The year is 2010. This is not the 2010 of our reality; this is the 2010 of an alternate reality, the alternate reality in fact, in where the Super Mario Bros. of 25 years ago never existed, where things are much different. Super Mario Bros. saved the failing video game industry from leaving our lives forever. This is a fictional account of video game history in this alternate 2010 encyclopedia where everything has changed.

The video game was an interesting fad that began in the late 1970s and fizzled out in the mid-1980s. “The Arcade Craze” as they called it, had children spending all their quarters to play games on a video screen. As absurd as this sounds, children of the 1980s found great entertainment in these so called “video games” and the industry seemed indestructible. However in 1983, after a multitude of poor quality video game systems, poor-quality games caused gamers to turn their backs on gaming. Most children cannot believe these “video games” were popular, because they love their robot playmates and think they are much more fun. Video games will remain a tiny footnote on electronic entertainment for eternity.

Without the Italian plumbing brothers, our world will be very different indeed, a changed world that would change the economic standpoint in the world substantially. The world needed the Italian plumbers, and the world is glad they came. By Matt Barnthouse <mbarnthouse@hilite.org>