This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

Nintendo have received a not unreasonable amount of flack for the aggressive microtransactions in the recently released Mario Kart Tour. With players encouraged to part with significant sums of money for a random shot at a character they may like. Even for Mario himself.

Now, in an interview with TIME, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has detailed how Nintendo goes about deciding the monetisation of their games.

In terms of monetisation, that’s something that we decided on an app basis. It’s something we decide looking at the game content of each app, as well as the IP used and the player we’re targeting. We also look at how we can best have the players enjoy the game, as well as how they would be comfortable in spending money.

Super Mario Run, Nintendo’s original offering (Miitomo aside) had a one-and-done purchase policy, but subsequent games have gone down the microtransaction route. Fire Emblem Heroes in particular has made significant bank in doing so.

Mario Kart Tour has seemed especially aggressive though, and to hear that it has been purposefully constructed that way based on the player being targeted leaves us a little uneasy. Unless Nintendo has demographic information saying otherwise, we would assume a lot of Mario Kart Tour players would be on the younger side.

Still, the game still managed 90 million downloads in its first week, raking in $12.7m in the process.

Source: TIME