It would be difficult to start any conversation on the best games ever made without mentioning Super Mario Bros. So much has already been said regarding Nintendo’s flagship title, it's honestly hard to find an angle to talk about. It is clear that any review about it will praise it as a benchmark of gameplay, design, and ushering in a new wave for an impressionable millennial audience. Yes, this game is already getting a perfect score, but one question that can be asked regarding the legacy of this popular title: “Why?” Why was the game so successful, and why was this game, above its contemporaries, able to stand the test of time.
The answer, to me, stems from the overall design and marketing of Super Mario Bros. that few truly explore. The importance and impact the game had on both gaming culture and business has never truly waned, with over 40 years of cultural relevance in the gaming industry. We know Super Mario Bros. as the archetypal platforming experience, with smooth controls, colorful visuals, imaginative design and world building, all of this has been analyzed to death for reviews.
Often, what defines a classic is more than just a video game being really good though that certainly helps. Sometimes the external factors need to be in play for a good game to become a legendary game. Super Mario Bros. became that legendary game not just due to its visuals or gameplay, but the practices of a game company that wisely used the tools available to them at the time to achieve this lasting impact.
As a successor to the 1983 arcade title Mario Bros., developers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka decided to design a game for the Nintendo Famicom system in Japan that would serve as their swan song for the machine. It is important to note that by the mid-1980s, Nintendo was beginning to focus on the at the time new Famicom Disk System, a gaming console that would have played floppy disks instead of cartridges. The goal was, in Miyamoto’s words, to create “a game that fully utilized the Famicom hardware.”
The initial design for the game would involve the character of Mario in a side-scrolling shooter, as revealed in an Iwata Ask's piece in 2010. While the original plan for Super Mario Bros. was more action-heavy, some aspects of the design remain intact in the game we know today. Most notable would be the background design, which was purposely rendered to push the limitations of the Famicom system. The diorama-like feel of the screen scrolling with bright character sprites allowed them to "pop" in both light and dark backdrops, which was unusual for the time as pure black backgrounds were commonplace to save memory.
Miyamoto and Tezuka would shift gears on the project, focusing on the jumping mechanics and the idea of “multiple lives” per try as a new gameplay aspect in an attempt to mimic a coin-op arcade experience. Through this, the shooting controls were partially scrapped; with the only remnant being the fire flower attack. Running and jumping was redesigned to simulate Mario having a bit of weight and drag in-game, and the entire control scheme was made simpler and more accessible. Added into the game were mushrooms that allow Mario to grow, effectively giving the player two lives per try instead of one.
Some have argued that Super Mario Bros. has no real imaginative theme other than the video game logic of enemies, powerups, and level clearing to get to the next stage. Design wise though, the game is quite tight and very meticulous in how it unfurls its world to the player. The placement of mushrooms, enemies, and question blocks became important for that design to stick out.
Miyamoto has stated in interviews that the team purposefully used the game's level design, block and enemy placement to help train the player into the basics of the game's mechanics. The first in-game mushroom, for example, was designed to be difficult to avoid, so the player can experience the gameplay mechanics naturally, along with the visual representation of extra lives through the growth of Mario's sprite. The entire first level of Super Mario Bros. is essentially a tutorial of the entire game, purposely training the player.
Super Mario Bros. had several innovations like this to its game design. The doubling up on lives was just one aspect that allowed more longevity for players, especially those used to playing arcade platformers that were predominantly “one-hit death” games. Also building upon the variety of the stages in Donkey Kong, Miyamoto wanted to create unique worlds that felt both large and impressive for his audience. Through this, Miyamoto and Tezuka perfected the scrolling screen mechanics as a major aspect of the game, giving players a sense of size and distance to reach their goal instead of static, unchanging screens. They also used the graphical strengths of their hardware to squeeze out level types, from interior caves and castles to water levels, providing enough variety in design and format for players to experience.
