The saviour of video games = Popeye the sailor man?!

[Lee]

What the fuck Lee are you insane? Popeye the sailor man saved video games? You fool...

Hear me out, lets look! The video games crash of the early 80s caused the second generation of games consoles to come to an abrupt end, video games was an almost dead medium in North America, certainly in Europe. However there was something going on over in a place called Japan.

Step forward the Nintendo corporation and their young man Shigeru Miyamoto. Nintendo had previously attempted to break into the NA market and failed drastically with the Radar Scope, so they stepped up and decided to make a game based on the famous Popeye the sailor man. Here they would have Bluto kidnap Olive Oyl and Popeye climb some ladders to rescue her, however the license deal fell through. The decision by Nintendo was to then change the characters...Bluto became and ape, Olive Oyl became Pauline and Popeye became a carpenter dressed in red of Italian descent who was eventually named Mario.

This game opened the doors for Nintendo in NA, with that came the NES and Sega did the same. This was a huge boom period for video games and has gone down as the game to save the industry.

What do you guys think? Is the Popeye mistake the saviour of video games, or would it have been saved in due course?

 

[The Doctor]

Personally, I don't think it can all go to Popeye. The Popeye licence was just (what would have been) a superficial coating on a great game. However, the licence is what made Nintendo make the game, so you have to give him some credit.

Really, though, it's not the licence but the game based on the licence. I'm sure it would have happened eventually. Popeye just sped it up a bit.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I see the point you're making Lee, and it's a really good one.... but I don't think Popeye can really be called the savior of video games. The game got changed into what we now know as Donkey Kong, the Popeye game never happened. I'd say that it was Mario Bros 1 on the NES that saved gaming. You had to look really far to find someone who didn't own and/or like paying that game. Plus.... it sold 40 million copies, many of which were bundled in with the NES itself, which means that tons of people got an NES just to play Mario. No game that came before it came close to being as big of a success. While the idea for the Popeye game might have left the door open for future success, you can't count an idea as saving an industry since that is pure coincidence. Mario Bros 1 on the NES is what saved video games because of how big of an impact it truly made in sales and making games more mainstream at the time.

 

[Lee]

I see the point you're making Lee, and it's a really good one.... but I don't think Popeye can really be called the savior of video games. The game got changed into what we now know as Donkey Kong, the Popeye game never happened. I'd say that it was Mario Bros 1 on the NES that saved gaming. You had to look really far to find someone who didn't own and/or like paying that game. Plus.... it sold 40 million copies, many of which were bundled in with the NES itself, which means that tons of people got an NES just to play Mario. No game that came before it came close to being as big of a success. While the idea for the Popeye game might have left the door open for future success, you can't count an idea as saving an industry since that is pure coincidence. Mario Bros 1 on the NES is what saved video games because of how big of an impact it truly made in sales and making games more mainstream at the time.

You've missed 100% the point of this thread. Think of it for a moment...if Nintendo hadn't have been working on the Popeye game there would be no Donkey Kong and no Mario. The point is that paramount saying no you can't have the license was the best thing to happen to video games EVER. This domino like effect essentially saved the industry, all down to the best mistake to happen since Alexander Flemming found some mould!

 

[Dagger Dias]

You've missed 100% the point of this thread. Think of it for a moment...if Nintendo hadn't have been working on the Popeye game there would be no Donkey Kong and no Mario. The point is that paramount saying no you can't have the license was the best thing to happen to video games EVER. This domino like effect essentially saved the industry, all down to the best mistake to happen since Alexander Flemming found some mould!

I still disagree. Yes, the Popeye game becoming "Donkey Kong" eventually led to the creation of the Mario series.... but the reason I don't think that's what saved games is because a game similar to Mario Bros 1 could still have come out even if the Popeye game remained a Popeye game. For example, let's pretend that the Popeye game came out in the same form as it's original idea. That means no Mario series as we know it today.... but someone back then had come up with the storyline, gameplay, and characters of the Mario Bros series. That person, or group of people, could still have gotten together and made something very similar to Mario Bros 1, which would still have been fun and enjoyable for all, and very likely still would have sold in millions, making video games mainstream the way Mario Bros 1 did in real life. Regardless of whether we agree or not, the Popeye game becoming Donkey Kong is still very interesting trivia for gamers, most probably don't know about it.

 

[Dave]

I agree with Lee on this one to an extent.

Sure, Nintendo was going to take on Popeye and create a series of games with him as the focal character. After that failed, they created Mario and we all know how it went from there. Mario is undoubtedly the most influential games character in the world and has been for decades. Nintendo really broke the mould when they created him and he has since been the saviour of the Nintendo brand. They rely so heavily on him it is scary and there is around 2-3 Mario games released in a year that people just lap up. I definitely think that Popeye was the saviour of Nintendo but not the saviour of the video games world. In my opinion, Nintendo would have kept on until they found a character that would have been successful for them. It turns out that they got lucky and stumbled onto Mario but I think they would have gotten there without Popeye.

The real saviour of the video games industry was the competition that was created. I know you could argue that Mario was the only reason that the competition was there but I don't see it that way. Mario was a smash and the other competitors needed to match that. As they say, it takes two to tango and I think that the competition that was created in North America was the real saviour.

 

[ABMorales787]

I agree. But I wouldn't give all the credit to Popeye, or Nintendo. There's also Pac Man, Galaga and a few others that helped. At least in their own way. However its thanks to Mario that the home consoles grew so big in success. Without Popeye, there would probably never have been a Mario.

 

[Tastycles]

While the Popeye mould is obviously what made this specific game great, Miyamoto has proven that he is anything but a one trick pony in the time since then. I'd say a bigger saviour was actually the total failure of the radar scope. The fact it bombed put Nintendo in the spot where they had to take a risk, and they did so in Miyamoto.Popeye may have given the three way dynamic, but the barrels, girders and ladders came from Shigsy's (thank you N64 magazine) mind and that was what made the game playable.