If you look into the anals of YouTube you may find what has been heralded as the best
video of all time, titled Donkey Kong the story you already knew.
It was created by four sex pots known as treesicle, and (in spite of the title) it was a story
you certainly didn’t know.
However, one might say there was more to that story, and one may be right, or are they?!
In its history video games have gone from being underground to becoming professional
sports.
From being looked at as a toy for little boys to one of the highest grossing entertainment
industries in history.
How did it turn out this way?
Well!
You're going to find out!
But before I dump hot knowledge all over your face neck and chest let us first shamelessly
plug a video we recently put out called Sonic vs. Mario the real truth.
In this video Ryan beautifully articulated the curation of an intellectual property known
simply as diddle, ehem, I mean DONKEY KONG.
An arcade game about some kinky interspecies sex capades and an extremely convoluted architectural
structure.
A game that when looked back upon now seems well, kind of boring.
HOWEVER, IT (AND ITS STAR VILLAIN) may have changed the face of not only video games but
the entire WORLD!
(or just video games) ONE MONKEY (actually it was a couple of monkeys,
a Japanese man and an international toy business) were tied to the fate of millions since before
Jesus was putting the ham to gold old Mary M back in South Central 'Rusalem.
What the hell am I talking about?!
I don’t even know anymore, I was just hanging out back with good old Shigeru Miyamoto and
he told me he'd show me how he came up with this crap in the first place and I was like
"rad" and then stuff got a little weird and I should probably go lie down.
Anyway!
Donkey Kong is a swole monkey with a storied past and he's more important to everything
than you ever imagined.
So sit back, relax, drop trow like no one's around and crack a cold apple juice like it's
Friday and you ain't got no plans.
AND PREPARE YOURSELF for a historical perspective on the greatest of the apes, the coolest of
the Kongs, and what he did to really REALLY mess things up for nintendo.
THIS is the story of Donkey Kong, the OTHER story, you didn't know.
Mmmm, that just doesn’t sound right The story you never knew...again.
Fuck it, the first one was just a meme anyway The story, YOU never knew
The original arcade cabinet for Donkey Kong was released into the wild in 1981 and quickly
became one of the most popular video games, ever.
Back then DK was a bad apel (yes I said it and Tyler laughed so go ahead and leave your
mean comment YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND COMEDY!) he had kidnapped a lady named Pauline which
royally pissed off Jumpman who went to get her back.
It's said that DK and Jumpman were friends before this but that really doesn't matter.
The game sold like crazy and had kids spending their lunch money in the arcades for years.
Naturally a sequel was needed to keep that sweet revenue stream buying Nintendo execs
personal jets so in 1982 the company released Donkey Kong JR, which also did very well.
This game starred JR, and he had to rescue DK from Jumpman who kidnapped him or something.
Real role reversal here.
Then in 1983 came Donkey Kong 3 which starred some rando named Stanley who is upset that
Donkey Kong is hiding in his greenhouse and pissing off the bugs.
Video games were different back then, there wasn’t always a plot, and if there was it
was only used to give you some context of what you were doing.
All of these games were ported all over the place and were extremely popular for the time,
but after DK 3 we didn’t see our monkey friend for a while.
So let us Jumpman ahead to 1994, the year of the donkey!
The year the kongs came back and they came back hard!
Donkey Kong country was released for the Super Nintendo in 1994 and blew everyone's brains
out of their ears.
The franchise had been picked up by a British company named Rare and totally 100% revamped
into something entirely new, as well as something no one had ever seen before.
The Super Nintendo was a powerhouse graphically when it came out, but quick advancements in
technology had it looking not so cool pretty quick...especially in 1994.
To fight this Nintendo came out with the super fx chip which you can see working here in
Starfox to render 3d polygonal shapes.
Starfox was actually a mind blowing graphical leap for the time period, but then, we got
DKC.
Rare wanted to make a game that was as beautiful as it could possibly be on the SNES’s limited
hardware, so they did something ridiculous.
Rare created a technique called advanced computer modelling through the use of silicon graphics
workstations which were basically super computers at the time.
They modelled and created the sprites for games in 3D and did some software wizardry
by creating their own compression technique to allot for more texture and animation than
previously capable on the Super Nintendo.
This was a HUGE financial risk for Rare. to give you an idea, each workstation cost about
$143,000 adjusted for region and inflation.
But it worked, it paid off, and with the fluid, almost flawless gameplay, amazing score and
graphics like no one had ever seen DKC became the third best selling game on the SNES and
is still considered one of the best games of all time according to many games media
outlets.
It starred Donkey Kong JR (that’s right, the DK we know and love is actually Donkey
Kong JR, this is Donkey Kong the years have not been kind).
Along with his little buddy diddy he's out to save his giant banana hoard from the vile
King K. Rool and his army of kremlings.
But who cares?
I could make a theory and tell you how DK is a jungle mob boss who hoards bananas and
makes island critters pay him protection, or that he's an island deity and the bananas
represent the fruit of life which he must protect from the satan figure K. Rool.
But that’d be silly.
Instead, what if I told you something more mind-blowing.
Something that really, truly matters.
What if I told you...Donkey Kong is directly responsible for the modern gaming industry,
in more ways than you could imagine?
I mean, I already told you that earlier but...move over Pac-Man, there's a new pioneer in the
vidya game...sphere...industry...we'll go with industry.
BAM!
The original Donkey Kong arcade cabinet was what truly put Nintendo on the map.
Before entering the world of video games Nintendo was a toy company, particularly specializing
in playing cards.
In the late 70's they began trying out video games and they, well, sucked.
Most of them were clones of other popular games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
But when Shigeru Miyamoto created Donkey Kong, Nintendo finally realized their true potential
as a video game powerhouse.
