RIP Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. As you may have noticed, we haven’t had a new Paris addition this time round. Which is a shame because the drag queen from the opening ceremony was one spiky hat away from a very speedy cosplay.
The licence for those games haven’t been renewed by the International Olympic Committee, and we now know why. It’s because, drum roll please: Money.
That’s according to Lee Cocker, who worked on almost every entry in the series. In an interview with Eurogamer, he said:
“They wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and esports. Basically the IOC wanted to bring [it] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money.”
Now I get why the IOC would want to look into esports. And it ain’t because it’s what the kids are into. It’s because, drum roll please … Money. And as of last week, the Olympic Esports Series was born. But NFTs? Apparently, THIS is what they ended up with:
Yep. Digital pins of the Olympic mascot, Phryge (free-juh). Why play a fun game with two of the biggest characters in gaming history when you can buy a pin of this red bird that you can’t actually pin anywhere? Plus, NFT’s were lame back in 2022. In 2024, they’re just straight up embarrassing.
Now I should play devil’s advocate a little here because the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series was kinda going the same way as FIFA/EA FC in that each new entry was essentially the same game as the previous one.
And each entry sold less too. The 2008 game sold 13 million. 2010 sold 7 million. 2012 sold about 3.5 million. Fast forward to the 2020 edition and it sold less than a million… so in reality, there’s every chance that the IOC just didn’t see value in continuing the partnership… Although we’re surprised that THIS is what they released instead.
It’s a real shame because I always thought they were fun, family friendly games. George, Louka and Robert played it on our Twitch channel a couple of days ago and I’m not gonna lie; I was a little insulted that they didn’t invite me.
That was until I found out they weren’t playing the one on the Wii, where the sprint just involved aggressively flapping the wii mote until you had carpal tunnel.
But I guess it just goes to show what happens when you rest on your laurels. It’s a shame we’re not just getting straight-up Olympics games on consoles any more. Hit up the comments if you remember those.