Is the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass worth it?

The Gold Pass on Mario Kart Tour is a subscription service that allows you to get extra rewards in-game for completing races. The rewards range from extra stars for completing races, unique karts, extra rubies, and even new challenges to gain stars and coins. They have added a 200cc category in the Tour specifically for the Gold Pass members that allow you to gain more prizes when you complete races.

The Gold Pass is specifically designed to give you plenty of extras for your $5 a month but that doesn't mean you should actually spend the money.

Should you buy it?

You really shouldn't. When you think about it, $4.99 is how much Apple arcade costs and that includes 100's of premium games to play. Asking people to pay $5 a month for an extra game mode and some shiny gifts seems to be a little much.

While I don't think that free-to-play games are evil, I do think you need to think hard about spending large sums of money on them. I would be willing to pay $5-$15 for Mario Kart Tour with all the drivers unlocked. It's a full-featured game with a lot of fun tracks and interesting game mechanics, but asking people to pay $5 a month and extra for rubies is just not OK in my books.

If you feel you must spend money on Mario Kart Tour or your child really want's the latest kart, then using iTunes vouchers is the safest way. When you top with a voucher you set your child, or yourself a strong limit to how much you will spend on the game.

This is the safest way I can think of to play free-to-play games without spending hundreds of dollars without thinking about it.