Mario Run had nearly 40 million downloads in 3 days and made $4 million in its first 24 hours

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Super Mario Run is a runaway success (sorry) according to data from mobile software analytics firm App Annie. The company reports that Nintendo's first ever mobile game was downloaded 37.3 million times in its first three days on iOS - apparently faster than even Pokemon Go, though Super Mario Run benefited from a global release as opposed to Pokemon Go's extended international rollout. On the other hand, Super Mario Run isn't available on Android, while Pokemon Go was.

This success sent Super Mario Run to the top of the download charts in 60 countries shortly after launch. Folks quickly put some time into their new mobile window into the Mushroom Kingdom: according to App Annie's data, users played for an average of just over 13 minutes every day. That's just under the 14-and-a-half minutes the average person spends going to the toilet on any given day, going off this survey referenced in The Scotsman. Coincidence? I think not. Mario's plumbing business is really taking off.

Users who played that regularly wouldn't take long to vault straight into Super Mario Run's paywall, and that's where we'll see if Nintendo's experiment was truly a success. According to further data from App Annie (via Polygon), the game brought in more than $4 million in its first day alone, so that's a pretty good sign. Especially since Super Mario Run's $9.99 / £7.99 price tag is quite a bit higher than the average paid mobile game.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.