Super Mario Run’s internet-connection requirement is dumb

Nintendo is bad at the internet. Remember Friend Codes? Well, they’re back in the publisher’s first Mario game for mobile devices. But that’s not the biggest problem with one of the most anticipated iOS games of the year.

You can’t play Super Mario Run without a solid internet connection. The auto-running platformer debuted on the iOS App Store earlier today, and it feels like a Nintendo game. Our review has issues with its length as a $10 purchase, but the amount of time it takes you to beat all of the levels in Super Mario Run is not something you’ll have to worry about if you’re on an airplane or in a subway tunnel. In those situations, the game won’t let you play if it cannot connect to Nintendo servers. That’s an issue for an app that is likely to make tens of millions of dollars in the $36.6 billion mobile gaming industry.