The Gaming Historian - Donkey Kong

When you think Nintendo, what is the first character that comes to your mind? Fox McCloud? Link? Kirby? Of course not. Mario comes to mind. Mario is the title character for Nintendo, and easily the most recognized video game character of all time. He has appeared in over 200 video games, and his debut was in the Nintendo arcade game known as Donkey Kong. Yeah, Donkey Kong! Most gamers today know who Donkey Kong is. He has appeared in numerous platform and party games, including Super Smash Bros and Mario Party. But his beginnings in the early 1980's in the arcades saved Nintendo as a company and established them as the leading video game company today.

During the late 70's and early 80's, arcade games were a huge market. Space Invaders even caused a coin shortage in Japan. Japanese companies such as Taito and Namco also made alot of money selling arcade cabinets to Americans. One of these companies was Nintendo. Nintendo was founded September 23rd, 1889 as a card gaming company. During the age of video games however, they saw a huge opportunity in electronic based games. Their first game to hit US shores was Radarscope. It was the 2nd most popular game in Japan (right behind Pac Man), but a huge dissapointment in North America. Out of 3,000 radarscope machines, only about 1,000 sold. Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo, was baffled as to how to break into the US Market. He wanted to make something that would appeal specifically to American audiences. Luckily, he had just hired a young college student who had just received his degree in industrial design. Shigeru Miyamoto.

Miyamoto was asked to design a new arcade game and he happily agreed. He began by doing something that had never been done before in an arcade game...he wrote a story. It's nothing elaborate like a final fantasy game or anything, but the story goes that a carpenter has been mistreating his pet gorilla. To get revenge, the Gorilla escapes from his master, kidnaps the carpenters girlfriend, and begins climbing a construction site. Miyamoto was inspired by several things. One was popeye. Donkey Kong is Bluto, Olive Oil is Pauline, and Popeye is Jumpman. Both are trying to hang on to the girl, and the whole love triangle was very similar. He also took some inspiration from King Kong, as far as kidnapping a girl and climbing a building. Thus, Donkey Kong was born.....well what exactly is a Donkey Kong? Remember, this game was being made specifically for the American audience in mind. Miyamoto chose the name "Stubborn Gorilla", based on the way the gorilla acted in the game. Looking through a thesaurus, two synonyms came to Miyamoto. Donkey for Stubbon, and Kong for Gorilla. Thus...we have Donkey Kong.

Yamauchi was excited about this new title. He immediately notified Minoru Arakawa, head of operations for Nintendo in North America. The timing could not have been better. Arakawa was close to bankruptcy and could hardly pay the rent for the Nintendo warehouse in New Jersey. The landlord of the warehouse, Mario Segale, visited Arakawa to demand his late rent. After some harsh words, Segale was promised the money would come soon. Segale was also immortalized in this moment. Soon after, Jumpman was renamed to Mario. So Donkey Kong was finally coming to the United States. However, two distributors for Nintendo, Ron Judy and Al Stone, were a little worried. Radar Scope was a disaster, and they were risking their future on a game named Donkey Kong. But they soon visited their lawyer, Howard Lincoln, to get the name Trademarked. Howard Lincolns' response was one of awkwardness "Pardon me, what was that? Donkey Kong? How do you spell that?"

What happened next, changed everything for Nintendo. Arakawa decided to test their new game. He placed a Donkey Machine in two bars in the Seattle Area, Goldies and The Spot Tavern. The machines easily raked in 30 dollars per day, so the managers asked for more machines. The game was a hit. Remember those 2,000 radarscope machines that never sold? Nintendo converted them into Donkey Kong Machines, saving them both money and time. Orders were soon pouring in over the new Donkey Kong game. Nintendo went from almost bankrupt to millionaires seemingly overnight. Howard Lincoln soon received a call from Nintendo. He expected them to ask for help with filing bankruptcy, but instead, they asked Lincoln for help in protecting all of their money.Overall, Nintendo sold over 67,000 cabinets.

The rest as they say, is history. Donkey Kong ended up appearing in a few sequels such as Donkey Kong Junior, and Donkey Kong 3. In 1994, Rare took the Donkey Kong name and made a platformer out of it. This is where we get the Donkey Kong we know of today.

Thanks for tuning in for another installment of The Gaming Historian. If you have any topics you would like me to cover, please email me, gameflop@gmail.com.