Poor Super Mario Run reviews hurting Nintendo stock

When can having the top-grossing app on the iOS App Store be bad? When people don’t like it all that much, apparently.

By some metrics, the launch of Super Mario Run was the biggest in the history of iOS gaming. Nintendo’s first legitimate shot at mobile gaming (sorry, Miitomo, but you don’t count as a game) was downloaded almost 3 million times in its first day and tons more times over the weekend.

It’s currently No. 1 on the free App Store chart and is the top-grossing app as well. So everything is hunky dory, right?

Actually, quite the opposite. Nintendo’s stock took a big hit on Monday, closing down 7% from what it started the week. The problem is poor user reviews, as Super Mario Run has just 2 1/2 stars on Apple’s five-star rating scale right now.

The main beef isn’t so much the gameplay, though Super Mario Run is a departure from traditional platforming since it is an auto-runner. No, the gripe given by most of the people who left negative reviews is that while the game is free to download — and thus qualifies for inclusion on the free charts — that only gets you a sampling of the overall experience. The full game costs $9.99 to unlock, which is cheap for a Mario game but quite steep for mobile.

Whether Nintendo made the right move pricing it in such an unorthodox manner is sure to be the subject of ongoing debate. What it clearly didn’t do was communicate that decision effectively, as scores of angry fans left reviews claiming they didn’t realize the game was $10.

Maybe a tease is actually worse than just saying a game is $9.99 up front. In the meantime, it’s been a roller coaster ride for Nintendo’s share prices in 2016, and that craziness looks like it’s set to continue into the new year.