If there is one complaint that can be laid to Super Mario Bros. today, it is that it is a solved game. Every secret warp, every hidden star, every trick in the book has been analyzed to death in the forty years since its release. For a lot of older players, the sense of child-like wonder is gone because they are so familiar with what to do. For challenge purists, speedrunners, and others, it is another old game worth playing for the accolades of completing it. It may be simple by today's standards, but Super Mario Bros. would be perfected by Nintendo several times, both in 2-D and 3-D form, making the first major entry classic, yet primitive by any modern metric.
Still, it is a game that has aged like fine wine. The design changes to Super Mario Bros. were critically important as they would help the game achieve great success once it was released. Focusing on making jumping feel both weighty and precise allowed Nintendo to capitalize on their hardware limitations and improve other aspects of the games design. Super Mario Bros. was to be released in North America in the Summer of 1985, but Miyamoto had the title delayed for three weeks to polish the game and add new features. The delay also coincided with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which was Nintendo’s attempt at entering the American market after the Video Game Crash of 1983.
The Video Game Crash of 1983 is an infamous time in gaming history. Gaming folklore attributes the massive failures of Atari titles, such as the console release Pac-Man or the colossal failure of E.T., as root causes, but they are symptoms of the bigger problem. In truth, the Crash of 1983 is really an issue of saturation and the bubble bursting; there were too many gaming consoles; there were terrible, barely playable games being made, and combined with poor business decisions by the CEOs of companies, such as Atari, all contributed to the collapse. To put it in perspective, in 1983 revenue sales were roughly $3.2 billion. By 1985, the revenue for video games would drop to $100 million, roughly 97% less than it was two years prior.
Due to the “dead” market in North America, Nintendo had a hard time convincing stores to carry the NES system. The declining market also prompted then Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi to create their now infamous software licensing program, and the “Nintendo Seal of Quality” brand on each box. Realizing that a game system is no longer an option though, Nintendo had to pivot to a new way to market the NES game console, and found one avenue that worked.
Famously, Nintendo marketed the NES as an entertainment package - essentially, a toy - in order to ease retailers that were afraid to carry another random gaming console. Because the Video Game Crash of 1983 primarily affected North America, Nintendo changed its marketing strategy to reflect this view of the “entertainment system” for consumers, delaying the release of the full launch of the NES to 1986. This also gave them time to soft launch the system in New York in the Summer of 1985 and partnering with a toy company, Worlds of Wonder, to help market their “entertainment package” in the first year.
The primary way to ease retailers' fears was to bundle the systems with extra accessories; the most famous of which was R.O.B the Robot. R.O.B. was used as a mascot in the early days of the console’s life and was enough of a toy to allow retailers to carry three different bundles of the NES system in their stores. The first was a bare system for $89.99. The Deluxe Set included R.O.B. and the game Gyromite, as well as two zappers and the game Duck Hunt, for $139.
As for Super Mario Bros., it was released around October of 1985 by most sources, and immediately began gaining traction as a key game for the NES. By 1988 the R.O.B the Robot bundle was quietly phased out in favor of the “Action Set,” which included a zapper and the dual Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridge for $149, which for millions of consumers was the original way players first played Super Mario Bros. There is one more bundle that was released for $99, which included the NES system and a lone copy of Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo’s decision to bundle the game alone with the system also helped boost the sales of not only the system but the popularity of Mario as a whole. It was good business sense to have such a hit game as an essentially free demo of what the system brings to the table, providing a high quality game for players to sink their teeth into. Super Mario Bros. held the record of most games sold until Nintendo pulled the same trick with Wii Sports, with an estimated 40 million copies sold on the NES alone.
This is ultimately the answer to the question "Why?" The sly business sense of Nintendo coupled with polished game design set the stage for an experience that was inescapable, catapulting the game to massive success and massive appeal. The NES and Super Mario Bros. are often credited for the revival of the gaming console market, but it truly was the perfect storm of circumstances, with all the cards falling in place for Nintendo to be a success in 1985. The lasting legacy of Super Mario Bros. can be surmised as many things, but the longevity and care Nintendo has for its flagship franchise shines through even today. It is more than just good game design - it is coupled with good business sense to allow the game design to flourish with consumers worldwide.
Authors Note: Parts of this review are from an editorial feature, re-worked into a review format. The original feature is currently found on TechRaptor.