Talk:Hello, Mario! (game)

Is this a video game?

For transparency and to get this out of the way for anyone who might bring it up, I asked this same question for the title I am a teacher: Super Mario Sweater and the result was describing it as software rather than a game. Currently on MarioWiki, titles released for systems are generally described as video games or games. I don't have an issue with that myself given the very few edge cases like this one so consider this question to be in regards to the contents of this specific article and not the wiki as a whole.

I'd like to bring attention to the concept of a non-game, at least that's the term English Wikipedia uses to describe "A class of software on the border between video games and toys.". If you were to visit the official Japanese site for this particular title, it's described as the following: "This is a toy-like app where you can play by touching Mario's face. (Google Translate)". The rest of the site goes on to describe the contents of the "toy-like app" however the terms "video game" or "game" are not used at all to describe it. -- Bro3256 (talk) 13:04, August 25, 2025 (EDT)

No, this is an application. Not a video game. - User:SuperStar64Wiki

Simply put, there's just... Not enough software/"non-games" in the Mario franchise to really merit a distinction between the two. You have the aforementioned I am a teacher: Super Mario Sweater, Super Mario Bros. Print World, Super Mario Bros. & Friends: When I Grow Up, Mario Clock (at a stretch, as it does feature an actual endless running game), Mario Calculator, and Nintendo DSi Metronome (also at a stretch, as it's only covered here because of a Donkey Kong-themed minigame). It's overkill to try to make something like a "list of software" split off of List of games when it's 7 pieces of software (at best) against hundreds of games, or a "nongame infobox" or "software infobox" when the game infobox does the exact same thing, and the only real difference is semantics. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 13:14, August 25, 2025 (EDT)

I agree that would be overkill! I don't think those things should change for the very reasons you bring up. I think at the very most, a new category could be created that categorizes these "applications" or "software" but keep everything else intact and unchanged. That's a discussion worth having if a proposal was written for said category to exist. As for this particular article, I do think wording like "In the game..." should be tweaked to "In the application..." given the official source I pointed out above. -- Bro3256 (talk) 13:24, August 25, 2025 (EDT)

Ah, should've been a bit clearer. A mention of the game being considered an application or software in prose would be fine, and in fact, encouraged--many of the examples we listed actually do that exact same thing! Our comment was more about the infrastructure changes implied by a "List of software" or a "software infobox", as the original talk thread in Super Mario Sweater was also rather infrastructure-driven, and we wanted to explain why that wasn't done. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 13:53, August 25, 2025 (EDT)

Thank you for the clarification. Much appreciated. -- Bro3256 (talk) 14:55, August 25, 2025 (EDT)

Simply put, I don't see what would make this any less of a game that say, Mario Paint. they're both essentially just digital toys with no particular goal besides entertaining the player, one happens to skew to a younger target demographic.--PopitTart (talk) 13:56, August 25, 2025 (EDT)

Fair enough, I do think Mario Paint leans towards "software-toy" rather than "video game" since the main draw (pun intended) is utilizing tools for creative expression which I argue isn't much different to titles like Kid Pix. Mario Paint is very unique in terms of how it approaches this with it even including a minigame. Worth pointing out the description in the Nintendo Classics app for Mario Paint, the term "title" is used rather than "game". -- Bro3256 (talk) 14:55, August 25, 2025 (EDT)