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Look at this guy
Look at this STUPID IDIOT
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I mean Imagine if you were working for a corporation
(Probably Not)
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And you assign a Character Designer
 to design a mascot
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Who will represent ALL
 of your products in the future
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Maybe you start thinking
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How do you make an appealing character that will draw in all demographics anyway
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First would
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probably be Self-Insertion
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If you make it an animal
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or put someone behind a mask
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Suddenly
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anyone can identify with that character
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Animals are universal
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Every culture has stories
 about animals with human cunning
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And the mask can hide someones identity
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while still being able to show their personality
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It doesn't have to be that way
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that the less the character to looks like a specific person
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the more we can identify with that character
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N0. 2
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could be a
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Key-Demographics
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If you want to sell to the boys.
Make it a boy.
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If you want to sell to the girls.
Make it a girl.
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Or a pretty boy
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Kids are pretty simple minded
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So you could have a do all
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So it appeals to more people
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But demographics also cross barriers
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And the gender doesn't have to be important
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It can as be a good character
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Or you could intentionaly make it more ambigous
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And lastly you just have to give it
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APPEAL
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Use your sense of aesthetics to get something that people
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would actually like to look at
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Maybe make them young
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since it's for younger people
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Have simple clothing
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Some nice colors
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along with that
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a character should idealy
 be recognisable from a silhoutte
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If the shapes are clear then no matter what situations
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they are put in
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we can still see that character from a distance
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Soo...
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All of that considered
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Imagine your character designer comes back and he's like
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Okay, I got it.
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It's a middle aged man.
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And he's kind of fat.
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What?
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Why is it an old man?
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Who is this going to appeal too?
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What is his demographic?
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You're going to have to say something, because kids don't care about some middle aged fat man.
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So yes, did you come up with anything else?
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Oh yea,  I, I did.
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Hi name is Luigi.
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He's the same guy, but he's green.
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Okay, maybe Mario is a bit of a clever design.
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I mean he is the biggest gaming icon.
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And he is one of the most recognized mascots on planet earth.
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Mario was NOT developed today
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Back in the pixel era, it was hard to make a character stand out
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So a mustache and a hat, it was clear and simple stuff
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that made the character sand out against a bunch of other bland pixel guys.
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But the thing is, even as the games developed
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Nintendo could have just replaced Mario with someone else.
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In the game Donkey Kong
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he just plays as unknown guy.
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The star of the game is Donkey Kong
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Donkey Kong fill the criteria.
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He's and animal.
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He's a childs demographic.
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He's a strong silhouette character.
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Donkey Kong could have easily been redeamed
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to be a good guy you play as in a future game.
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He was already established as a main character, main title figure.
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So they could have just kept using him
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The already established character with the big video game title.
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*Donkey Kong*
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Then I guess all that was necessary for Mario
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was to stick out with that mustache and hat.
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Basically it's just really weird to me.
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There was no obligation by Nintendo to keep using Mario.
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The character is so ODD.
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And even as new games were coming out
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Nintendo could have easily pushed towards...
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Kirby
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or Link
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to take his spot.
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Kirby is lovable and cute.
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And Link is a young, heroic, hot stud.
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From a business perspective these characters make sense.
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They would sell more.
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But instead Mario's design was fleshed out
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and developed into this entire weird universe.
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And that is the norm we live with.
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But really...
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It's really such a god damn oddity.
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Nintendo has developed a lot of great designs
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and there are a lot of good reason why they have appeal
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and why people are drawn to these characters.
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But how many corperations would bet on something as wild as
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*This*
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when developing a game.
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By practical means
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it's as if none of this should actually exist.
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Because the lesson here is that
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if everything was designed by committee
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to fill in the perfect blanks of what a character should be...
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to fill every niche or demographic, we end up with
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a big blank boring mess.
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그런 세계에서 마리오의 존재는 
존나 기적입니다.
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*whoa*
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<sweet internet melodies>