
Data Behind Super Mario Maker Popularity - coloneltcb
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/10/how-to-make-a-popular-super-mario-maker-level/
======
rspeer
Hm. I guess I've gotten enough into Mario Maker to spot some inaccuracies in
this article:

A completion rate below 15% isn't "ultra-hard". Most of those levels would
show up on Normal difficulty.

A completion rate of 0.44% doesn't mean the average player dies 230 times
before completing it. It means that, for every 1 player who can complete it in
_any_ number of lives, there are 229 who don't.

Given that definition, if a straightforward level with a 5% completion rate
makes you sad for the state of gaming, remember that lots of these players
are, like, seven years old. Give them 20 years and they'll be awesome at
whatever their nostalgia games are.

And that also explains the levels that get starred, really. I do hope that
they eventually expand Super Mario Maker with a better recommender system, one
that can distinguish people who want gimmicks from people who want "real
levels", or at least a way of sharing playlists of levels or something. You
can follow good level creators, so they should add the ability to follow good
level _curators_.

~~~
panic
A way to link multiple levels (your own or others') into "worlds" would be
neat. It would let people curate collections of levels they think are good
while also designing the progression between them.

~~~
wodenokoto
I've only watched videos online, but it does look like it is possible to play
through levels curated into a "world"

This video is titled "The worlds surprising stages" and plays out as a world:

[https://youtu.be/A7Au7saKF1g?list=PLPUGXakMkjRHrGwYf2lHwO5rd...](https://youtu.be/A7Au7saKF1g?list=PLPUGXakMkjRHrGwYf2lHwO5rdUZOePwBd&t=27)

------
0xcde4c3db
My take-away from this is basically that the level-browsing interface sucks so
much that popularity is immensely skewed in favor of levels that are:

1) old

2) promoted on popular YouTube/Twitch/etc. channels

~~~
Natsu
That's why I prefer the stuff fans made before Nintendo made Mario Maker. For
example, this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuRQjaOhwGM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuRQjaOhwGM)

~~~
minimaxir
Probably the most famous ROM hack technique in Super Mario World is the Kaizo
Trap:
[https://youtu.be/Ua6pbz3ROvQ?t=7m18s](https://youtu.be/Ua6pbz3ROvQ?t=7m18s)

However, that technique, along with other SMW physics glitches, aren't
possible in Mario Maker to my knowledge.

~~~
panic
You can make invisible blocks like that in Super Mario Maker.

~~~
minimaxir
The trap being the death at the end-of-level.

~~~
panic
Oh yeah, in SMM dying at the end of a level still counts as a completion!

------
T-R
I'd interpret this a bit differently - levels with good design are likely to
be few and far between, since good level design is a skill. Moreover, you
can't really communicate "has good design" well in a title or with stats (and
to the extent you can, no one can trust it), so it's actually pretty
impressive that these levels can compete _at all_ with levels that can easily
market themselves through gimmicks, references, or ridiculous difficulty.

------
girvo
> _Still, it 's a bit sad that so many Super Mario Maker players apparently
> like watching the game play itself at least as much as taking an active part
> in the level._

Is it really "sad"? Some of the most fun I've had has been watching my friends
play through various games. The sheer popularity of Let's Play and Twitch
seems to back that up too: It seems that a lot of people prefer the spectacle
to the challenge, and there's nothing wrong with that!

~~~
minimaxir
Also, winning by doing nothing can be hilarious:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6PxRwgjzZw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6PxRwgjzZw)

------
iMerNibor
Well, most of the gimmicky levels are easy to explain People have a chance to
easily play around with stuff that was just not normal now. Flying around with
the clowncopter and shooting things for a whole level is not what you really
get in normal mario Same goes for the autoplay levels - just watching
something that's crafted to complete itself in (sometimes) astonishing and
carefully crafted ways is nice to watch.

I suspect this is gonna die down quite a lot as people get used to it though -
it's fun now cause it's new and unusual. It is going to get boring at some
point though

Not to mention good level design as you'd see in mario games is hard for
people who've never done it

------
nextweek2
It is really sad that they dropped the ball on this game. The levels it come
with are completed within half an hour and the user interface for finding
great content is abysmal.

The developers really failed to do anything more than a cursory rating system.
The thing that jar's me the most is the filter by region. Why would a care if
a map creator was from Japan or New Zealand?

It just feels like they didn't employ a data scientist, but just relied on
programmers to create a system for finding the best content.

------
vlunkr
It will be interesting to see the trend over time. Right now, people haven't
seen levels like this before in mario games (auto playing or ultra hard). But
eventually people might get burnt out on the novelty and look for deeper
levels.

~~~
Natsu
That might be true in official Mario games, but they didn't exactly invent
Mario Maker. There have been fan hacks of it since forever, like Tazio or
Mario Must Die that are downright evil. I've already posted links to a TAS of
them elsewhere in this story if you want to see.

~~~
vlunkr
Right, I'm aware of those, but I assume most people aren't, so there's still a
novelty factor there.

------
byron_fast
Sad but true. The most starred levels are those that are least fun, at least
measured against what makes Mario successful. Anyway, "Luft Bauser": 05B9 0000
0085 7B65 tries to be fun.

~~~
rspeer
Many Mario Maker streamers consider posting your own level code, when they
haven't asked for level codes, to be spam. And this is _Twitch chat_ , where
being the 100th person to type "Kappa //" in a row isn't spam. They moderate
level codes because when they don't, their chat turns into an endless stream
of hexadecimal.

HN presumably intends to hold higher standards than Twitch chat.

I know it's hard to promote Mario Maker levels, but I would say this isn't the
place.

~~~
byron_fast
Yeah I figured that might piss someone off, HN doesn't let me down in that
regard. Based on my experience with finding levels in the system itself, I
thought it might be interesting to see some HN made levels. Or be ignored,
that's fine too.

Somehow this seems different than spamming Twitch chat.

It's funny to think of this as "promoting" something though. Not all sharing
is promotion.

