Mario’s longevity comes from design choices that both include and go beyond visual tropes, incorporating the capabilities of both hardware and software, thoughtful UX, and references to other entertainment and storytelling mediums. “The Mario series has endured because Nintendo pioneered a player-centric, craft-first approach to game development,” says Michael Highland, creative director at Buck Games, who is currently at work on a platforming title. “The elegant simplicity players experience is the result of decades of institutional knowledge, iteration, and painstaking craftsmanship, all aimed at perfecting engagement and delight.”
It also broke containment from the video-game and entertainment world, as has seen him star in or inspire campaigns spanning CPG brands like Cheerios’ Game On tribute (2015), Domino’s Pizza (1992), Got Milk’s milk-moustache spot (1996), Kirin Lemon (Super Mario World era), Kraft Mac & Cheese, and McDonald’s Arch Enemies (2015), as well as non-CPG ads for Budget Direct (2021), Canguro Scarpe (2016), and the New York DMV (2025).
Inspiration in nature and playgrounds
In her 2015 biography of Shigeru Miyamoto, Shigeru Miyamoto: Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Jennifer deWinter, dean of Lewis College of Science and Letters at Illinois Institute of Technology, details how he wanted to translate early childhood experiences into game mechanics. “Miyamoto grew up in the countryside of Japan and, like many people of our generation, was kicked out of the house and told not to come home until evening time,” Jennifer tells me. “So he’s going into the forest, he’s going into caves, he’s going to playgrounds, so you just see this embodied joy about being outside.”
There is a formula that has remained consistent regardless of the nature of the environments – magical paintings inside a castle in Super Mario 64, planetoids in Super Mario Galaxy, kingdoms in Super Mario Odyssey, and even locales of a tropical paradise in Super Mario Sunshine. Starting with Super Mario Bros (1985), you start in vast grasslands, then you go down tunnels, then you swim and then you jump into the clouds. “So you can kind of see the joy of playgrounds here, right? That running and slipping, that you get the slide feeling, from the swinging fast to slow, the super high jumps, the exploration leading to, like, secret tunnels.” Up until the advent of 3D, though, exploration was fairly linear, with levels marked by a beginning, a middle, and the iconic flagpole. When Mario moved into the third dimension, though, Miyamoto placed him into sandbox-like levels, a fairly open-ended structure that encourages, within its confines, free roam. “A sandbox allows for both structural play and imaginative play. But at a certain point, we often want to add narrative structure,” says Jennifer. “That structure gives us a shared way to interact, and a language to talk about our experiences with each other.”