve spent on the mobile game in the past two years. Nintendo’s only solution: some sort of webpage called “Dr. Mario World Memories” that will allow you to look back at your game history after the app’s shut down.
