After more than 135 years since its establishment, it's hard to imagine Nintendo without Mario or Zelda or even the Switch consoles that have become some of the most successful platforms in the history of the industry. But the truth is that the company we know today might not have become this big without one game released in the early 1980s that completely changed its course, which is Donkey Kong. Here is an article about the game that built Nintendo and changed the gaming industry forever.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a company specializing in traditional Japanese Hanafuda cards, and for decades it remained far from the world of electronic gaming as we know it today. Throughout its journey, the company tried various fields, from simple games to some other business projects, but it did not yet possess the identity that eventually made it one of the largest entertainment companies in the world.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nintendo was searching for a genuine opportunity that would allow it to compete with major companies in the rapidly growing gaming market. This is when the name of the young designer Shigeru Miyamoto appeared, who got the opportunity to design a new arcade game that would later become the most important turning point in the company's history.
In 1981, Donkey Kong was released, and it was not just a successful game; it quickly turned into a real phenomenon in arcades around the world, opening doors for Nintendo that had not been available before.
Donkey Kong may seem like a simple game today when compared to modern titles, but its impact was exceptional by all standards.
The game introduced the character Jumpman, a worker trying to save a kidnapped girl from the grip of the giant gorilla Donkey Kong. Over time, Jumpman transformed into the character we know today as Mario, who became the official face of Nintendo and one of the most famous entertainment characters in history.
The game also saw the first appearance of the character Pauline, along with Donkey Kong himself, who later became one of the company's most prominent franchises.
For Nintendo, these were not just characters in an arcade game; they were the beginning of building a whole world of characters and franchises that would accompany the company for decades.
The importance of Donkey Kong was not limited to just introducing Mario, but it also helped lay the groundwork for the first platform game types.
The idea of jumping between platforms, using ladders, overcoming obstacles, and moving toward a final goal became an essential part of the design of dozens of games that appeared later, including the Super Mario Bros. series.
Although there were games that preceded it in some concepts, Donkey Kong was one of the first games to present this style in a complete way, which is what made it regarded by many as one of the games that contributed to shaping the identity of modern gaming.
With the huge popularity that the game achieved in arcades, Nintendo began to realize that it had a greater opportunity than just a temporary commercial success.
This success pushed the company to invest more in the home console market, launching the Family Computer or Famicom in Japan in 1983, which later transformed into the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in global markets.
The NES is considered one of the most important consoles in the history of the industry, playing a key role in reviving the gaming market after the 1983 crisis that almost wiped out the sector entirely in North America.
It’s hard to imagine the success of the NES as we later knew it without the enormous popularity that Donkey Kong achieved, which gave Nintendo the confidence and resources necessary to expand in this way.
More than four decades after its release, the effects of Donkey Kong are still evident in everything Nintendo does.
From Mario and Donkey Kong Country to movies, amusement parks, and various products featuring the company’s characters, it can be said that a large part of the modern Nintendo empire can be traced back to that 1981 game.
For this reason, Donkey Kong is not just regarded as a successful classic game, but as one of the most influential works in gaming history.