Interesting article about Donkey Kong's development

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Glowsquid

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Back in 2011, gaming business site Gamasutra published an article about a little-known fact on Donkey Kong's development history: Due to a dearth of experienced programmer at NOA, Nintendo hired another (uncredited) development team to program the game. Nintendo later broke the term of the contract with said company and were sued over reverse-engineering the arcade DK code for Donkey Kong. Jr.

Nintendo hired another contractor called Iwasaki Engineering to disassemble and reverse engineer Donkey Kong so that Nintendo could add new graphics, stages, and mechanics for a sequel. This time, the nature of the agreement was clear to both sides from the start, and would turn out to be a long and fruitful partnership. As Nintendo established its internal R&D, many members of Iwasaki would join its ranks. Before long, Nintendo was developing hit games completely on its own. [...]

But for all its very original ideas, Donkey Kong Jr. was still built on code reverse engineered from the original game -- code that was already the center of a copyright dispute. In 1983, Ikegami Tsushinki filed a ¥580 million copyright infringement suit (about $8.7 million adjusted for exchange rates and inflation) over both Donkey Kong and its sequel.

The legal battle dragged on for years, long after Ikegami left the game development business. In 1990 a court ruled that Nintendo did not have the rights to Donkey Kong's code, and the two companies settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. With the case settled and Ikegami long gone from the gaming business, little is said about Miyamoto's anonymous collaborators and the role they played in one of gaming's most important titles.
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This goes on to explain why the arcade version has yet to be rereleased and why the recent "Original Edition" went through the seemingly pointless process of recreating the cut arcade content with the NES assets. It's also an interesting (and less-than-flattering) factoid about one of the most important game history, so figure I might as well share it.
 
All I can say that this is interesting, and nice light that has been shed on this
 
Fascinating.

I also liked the irony of how "characters and story were fundamental to Miyamoto's vision" (even going so far as to tell the story from DK's POV in the sequel), whereas now the strategy is to keep the plot and characters linear and flat so as not to get in the way of simply enjoying the gameplay - although on the other hand, that principle of having a game built around a colourful little story hasn't actually changed, it just seems simple now, whereas back then it was innovative relative to your average game.

Sorta a side-bar to the main story about the programming kerfuffles, but still interesting to consider.
 
Walkazo said:
Fascinating.

I also liked the irony of how "characters and story were fundamental to Miyamoto's vision" (even going so far as to tell the story from DK's POV in the sequel), whereas now the strategy is to keep the plot and characters linear and flat so as not to get in the way of simply enjoying the gameplay - although on the other hand, that principle of having a game built around a colourful little story hasn't actually changed, it just seems simple now, whereas back then it was innovative relative to your average game.

Sorta a side-bar to the main story about the programming kerfuffles, but still interesting to consider.
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It's not really irony. I think the context needs to be considered because during that time, there was absolutely no story being told in most video games, so Donkey Kong is one of the first games that did that. Maybe you already stated that, but I'll say this anyway.
 
Walkazo said:
I also liked the irony of how "characters and story were fundamental to Miyamoto's vision" - on the other hand, that principle of having a game built around a colourful little story hasn't actually changed, it just seems simple now, whereas back then it was innovative relative to your average game.
Sorta a side-bar to the main story about the programming kerfuffles, but still interesting to consider.
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The original "story" and cast are somewhat difficult for Nintendo to develop. There was DK Jr, who isn't really a well-designed being compared to the young kongs in current canon. Additionally, a marriage relationship of a hero would be difficult for plot writers (but it is aliitle debatable, because most plot writers want their hero to be single and have love interests from time to time and it's not a positive thing).

Stanley and Pauline are also problems if Nintendo have to make DK a hero and future DK games have to focus on a non-human nature. Pauline is the only other character to be revised in Mario main series, for the reason that she can easily fit in a new Marioverse canon, though her own story isn't clear enough for now.

But when it comes to the Mario main series, it's totally a joke for Miyamoto indeed.

The other thing I care about is whether other current Mario or Nintendo characters or games have the same legal issue (Geno? No), which could lead to some problems such as a character only made one appearance, or a potential game was forced to transfer to another company.
 
Dorayaki said:
hero to be single and have love interests from time to time.
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Married / people who aren't single people can have love interest too
 
Bumping in case someone find this thread through google search: There's been a new development today that will be interesting to vidyas historians. A site devoted to finding obscure credits in video games has found there's a Japanese magazine article that mentiosn the name of the Ikegami Tsushinki employees involved in Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong was programmed by Hirohisa Komanome, Minoru Iinuma, Mitsuhiro Nishida, and Yasuhiro Murata, under section chief Masayo Oka.
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Wow, sort of reminds me of the previous top arcade game, PacMan, where Ms Pacman (and PacMan Plus and Jr Pacman) were unauthorized sequels by some other programmer.

Didn't know any of that until much later.
 
It's a very interesting read alright. One that I can't believe I just missed out at all these years.... :posh:
 
The first time I heard about Ikegami Tsushinki being responsible for the original Donkey Kong is through The Cutting Room Floor, in which their names are hidden in the credits. Makes me wonder how well this company would develop as a game company if they could go on.

Thanks for reading.
 
Unrelated to the Ikegami Tsushinki but interesting anyway: A writer for the defunct British ONM says he was fact-checked by a Nintendo employee over the commonly-told story that Miyamoto was specifically selected to retool the Radar Scope boards. Even if it's just one person' word, it is true that version makes more sense (since as pointedo ut by him, Miyamoto had no experience as a designer before donkey kong).

I'm too busy with schoolwork to update the wiki page yet, so if anyone's interested...
 
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