Why is Mario, a middle aged Italian plumber, the most successful IP in gaming?

Mario is actually really interesting. Mario is just the undeniable icon of video gaming. No other character is as well known and as widely accepted as a symbol for video games than Mario is. But why? On the surface he’s an unathletic middle aged plumber with a weird mustache, a strange cap and a huge nose that is wielding a construction hammer. How in all of Bowser's castles did a character this unusual ever become the biggest phenomenon in gaming? What is so special about Mario that made him become such a stunning success? This is the question that we are going to investigate in this video, because while it may seem at first glance that the reason for Mario’s success is quite obvious, things become a lot more complicated once we start to dig deeper. In this video we are going to take a look at all the possible arguments that could be the reason why Mario became such a global phenomenon, we are going to take a deep dive into the economic environment out of which the Mario brand grew, will quickly reflect on the nature of culture itself and in the end we will not only discuss a seldomly mentioned reason for Mario’s success but actually reveal something unusual about video games themselves. ---------- / Patreon / Support content like this: patreon.com/ceave ----------- / Credits for the Music / -------Nintendo The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time OST - “Gerudo Valley” The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask OST - “Song of Healing” ------Holfix https://www.youtube.com/holfix HolFix - Beyond The Kingdom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CiGpsBLBX8 ------Kevin MacLeod "Adventure Meme" Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com this song is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/