At the time the home console market was occupied by companies like Atari, Colleco, Intellivision,
and a million other offshoots and knock offs of varying quality.
In 1983 the Japanese Nintendo Famicom launched and along with it a port of Donkey Kong, one
of the first home Nintendo games.
At the same time the console market crashed in the USA creating a hole for someone to
fill.
That someone was Nintendo, and most importantly, Mario, a Donkey Kong character re named and
repurposed after the initial arcade cabinet.
In 1985-1986 the Nintendo Entertainment System ruled the American home console market with
little to no competition, due to the success of Donkey Kong and it's spin off titles, including
Mario.
Donkey Kong was soon ported making Nintendo an additional 69 million dollars, 170 million
adjusted to today.
But that's not it.
Not even close.
Shortly after the rise of Nintendo and the failure of its first mass market home console:
the Master System, Sega churned out its 16 bit Genesis/ Mega Drive; boasting more power
and better graphic fidelity than the NES.
A competitive move which didn’t really work.
It wasn’t until the early 90's when Sega created Sonic to compete with Mario that the
Genesis started to take off creating a competitive and healthy market for video games.
At the same time Atari, Panasonic, Pioneer, Phillips, and many others were either entering
the market or trying their damndest to get a foot in, all because of how much media attention
was going to Nintendo and Sega's little war over bits and graphics.
However in the background what could've been a monumental partnership was already underway
and should have produced the most dominating game console of all time.
In 1988 after talks of creating a brand new CD based console Nintendo and Sony signed
a contract to create a CD add on to the Super Nintendo called...
the Playstation.
However the contract was apparently not what Nintendo was looking for.
A notoriously overly closed doors intercontained company, Nintendo had entered an agreement
giving Sony a large amount of control over software licensing for their new peripheral.
So Nintendo of America secretly struck a deal with Philips during a business trip to Europe,
cutting Sony out of the picture.
In June of 1991 at the consumer electronics show Sony revealed the Nintendo Playstation,
the next day Nintendo revealed they were working with Phillips and not Sony.
This did not go over well at all.
Historically the stupidest thing Nintendo has ever done besides not making a new Animal
Crossing game yet, this contract break created the worst rival the company could possibly
have.
And instead of finding another company to side with, Sony simply took the Playstation
and made it their own console, making an absurd amount of money and splitting the market into
three.
Oh and the Phillips deal Nintendo made...
didn’t go over so well in the end.
In this new era of the console wars the Playstation sold 3 times more than the Nintendo 64.
Not the best.
And Sega, well Sega had one foot in the grave, but then something seemingly awesome happened
for Sega fans.
The company partnered with...
Microsoft?
Yes in 1998 Microsoft announced that it would be partnering with Sega to collaborate as
a development tool for their upcoming Dreamcast system, allowing anyone to use good old Microsoft
CE to create games on the console!
Except no one did, well almost no one, few enough for it not to matter!
However what this did was allow Microsoft the opportunity to take a look into the console
world, learn the ins and outs, take that knowledge, and replace Sega.
The rest is history.
All of this may seem off topic but what’s important to know is that all of these juicy,
businessy happenings were the initial drama that made the video game industry what it
is today.
I can’t believe I just used the word drama.
And all of this happened because of one silly game starring one silly character, Donkey
Kong.
If it wasn't for the money, the press, and the actual quality of the first Donkey Kong
arcade game, Nintendo probably wouldn't have created the Famicom, and definitely not the
NES.
Without the NES, Sega may have never been able to get a foothold in the console market
in America because it was almost completely dead due to many mistakes made by Atari and
others.
Without Sega we wouldn't have Sonic, or more importantly Crazy Taxi!
if there was no Sega it’s unlikely there would've been an Xbox.
If it wasn’t for Nintendo there would simply be no Playstation.
This one monkey has knocked over a series of dominoes and created a million worlds for
us to play in, jobs and careers for people like myself and the rest of the Treesicle
team.
It is because of Donkey Kong that some dude called you a pussy on Call of Duty in 2008
and why you can play Overwatch on PS4 to avoid the cancerous PC community!
Despite many changes to style and format this character is clearly beloved and appreciated
by Nintendo and fans alike dues to the fact that he has appeared on every single Nintendo
console created and sells well too.
So next time you boot up God of War, or whatever horrible first party game the Xbox one has,
remember to thank DK for making it possible to play that shit.
Unless you're an elitist PC master racer - I dunno if DK had an effect on you at all.
Anyway!
That’s the story of Nintendo breaking down the door into America, of graphics that revolutionized
and lended further credibility to video games as art.
That’s the story of the video game industry and how DK helped spark it all.
That’s the story YOU never knew.
And that’s my take on Donkey Kong, I know we usually go into some metaphysical psycho
philosophical shenanigans in these videos, but sometimes strait facts, history, and drawing
a line between them can be just as mind-blowing.
I think it’s incredible how one silly little game could snowball into creating one of the
highest grossing entertainment industries in the world!
Who knows, without DK its possible there would be a lot more arcades around still, just another
fun thing to chew on there.
And speaking of chewing on things, I’ve got a sweet chunk of info for you!
Did you know that this video, the one you’re watching right now..is sponsored by Swagbucks?!?!?
You do now!
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Just click the link in the description, and start earning extra moolah and gift cards
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It’s that easy!
And of course thanks to Swagbucks for sponsoring this video.
It’s because of kick ass sponsors like them who support the channel that we’re able
to make the high quality time intensive content we do.
So click on that link in the description, make some money, and support us in the process!
Whew, DK, free money, free giftcards, thats a hell of a video guys.
I think I’m all out of juice for today, so I’ll see you guys in the next one!
Bye!