Similar to how movies premiered in theaters, video games were born in the arcade.īut as video games themselves evolved, so did the marketing strategies around them, and nothing was more successful than having a recognizable brand, especially if that brand was centered around a mascot. While home video games existed almost as long as the medium in general, by the mid-1970s a standard had been set. It may be hard to imagine, but there was a time when playing video games at home was a relatively novel concept. (We hope to do a Donkey Kong retrospective someday, but whoo boy is THAT a big undertaking, especially in the early days!) But back to this, we are not only looking at the games themselves, but the historical context surrounding them, and what it was like being a fan as these games were being released.ĭid you enjoy this? Check out more Stone Age Gamer: Archeology! Transcript of the video This also means that aside from the character's arcade origins, no Donkey Kong games will be covered.

This means no Kart, Tennis, Dr., or any of that. As the overall Mario franchise is impossibly large, doing a complete retrospective on the character's career would be a herculean task, so the focus of this series is going to remain on games that derived in some way from the Mario Bros. series as it unfolded for North American audiences. In this series, we aim to tell the story of the Mario Bros. retrospective! In our first episode, we cover the origins of Mario, and how he evolved from a carpenter chasing a giant ape in Donkey Kong, through his various early day careers including factory worker, demolitions expert, and of course, plumber.

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