Reminder: Pac-Man 99's Online Service Has Now Officially Ended

@FishyS ...It'll still be playable, just not online...Mario 35 is gone entirely.

I won my first game on the day it was released, April 7, 2021. Hmm maybe I’ll try and win one more on the game’s last day. Ha!! I wonder if I still have a win in me. It’s been so so so long since I played last.

It was honestly a pretty fun game that could've had more longevity if they supported it with regular free content updates. I enjoyed it quite a bit for the first couple weeks, but with all the unlockables being behind a paywall instead of being able to earn new themes by participating in special events or saving up tickets that can be redeemed like in Tetris 99, it just became pointless to keep playing. You can't just release a f2p game, add no updates, and expect it to have legs. You can only do the same thing over and over again so many times without the incentive of rewards to keep you playing. That gets boring.

Pac-Man is every bit as well-known as Tetris is, so it could have been a smash hit if they managed it right, but nope. If there's nothing to grind for, why should I keep playing instead of moving on to something else? There's a GDC panel from like 2005 where Iwata talks at length about inscentivising players with consistent rewards. That's like one of the most basic tenants of game design, and Namco unfortunately dropped the ball.

Anyways, Pac-Man World Re-Pac 2. Where it at?

oh cheers, will definitely give it a last go.

@somnambulance

interesting you say that.

I agree, but seems most people are saying that F-Zero is the best one.

I wanna see this game update every day and change to Pac-Man 98, 97, 96 etc as the days go by, eventually on the last day of operation it will reach Pac-Man Zero

I've been playing Pac-man 99 quite a bit these past few weeks. I even managed to score third earlier today.

Oh crud I forgot! Thanks for reminding me.

I sure love how they've already normalized not waiting to the end of a system's life before shutting down online services for games. I sure love the all digital future. Remember when games were complete packages you used to have to buy physically and then own forever? How did we manage?

@John_Deacon training mode? I know it's not the same but technically wouldn't an offline mode be essentially just fzero 1?

Also are they going to keep selling the offline mode or are they just removing it from the eshop entirely?

Me trying to play it like normal Pac-Man:

@GarlicGuzzler I love the idea! It’s just that, it sounds so sad.

@Ultimapunch Right! And some games used to come with instruction manuals. 😊

(I wish NSO included instruction manual scans.)

As soon as the shutdown was announced I stopped playing, I have reverse fomo or jomo (joy of missing out). When mario 35 was only for a limited time, I didnt even bother with it.

@DwaynesGames this. Lack of manuals is my major complaint about modern gaming.
I surely pay a premium for reciving manual with my physical games

So sad. Im still hurt by Mario 35 departure

I’ll have to open this one up one last time. Sad they’re taking it down!

It's a real shame - this and Mario 35 were definitely my favourite ones of these big games. I'm so awful at F-Zero it's just not that enjoyable for me.

Reminder that people still play things like original Enemy Territory online.

got 1st when it was released and never touched it again. kinda fun but something felt off about it compared to the other battle royale games.

It's been fairly dead for a while. Lots of bots on it now.

@John_Deacon I think it's coming, or at least that's what I took from the datamined 'arcade' mode.

A real shame. Regarding this and Mario 35. SIGH.

My favorite of the battle royale games, I believe I made first place four or five times in total. It was always a blast to play, and enjoyed competing against the wife, even if we were in different match-up's, we would compare match rankings.

@Joeynator3000 I wish there was splitscreen multi-player for Mario 35. Just 2 player would be great, but 3 and 4 way splitscreen would be awesome. Add in a couple single player modes and I think it'd be well worth buying. I miss Mario 35 and will definitely miss the human mode of Pacman 99.

@mlt fzero 99 could have splitscreen multi-player, that would be awesome

I love Pac-Man and and I always will. Sad to see it go away from the online mode. SMB35 was the first "99" game I've come in 1st on, Pac-Man 99 being second (As far as F-Zero 99, I've come in 1st in the F-Zero 99 mode, Pro Tracks, Team, and 1st in "a" Prix race, but haven't won a Prix event yet... Not sure if I will... oh well...). The offline mode against bots will not entertain me much, so I'll just play Pac-Man CE to get my fix of that similar style of play.

