Donkey Kong
is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. It follows the adventures of Donkey Kong, a large, powerful gorilla, and other members of the Kong family of apes. Donkey Kong games include the original arcade game trilogy by Nintendo R&D1; the Donkey Kong Country series by Rare and Retro Studios; and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series by Nintendo Software Technology. Various studios have developed spin-offs in genres such as edutainment, puzzle, racing, and rhythm. The franchise also incorporates animation, printed media, theme parks, and merchandise.
Miyamoto designed the original 1981 Donkey Kong to repurpose unsold arcade cabinets following the failure of Radar Scope. It was a major success and was followed by the sequels Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3. Nintendo placed the franchise on a hiatus as it shifted focus to the spin-off Mario franchise. Rare's 1994 reboot, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Donkey Kong Country, reestablished Donkey Kong as a major Nintendo franchise. Rare developed Donkey Kong games for the SNES, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64 until it was acquired by Microsoft in 2002; subsequent games were developed by Nintendo, Retro Studios, Namco and Paon. After Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, the franchise went on another hiatus, which ended with Donkey Kong Bananza.
The main Donkey Kong games are platformers in which the player must reach the end of a level. Donkey Kong appears as the antagonist or protagonist; his role alternates between games. The original games featured a small cast of characters, including Donkey Kong, Mario, and Pauline. Rare's games expanded the cast with friendly Kongs alongside the Kremlings, an army of antagonistic crocodiles led by Donkey Kong's nemesis King K. Rool. Mario, the protagonist of the 1981 game, became Nintendo's mascot and the star of the Mario franchise, and Donkey Kong characters appear in Mario games such as Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Mario Tennis. Donkey Kong characters also feature in crossover games such as Mario & Sonic and Super Smash Bros.
Outside of video games, the franchise includes the animated series Donkey Kong Country, a themed area in Super Nintendo World at Universal's theme parks, soundtrack albums, and Lego construction toys. Donkey Kong is one of Nintendo's bestselling franchises, with more than 65 million copies sold by 2021. The original game was Nintendo's first major international success; it rescued Nintendo of America from a financial crisis, and established it as a prominent force in the video game industry. The franchise has pioneered or popularized concepts such as in-game storytelling and pre-rendered graphics, inspired other games, and influenced popular culture.
History
1981–1982: Conception and first game
In the late 1970s, the Japanese company Nintendo shifted its focus from producing toys and playing cards to arcade games. This followed the 1973 oil crisis, which increased the cost of manufacturing toys, and the success of Taito's arcade game Space Invaders. In 1980, Nintendo released Radar Scope, a Space Invaders-style shoot 'em up. It was a commercial failure and put the newly established subsidiary Nintendo of America in a financial crisis. Its founder, Minoru Arakawa, asked his father in-law, Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, to provide a new game that could repurpose the unsold Radar Scope cabinets. Most of Nintendo's top developers were preoccupied, so the task went to Shigeru Miyamoto, a first-time game designer.Supervised by Gunpei Yokoi, Miyamoto settled on a love triangle with the characters Bluto, Popeye, and Olive Oyl from the Popeye franchise, but a licensing deal between Nintendo and King Features fell through. Bluto evolved into a gorilla, an animal Miyamoto said was "nothing too evil or repulsive". He was named Donkey Kong—donkey to convey stubborn and kong to imply gorilla. Popeye became Mario, the new protagonist, while Olive Oyl became Pauline, the damsel in distress. Miyamoto cited the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" and the 1933 film King Kong as influences.
Donkey Kong was one of the earliest platform games, with players controlling Mario as he ascends a construction site to rescue Pauline from Donkey Kong. Whereas previous platform games focused on climbing, Miyamoto placed an emphasis on jumping to avoid obstacles and cross gaps. He envisioned something akin to a playable comic strip that unfolded across multiple levels with unique scenarios. This was uncommon in contemporary arcade games, which typically featured a single scenario that repeated. As he lacked programming expertise, Miyamoto consulted technicians on whether his ideas were possible. Four programmers from Ikegami Tsushinki spent three months turning Miyamoto's design into a finished game.
Although Miyamoto's team was told it would be a failure, Donkey Kong became Nintendo's first major international success upon its release in July 1981. The windfall gain rescued Nintendo of America from its financial crisis and established it as a prominent brand in America. Donkey Kong achieved further success in 1982, when Nintendo released a Game & Watch adaptation and licensed it to Coleco for ports to home consoles. It grossed $4.4 billion across various platforms, making it one of the highest-grossing games of all time. In 1982, Universal City Studios filed a lawsuit alleging Donkey Kong violated its trademark of King Kong. The lawsuit failed when Nintendo's lawyer, Howard Lincoln, discovered that Universal had won a lawsuit in 1976 by declaring that King Kong was actually in the public domain.
