I remember a lot of people being angry that Dragon Age 1 had an NPC constantly suggesting the player buy DLC to access new quests. Forza 7 gets knocked by Jeff for voiceover suggestions to try opening loot boxes. Everyone sneers at recent games that have a link to real money shop in the menus.

For the most part I just ignore those things, so they never bothered me that much, but I can see the point of such complaints. In the past few months, I am confused why everyone is seemingly on board with uncle amiibo?

Sure, it's not as intrusive as say Shadow of War, but it is always not far from Mario after each world's main story is resolved.

Sure, the conversations can be charming, but not $15 or even a box of cereal-level charming.

Sure, people that already have amiibos probably don't even think about the character as a problem, but it is still a constant reminder to others "we also sell physical toys, how about you try one too?"

I started gaming on PCs exclusively, and have no sentimental connection to Mario or Nintendo (I own 0 amiibos, and don't even plan to. This is also the first Mario game I beat). I cannot imagine other companies receiving as little criticism for a similar action. (for example, Xbox has ads on the dashboard, and the GB crew has complained about that multiple times).

All I'm saying is, uncle amiibo better not win new character of the year!

I think it's not so much that people like Uncle Amiibo, but it's the fact that an NFC reader is a character in a video game and how on the nose it is that it's worth a laugh.

Besides, amiibo have physical value.

If he wasn't called Uncle Amiibo people would be way more annoyed

Did any of you play Rusty's Real Deal Baseball or Nintendo Badge Arcade on 3DS, because that certainly seemed like the trial run of "kinda likeable NPC in a game who talks to the player about making real money purchases."

Doesn't the Toad next to him do the exact same thing with in game coins? Also I don't remember this Dragon Age 1 NPC, or anyone really getting mad about in world characters letting you know there's stuff to buy. Honestly it would be weird if they didn't let you know somehow, in game, about DLC. Amiibos are a bit different because they work with many games. Every game they add functionality to increases their value.

@francium34: sup

Because I talked to him exactly once...can't recall if it was even forced. So what would there be to complain about aside from the amiibo support itself (and that *has* been criticized for trivializing some aspects of the game)?

@tom_omb: I was pretty pissed about it, it broke immersion having this random dude in the campsight that soley exsists to sell dlc (from day one). But this was back before it became the norm, by todays standards that isnt that bad. Sadly.

Everything Amiibo based can be aquired via coins though, and Mario is a wacky game where the idea of a robot that gives you hints via scanning figures doesnt seem that out of place. The warp pipes that turn you into (fo) 8-bit characters is more fourth wall breaking than this, and I have no problem with it.

@tom_omb: In my memory the DLC merchant gets brought up pretty often when people talk about Dragon Age (for example, http://www.pcgamer.com/worst-microtransactions/, an article from today, pcgamer listed it in the top 10.). I suppose the infamy comes from being the first one to be that blatant.

@quantris: Correct, no forced conversations, but he is definitely in front of Mario (right next to the hint toad) every time coming out of cutscenes as the story progresses. I also just tried going back to the first two kingdoms after beating the game, and Mario comes out of the ship, directly facing Toad and Uncle Amiibo. (The same could be said for the Dragon Age npc, I talked to him once due to curiosity, and never again)

This was Ben's exact words from the Shadow of War Quick Look: "was that just an ad for real money loot boxes in the pause menu? fuck that" Then several months later they were cheerfully discussing "I wonder what uncle amiibo will say after scanning cereal boxes?" To me, who doesn't own amiibos, uncle amiibo is first and foremost a walking ad, reminding me of these other Nintendo things I can buy (every time I think of/read its name!).

I suppose good writing/design goes a long way, and that at least no loot boxes are involved.

I feel like it's a combination of the fact that Uncle Amiibo is sort of likeable and (more importantly) that no matter how similar they might seem, Amiibo aren't actually DLC. Not only do they have physical value but they aren't tied down to any particular game. I don't actually own any Amiibo but in my mind I've always thought of them more as collector's figurines that have added functionality.

Uncle Amiibo doesn't give you anything that you can't get for free. His main functionality is basically the same as the Hint Toad, and the dialogue lines triggered by tapping amiibos are less interesting than any of his other dialogue. Plus he has a stupid name. Cool guy.

All Uncle Amiibo does is circumvent you spending coins on hints in a game where coins are really a non-issue. ESPECIALLY by the time you're needing to buy hints to find the last moons, you're rolling in coins. I have amiibo but ultimately didn't use them for hints because the 'wait 5 minutes' restriction on amiibo hints just wasn't worth saving coins over. The only thing about the amiibo stuff that does bother me is that with the Odyssey Bowser amiibo you can locate remaining purple coins in each kingdom, something that there is no way to do without amiibo. That really irritates me because it is an additional tool that a) is not available in the game any other way and b) is actually very useful (the extra hearts or whatever you get from other amiibo don't really matter).

To add to the choir here:

He didn't seem that intrusive to me, but I'm admittedly an amiibo owner. I've only used the Donkey Kong I got for Smash4 once, I'm kind of opposed to using Uncle Amiibo or Captain Toad or Talkatoo because I don't like the little emblem they put on my power moon list.

I think a main reason Uncle Amiibo has become part of the Giant Bomb conversation is because it definitely in some way recalls Jeff's Nintendo marketing recitation.