Yeah, I redownloaded the game recently, and tried it, and not many people were playing on the matches.
But, I'm glad this game has an offline mode to play, not that I bought that, but still.

@JohnnyMind @Joeynator3000

"...It'll still be playable, just not online..."

Only if you bought it, which is no longer possible now.

@JohnnyMind Agreed. It's kinda sad that it's left down to the community to preserve de-listed games. Licensing should be for life, not time restricted in video games.

Maybe they will patch it before it goes offline? But yeah, all modes are locked now except online, until the servers go.

Another good game that's been delisted by Nintendo. It's been fun while it lasted

Well crud, forgot this game existed.

Ah darn, I assumed I had bought the offline modes. Now I can’t. That’s too bad.

I don't even care with game model like this.
Make them online play only within limited times then the games scrapped like dust in the wind, forgotten forever.
That's why I don't support this business practice.

to the SwitchTwomobile!

@FishyS
And that's why I don't play Online only games as the games will be unplayable when the server get closed.
I will not support Online only play business practice.

I just want to know why. Like, these are free to play games to the company is operating them at a loss. Nintendo must pay them a cut of NSO subscription dollars and that cut must be time-limited or otherwise insufficient to cover the cost of running the online services. But how expensive could those services be?

I know I answered my own question so let me rephrase. What's the plan? Why create joy for people just to take it away? Just a little short term profit. I'd rather they made it free to play for some initial period and charged me a couple bucks after that than make the game completely unplayable. No one ever gets to play Super Mario 35 or Pac-Man 99 again cause some execs couldn't come up with a plan?

Maybe Nintendo owns the distribution rights or something so they can't sell it on their own or Nintendo reserves the right to re-publish it free-to-play at their discretion so there's a potential conflict if they sell it for $1.99 or whatever or $0.99/year on their own because then Nintendo can decide to pull it out of the vault and undercut them.

So, to my original point, I'm a curious person and I wish I knew definitively how things happen so I'm not left the speculate reasonably but endlessly.

I really hope F-Zero 99 gets a good run, I'm having a blast with it. Mario 35 was cut way too early and I'm still burned by it.

Meh there's like twenty other Pac-Man games on Switch anyways, this won't be miss unless you only dedicated to online play only.

One day, they’re just going to shut off Tetris 99 “to focus on new consumer experiences”, mark my words 🤡

Great another game clogging up my 'redownload' list that I can't re-download.

And nothing of value is lost.

The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. I'm sure Mario 35 and this will be back at some point in some form. Taken in the spirit they were intended, I love this sort of thing.

@Ultimapunch 99-player online battle royale versions of games never existed until recently lol

Really odd that nobody is bringing up Tetris 99!

And they say the future is Digital-only...

How long before Sonic the Hedgehog 99 comes up?

@Joeynator3000 Battle Royale purgatory then?

Hey look it’s Nintendo being anti-consumer and anti-preservation, who would’ve guested

@EaglyBird Seems like Nintendo has no interested in running all these games in perpetuity. It does make sense that as new things come out, the audience for these will dwindle, but it's sad that they have no means of keeping them available, and they will become lost media.

Mario 35 I didn't mind going away because it sucked. Soviet Jump Game is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better.

Pac-Man 99 I actually did like though. Sad. :'(

Thanks for the memories Pac-Man 99. Another 99 gone that I could regularly come in 1st on. Oh well, back to get gud on F-Zero 99 and "maybe" Tetris 99...

It is sad to see it go. Agree with the Mario 35 comments too. I loved playing both of them and I was actually somehow good at them.

I will certainly miss both of these now. That's now 2.

I think though that F-Zero 99 is really good and was a nice idea, I'm not great at it but it is fun so I can understand people enjoying it.

I hope we get another Mario 35 at some point, or it gets back online for some time, but for now let F-Zero 99 be there to be enjoyable.