In Tony Manninen’s piece Interaction Forms and Communicative Actions in Multiplayer Games, he mentions how the level of communication support in games varies greatly. Most of them support textual chatting, some of them enable communicative gestures, while others concentrate on interaction forms that are highly action-specific and goal-oriented. Mario Kart would definitely fall into the action-specific and goal-oriented category as one of the most timeless examples of player interaction in racing games. The power-up slot machine is one of the most nostalgic game mechanics in gaming and has developed its own meme lore do to some of its power-ups (*cough* blue shells *cough*). At its core, the game lacks any form of a story so it relies on its gameplay and replayability and oh boy does it succeed in this endeavor.
Like any racing game, coming first is the goal, but the power-up mechanic completely changes the landscape of racers at a moment’s notice. The farther back you are the higher your chances of getting rare power ups when hitting mystery boxes, giving you the opportunity to get ahead in the race. This mechanic is especially important because it introduces luck into what otherwise would be considered a skilled pursuit, yet this game is nigh treated like Super Smash Bros. where using items is frowned upon when competing with friends.
This difference in “item shaming” may be due to the more competitive atmosphere of smash especially among the more skilled players and the life mechanic which makes deaths in the game far more costly than in Mario Kart where you respawn with little penalty. The slot machine mechanic makes it far easier for a racer to come back as it rewards them with better power-ups for being far behind, and all it takes is one bullet bill to catapult the player into the frontrunners. Mario Kart also puts far less pressure on players being first for the majority of the race given the likelihood that one blue shell will ultimately appear at some time during the game and foil the frontrunners chances, giving other racers the opportunity to overtake often times right at the climax of the racing while approaching the finish line. The game employs other mechanics to add some greater dependency on skill(power drifts, air tricks) granting the player a small boost of speed, but these fail at compensating for the ridiculousness of the slot machine system that often times decides races. It is rather difficult to separate yourself from the pack without incurring some penalty in the form of never-ending banana peels and the eventual blue shell shock.
In the end, while seemingly devoid of any form of competitive equal ground the game still delivers a memorable experience due to its ability to bring players of diffrent ages and skill levels to play without clearly advantaging the experienced gamers. Comeback, underdog, wins become more common and a greater assortment of players are brought together into a game where winning rarely spells everlasting defeat unless you were playing over which roommate has to go pick up the pizza in the freezing cold.