1982–1994: Sequels and first hiatus
Miyamoto and his team used game mechanics and levels that could not be included in Donkey Kong as the basis for a sequel. Miyamoto wanted to make Donkey Kong the protagonist, but the sprite graphic was too big to easily maneuver, so he created a new character, Donkey Kong Jr. The team still wanted Donkey Kong on top of the screen, so they conceived a plot in which Mario had caged him and Donkey Kong Jr. had to save him. To develop Donkey Kong Jr., Nintendo reverse-engineered Ikegami's Donkey Kong code, making it the first game that Nintendo developed without outside help. Following Donkey Kong Jr. release, Ikegami sued Nintendo for copyright infringement. In 1990, the Tokyo High Court ruled in favor of Ikegami, and the companies reached a settlement.Donkey Kong 3, released in 1983, features shooter gameplay that departs from its predecessors. Instead of Mario, the player controls Stanley, an exterminator from the Game & Watch game Green House, who must fend off Donkey Kong and a swarm of bees. Also in 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom, known worldwide as the Nintendo Entertainment System, in Japan; two of the three launch games were ports of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. The early library also included Donkey Kong Jr. Math, an edutainment game based on Donkey Kong Jr., while Hudson Soft developed the Japan exclusive Donkey Kong 3: The Great Counterattack for NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-6601, and Sharp X1. Donkey Kong 3 and Donkey Kong Jr. Math were commercial failures. Donkey Kong Jr. Math was intended to launch a line of educational games, but its poor sales led to the cancellation of these plans. Bruce Lowry, Nintendo of America's vice president of sales at the time, later called it "the worst game we ever sold".
Sega obtained the license to develop a game featuring a playable Donkey Kong as a parking attendant, but it was canceled after a management buyout from Gulf and Western Industries in 1984. Donkey Kong went on an extended hiatus, while the spin-off Mario franchise found success on the NES, cementing Mario as Nintendo's mascot. Donkey Kong's appearances were limited to cameos in unrelated games. Nintendo staff began discussing a Donkey Kong revival as the original game's tenth anniversary approached in 1991. They were unable to start a new game at the time, so they included Donkey Kong Jr. as a playable character in Super Mario Kart. However, the discussions led to the production of the Game Boy game Donkey Kong, the first original Donkey Kong game in ten years. It features Mario as the player character and begins as a remake of the 1981 game before introducing over 100 puzzle-platforming levels that incorporate elements from Donkey Kong Jr. and Super Mario Bros. 2.
The 1987 Official Nintendo Player's Guide advertised a Donkey Kong revival for the NES, Return of Donkey Kong, which was never released. In the early 1990s, Philips obtained the license to use five Nintendo characters, including Donkey Kong, in games for the CD-i format. Philips contracted Riedel Software Productions to make a CD-i Donkey Kong game; it was developed between 1992 and 1993, but canceled. The 2020 Nintendo data leak included a prototype for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island featuring a protagonist who resembles Stanley. Its title, Super Donkey, suggested that Yoshi's Island began as a Donkey Kong game before it was altered to star the Mario character Yoshi.
1994–1996: Rare and ''Donkey Kong Country''
Around 1992, Rare, a British developer founded by the brothers Tim and Chris Stamper, purchased Silicon Graphics, Inc. Challenge workstations with Alias rendering software to render 3D models. The move made Rare the most technologically advanced UK developer and situated them high in the international market. Rare began experimenting with using the technology in a boxing game. At the time, Nintendo was embroiled in a console war with Sega, whose Genesis competed with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo wanted a game to compete with Sega's Aladdin, which features graphics by Disney animators. Lincoln, who became a Nintendo of America executive following the Universal lawsuit, learned of Rare's SGI experiments during a trip to Europe.After impressing Nintendo with a demonstration, Tim Stamper suggested developing a platform game that used pre-rendered 3D graphics. Nintendo granted the Stampers permission to use the Donkey Kong intellectual property; some sources indicate that the Stampers obtained the license after Nintendo offered them its catalog of characters and they chose Donkey Kong, though the designer Gregg Mayles recalled that it was Nintendo that requested a Donkey Kong game. Nintendo figured licensing Donkey Kong posed minimal risk due to the franchise's dormancy. Rare's reboot, Donkey Kong Country, features side-scrolling gameplay that Mayles based on the Super Mario series. It was the first Donkey Kong game neither directed nor produced by Miyamoto, though he provided support and contributed design ideas.
Donkey Kong Country was one of the first games for a mainstream home video game console to use pre-rendered graphics, achieved through a compression technique that allowed Rare to convert 3D models into SNES sprites with little loss of detail. Because Donkey Kong did not have much of an established universe, Rare was free to expand it, introducing Donkey Kong's sidekick Diddy Kong and the antagonistic Kremlings. After 18 months of development, Donkey Kong Country was released in November 1994 to acclaim, with critics hailing its visuals as groundbreaking. It was a major success, selling 9.3 million copies and becoming the third-bestselling SNES game. It reestablished Donkey Kong as a major Nintendo franchise and heralded Donkey Kong's transition from villain to hero. Miyamoto felt Rare had "breathed new life into" Donkey Kong and demonstrated that it could be trusted with the franchise. Following the success, Nintendo purchased a large minority stake in Rare.
Rare began developing concepts for a Donkey Kong Country sequel during production, and Nintendo green-lit the project immediately after the success. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, released in 1995, features Diddy rescuing a kidnapped Donkey Kong and introduces Diddy's girlfriend Dixie Kong. It was designed to be less linear and more challenging, with a theme reflecting Mayles' fascination with pirates. Diddy's Kong Quest was a critical success and is the sixth-bestselling SNES game. Following Diddy's Kong Quest, the Donkey Kong Country team split in two, with one half working on Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!. Dixie Kong's Double Trouble features Dixie and a new character, Kiddy Kong, as the protagonists, and incorporates 3D-esque gameplay and Zelda-inspired role-playing elements. Although it was released late in the SNES's lifespan and after the launch of the Nintendo 64, Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! sold well.