Mario Kart Tour is getting rid of its lootboxes

Lootboxes have become a cursed word within the video games industry, with many developers shying away from the exploitative and manipulative practice of including such gacha elements into their games. One of the games which still use loot boxes is the free-to-play Mario Kart Tour. Fortunately, Nintendo has now announced that they will be completely removing lootboxes in an upcoming update.

Making the announcement on Twitter, the official Mario Kart Tour account said “Here's a peek at #MarioKartTour's update coming late September! Battle mode will be added, along with a Spotlight Shop, where you can exchange rubies for drivers, karts, and gliders! Also, pipes you can fire by using rubies will be removed. See the notification for details.”

Instead of loot boxes, Mario Kart Tour used pipes, though they functioned in the exact same way as lootboxes and so them being removed is a welcome change for the mobile title. It seems these pipes will be replaced by the Spotlight Shop, allowing you to manually select which character/kart/glider you want to purchase.

We do not yet know the full details on how this shop will work and so it is possible that players will simply be able to purchase any character at any point in time. Alternatively the team could be taking the Fortnite model, where characters are put on sale for a limited amount of time and for varying prices.

Regardless of how it is implemented, knowing what you are purchasing before you purchase it is a purely positive move and so it is encouraging to see Mario Kart Tour heading in that direction.

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KitGuru says: Do you play Mario Kart Tour? Are you glad to see the pipes being removed? How do you think the store will be implemented? Let us know down below.

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