People should stop buying Mario games just because they are Mario games

Before people say it is an anti-Mario, rant, I'm using Mario just as an evident example of what I'm trying to address.

There have been hundreds of Mario games in the last 30 years. Some of them were great. Many were good. Some acceptable. And some, pretty forgetable. However, if there is something in common with almost all Mario games is that they are never a flop, regardless the quality of the game.

The most iconic video game character has been used for all purposes. Synonym of platform games, Mario and his gang have been used in many spin-offs, that range from sport games, to RPGs, puzzles, social games, etc. Though some cases made sense, most of the time the feeling is that there was no need to use Mario Bros characters, but they were used to make it easier to sell a game that otherwise would have difficulties in reaching a broader audience.

And, indeed, it worked. Besides the traditional Mario games, many of those spin-offs have seen great sales numbers. And the main reason for those encouraging market performances is because the moustached plumber in a red suit was featured on the cover.

That being said, we face a crucial moment for the traditional game marketing. The sales are lower and lower each passing year, confronted by the surge of mobile and social network gaming that are making millionaires from night to day, profiting many times more than the old established software houses and luring them out of the traditional console and handheld gaming business in favor of "The new El Dorado of gaming". One of the reasons cited is that the gaming companies are failing to innovate, and apart from a few successful indie studios, all that we have seen in the last few years are the same IPs being milked to death with copycat games with few enhancements, useless DLCs and microtransactions poisoning the once healthy gaming ecosystem.

This overall view is really close to truth, but part of the blame falls on the consumers themselves. Instead of investing their hard-earned money in promising new releases and concepts, almost all the money goes to same old IPs and franchises, no matter what they have to offer. Instead of trying a new kind of game, the gamer saves money to buy the new installment of those yearly sports franchises, that add nothing relevant from one year to another. Instead of buying a game from a genre the gamer is not so used to, he pre-orders the new version of the same old FPS that plays exactly like the older one. Instead of trying a RPG or a fighting game with new mechanics, the gamer buys the follow-up to the series that presents nothing new, and spend the rest of his money with pathetic DLCs like costumes, weapons or characters from the previous games that add nothing to the gaming experience. Instead of trying any game from a smaller publisher, the gamer plays any crap that has Mario on the cover.

Being smart, the gaming companies are less and less prone to invest their money on new games that will be panned by critics for not being technically perfect, and then ignored by overall audiences when they can do any average game and brand it with their most famous IPs to receive great reviews (since critics are just gamer fans playing the especialist role) and selling lots of games through pre-order before anyone can attest the game is bland.

So, for the sake of the future of the game industry, stop buying Mario games just because they are Mario games. Spend your money with the really good ones and let all the spin-offs and blatant attempts of milking the franchise flop grandly. Only when the developers realize that putting the well-known faces in a bad game will not help selling it, they will go back to their drawing boards and start focusing on new game mechanics to make them interesting rather than to focus on how the same old characters will fit in their lousy games.