The Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series missed out on the Paris Olympic Games in 2024, and according to one former executive producer, it might signal the end of the franchise.
Lee Cocker, who worked at International Sports Multimedia (ISM), which was the official licensee of the rights through the International Olympic Committee (IOC), was sharing footage from his time working on the Mario and Sonic games on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn when he mentioned that the franchise “finished” with Mario & Sonic at the Olympics Games Tokyo 2020.
Cocker told Eurogamer that the decision to not renew the licensing deal was because the IOC wanted to look into other opportunities, specifically NFTs and esports.
“Basically the IOC wanted to bring [it] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money,” Cocker said.
For the people that are asking there will be no @MarioSonicGames for @Paris2024 the franchise finished with #MarioAndSonic at the #OlympicGames @Tokyo2020 I know because I worked on all the games in the franchise. #Olympics #PARIS2024 #videogames #gaming #esports #Nintendo #Sega pic.twitter.com/o5OPEksF5G
— Lee Cocker (@leecocker) July 25, 2024
Those NFT and esports strategies appear to have come to fruition. In 2021, the IOC announced official NFTs that included copies of posters from previous Olympic games, mascots, and other virtual memorabilia. In 2024, the organization officially created the Olympic Esports Games, which is set to debut next year in Saudi Arabia and take place there over the next 12 years.
But the IOC hasn’t dropped video games entirely. It launched the free-to-play Olympics Go! Paris 2024 on PC, Android, and iOS, which has players compete in 12 sports. It’s developed by nWay Inc., the company IOC partnered with to sell NFTs. Previously, it released Olympic Games Jam: Beijing 2022, which also featured NFTs.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was officially licensed by the IOC through ISM starting with the original entry for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. These are party games that usually release the year before the Olympics, so there have been additions for the 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2020 games. Each is a party game that lets players use characters from both franchises to compete in Olympic-styled sports minigames. So yes, that means if there had been a 2024 version, we might’ve gotten a breakdancing minigame.
