Why is Mario is Mario? This is how the most famous character in the world of video games was born

It’s 1981. The head of Nintendo’s recently established American subsidiary, Minoru Arakawa, has a hard nut to crack. There are nearly 2,000 items in the company’s warehouse. slot machines and are slowly starting to gather dust. The local market has absorbed only 1,000 units of machines with the space shooter Radar Scope, and so far there is no desire to feed the machines with 25-cent coins, defending civilization from the invasion of aliens. Many players complain about the irritating sound layer, which quickly discourages them from continuing the game.

Arakawa does not hide his disappointment, because in Japan Radar Scope met with an excellent reception, especially in the arcades in Tokyo. At one point, in terms of popularity, the cult-style Space Defenders title was second only to Pac-Man. Selling only 1/3 of the machines imported to the US for Nintendo means two failures – financial and image. The president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, incidentally Arakawa’s father-in-law, must get involved in the case.

Game Over Nintendo of America?

Arakawa asks his father-in-law if he can remake the unsold slot machines. You have to turn them into a completely new game and try your hand at the local market again. The boss of bosses sends a young designer in the company’s ranks (mainly graphics), 29-year-old Shigeru Miyamoto to help. He is accompanied by a much more experienced constructor and Nintendo engineer, Gunpei Yokoi. What is Plan B? You can say that it was decided to bet on a certain horse, and as you know, “we like the music we know best”.

There is an idea to create a game in which the main character will be Popeye, a popular hero of comics and cartoons. In the early 1980s, work is underway on a Hollywood adaptation of the adventures of a brave sailor, so the opportunity seems to be begging to be seized. Unfortunately, despite intensive efforts on the part of Nintendo, Miyamoto initially does not obtain a license to transfer Popeye to the screen of arcade games.

Then the Jumpman, modeled on the American spinach lover, is born. At the very beginning, he is a carpenter who has to save his beloved (Lady, later named Pauline) kidnapped by an unruly gorilla. The character earns his nickname by the ability to avoid wooden barrels that roll around the entire board, scattered by an enraged monkey.

In this way, the young Japanese designer decides to create a kind of variation on Popeye, using the well-known classic triangle of heroes (Pauline is Olive Oyl, and the role of Bluto, the main antagonist, is played by the gorilla). By the way, the monkey is also an informal reference to another iconic character of American cinema, King Kong. We have a story, we have a challenge, we have a good and a bad hero, finally we also have a princess.

An unexpected visit that changed everything

Minoru Arakawa had enough trouble already. But he had to face one more. He had been in arrears for some time with rents for a warehouse space in Tukwila outside Seattle, Washington, where unsold vending machines were stored. In addition, most of the budget was consumed by work on the new game. The owner of the property, Mr. Segale, despite the opinion of a relatively cheerful and helpful gentleman, definitely knew how to take care of his interests in crisis situations.

When he stormed into one of the company meetings, demanding Arakawa to pay the outstanding fee, he must have made a lasting impression on the employees. We can only assume that his Italian temperament could have played a significant role in this. Fortunately, the then head of Nintendo of America managed to come to an agreement with him. He promised that all arrears would be settled soon. Back then, no one could have imagined how fateful this meeting would turn out to be.

Meanwhile, the converted machines with the game Donkey Kong land in the first arcades in Seattle and, to the delight of the producer, begin to convince more and more people. The success of Radar Scope’s successor is best demonstrated by numbers. By the end of 1981, there were already 60,000 in the US. slot machines with Donkey Kong, and a year after its premiere, the game earns Nintendo $ 180 million. What’s more, the title was continued in 1982 in the form of Donkey Kong Jr.

Here the roles are reversed. The player controls the son of Donkey Kong, who has to free his dad imprisoned by Jumpman for kidnapping his beloved in the previous part of the game.

Shigeru Miyamoto’s intuition tells him that the fashion for Jumpman will pass quickly, unless he gets a catchy name. And here we come back to the previously mentioned unannounced visit of Mr. Segale, or rather Mario Segale. Shortly after he left the meeting, Arakawa and his colleagues jokingly referred to the pixelated carpenter after a temperamental Seattle warehouse owner. And that was basically enough. Already in Donkey Kong Jr. Jumpman becomes Mario.

The carpenter turns into a plumber and goes underground

Miyamoto believed that Mario deserved much more – his own game. What’s more, for some time, as the designer’s associates claimed, “this carpenter is more like plumbing”. And so gradually the image of a mustachioed plumber struggling with the sewage system near New York began to take shape. In 1983 (still on slot machines), Mario Bros. debuts.

Maria is no longer alone. He has a younger brother to help him (Luigi is controlled by the second player). The siblings deal with an infestation of turtles, crabs and other creatures that are swarming the underground pipe system. They do not use any tools or weapons for this. They only have their fists (knocking from the bottom of the floor under the pet knocks it to the side and allows it to be pushed off the board). The players accepted Miyamoto’s new idea with great enthusiasm.

Nintendo of America, however, still has bad luck. The premiere of the game unfortunately coincides with the nearly two-year-long crash on the video game market (1983 – 1985), especially in the USA. The crisis heralds, among other things, the twilight of the era of slot machines. The Japanese are ready for that. At the same time, Nintendo introduces its home gaming console, the Family Computer (commonly known as the Famicom). The role of the lead game designer for the new hardware could only be taken on by Shigeru Miyamoto.

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) photo Wikipedia

Officially, the Famicom (under the name Nintendo Entertainment System – NES) debuted in America only in 1986. The starting set of 17 games could not miss the already famous plumbers from Brooklyn, already under the name of Super Mario Bros. The action of the game takes the player to the Mushroom Kingdom (toadstool kingdom), which is referred to by magical toadstools appearing here and there, causing the hero to temporarily enlarge.

Why has Mario become so popular?

As Jeff Ryan writes in his book “Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America”, Mario had to become a star. That’s what Nintendo wanted and did everything to make it happen. In the 1980s alone, the character appeared in as many as 12 titles for the NES console. In many cases, he was not their main character. It can be said that the manufacturer’s strategy was painfully transparent. Mario was supposed to jump out of the wardrobe, fridge and even from under the bed. In total, over the last three decades, he has already won over 200 titles.

On the other hand, the Italian plumber has become synonymous with quality for Nintendo. His presence in the game usually heralded the success of the title. And so it is to this day. Currently, it is difficult to imagine the premiere of a new generation of Nintendo consoles if no game from the rich Super Mario portfolio lands in the starter pack or shortly after the premiere.

And somehow, in times when the player’s attention is mainly fought for by spectacular graphics with very high resolution and frame rates, the careers of Mario, Bowser (a huge turtle with spikes that the protagonist has to face) and Princess Peach are still in full swing. Often, the popularity of Mario reaches even people who have never had the opportunity to touch a joystick, pad or smartphone screen before.