Mar 03 2009
They Hated Donkey Kong
Play the game here if you’re in the mood…
I always find it amusing to read histories of pop culture icons from movies to comics to games–in almost every case you find someone hated what is now universally loved. In this case “Donkey Kong.”
Donkey Kong saved Nintendo.
In its early days Nintendo was struggling to find an identity–a game that could bring it the attention it needed to succeed with American gamers and gamers worldwide. And not just enthusiasts, everyone was popping quarters into arcade machines from kids after school to adults getting drunk in the bars after work.
As with any great success story it starts with failure. Nintendo had released a series of arcade machines called “Radarscope.” A game that everyone ignored. Something had to be done to recover the loss of revenue and their reputation.
What did they do? The head of the company handed the assignment of fixing the Radarscope game to a 27 year old who had never programmed a game in his life. That was a good thing. His name was Shigeru Miyamoto and he decided he needed to create a game with characters and a story, not just pixel lasers and explosions.
It seems obvious now that we want our games to have stories, but back then they were still shooting spaceships and steering objects through mazes. Miyamoto was influenced by the comic strip Popeye and the movie King Kong. He came up with a storyline where a carpenter’s pet ape escapes and kidnaps his beloved girlfriend.
And thus the big ape game with the catchy music was born. When it was delivered to United States the sales manager hated it because it was so different. According to this article on GameSpot.com he even quit. The American distributors Ron Judy and Al Stone found the title perplexing and wanted to change it. Fortunately, the Japanese held their ground and the game was released as Donkey Kong.
Now Donkey Kong is a classic and has spawned numerous Mario Bros titles. That sales manager probably still hates the game if he’s alive and is wondering how he could be so wrong about it’s success.
