Mario Party Superstars is a game for the Nintendo Switch developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo. It is the 12th installment of the long running Mario Party series, a multiplayer virtual board game. Mario Party Superstars is a game highly dependent on chance. While not addictive in the same way a game like poker or slots are since there is no monetary reward for success, Mario Party Superstars still encourages players to keep playing it by creating a strong perception that skill can influence the outcome of the game (and it truly can to a limited extent), but ultimately still comes down to luck in the end. I’ve played several games of Mario Party Superstars with my friends.
A major aspect that contributes to addiction and repeated plays of games like slot and poker is the perception that the player can influence the outcome of the game via their skill, as mentioned in the reading. Mario Party Superstars has a number of mechanics that give the player this perception, which isn’t entirely false as is a slot machine. When rolling the game’s virtual dice or spinning one of its outcome wheels, the player is given the power to press A to stop the spin and select the outcome. My friend claims he can time these rolls to give him what he wants, and even I have occasionally felt like I could, but I have no actual way of knowing if this is true or not. In this way, it feels like you are choosing your outcomes rather than RNG just handing them to you.
In addition, Mario Party allows for player choice in terms of things such as items to buy from the shop that can give you certain advantages. Finally, there are many minigames in Mario Party that allow the player to gain money to buy items and stars to win the game. While some of these minigames are truly pure chance, there is at least an element of skill and expertise in the gameplay that allows skilled players to consistently win in minigames. When I played this game with my friends at first, I was knowledgeable about minigames while they were not, leading me to score many wins in them. As we played more and they gained more knowledge and skill, this became less of the case. In this way, Mario Party seemingly has a lot of skill involved in its gameplay. The designers baked these mechanics and aspects of the gameplay in so that players would ultimately feel that their skill and choices directly lead to whether they win or lose. This, however, is not entirely true.
Ultimately, skill is not the biggest determinant of who wins in Mario Party. I know this well, as I’d consider myself a fairly skilled player yet I don’t always win. This is because Mario Party is designed to come down to chance and luck in the end. The intent of this is to ultimately balance the game so that skilled players don’t win every single time and remove the fun of the game. The mechanics that encapsulates these the most are the game’s bonus stars and hidden blocks. The objective of the game is to gain the most stars, and occasionally players literally randomly stumble upon them in hidden blocks. Allegedly, players in losing positions are more likely to gain stars from these hidden blocks, but I once got stars from them while in 1st place.
There is absolutely no way to skillfully obtain these stars, but they can have a major impact on the game. Then, at the end of a game, 2 extra stars are awarded to players based on random criteria, many of them being things the player can’t really plan for. It’s thus entirely possible to go into the final standings in last place and end up winning once these bonuses are awarded. These types of mechanics are designed to ensure that no player ever has absolutely no chance of winning, though as I mentioned earlier I once got these bonuses despite being in first. Luck is so volatile and chaotic in Mario Party Superstars that it can also make winning players win harder.
The reason people keep playing Mario Party is ultimately similar to the reason people keep playing slots or poker. There are enough aspects and elements of skill that even when cognizant of the elements of luck, people believe that their skill and expertise will lead them to win. When they win due to luck, they attribute it to their skill. When they lose despite playing the most skillfully, they simply attribute it to unluckiness and an anomalous outcome. A friend of mine who keeps losing Mario Party despite playing well always insists that we play again, because next time surely their skill will prevail and hand them the victory. This wouldn’t happen if they could consistently win due to their skill. Ultimately, even a family game like Mario Party Superstars has some addictive elements due to random chance.
