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Nilats and the War against Capitalism is the first prototype of the arcade game Donkey Kong.

In the late 70s, Nintendo was a card game company. Its CEO, Hiroshi Yamauchi suddenly became communist after a trip to China, although he prefered soviet communism. In the early 80s, he forced Nintendo into the video game industry, willing to use video games as a way to spread communism all throughout the world, especially in the west.

History[]

In this perspective, Shigery Miyamoto was assigned by Nintendo to make an arcade game promoting communism in a subtle, yet effective way.

The original plot involved Nilats (subtle pun), a communist worker who has to save Pauline, a kolkhoz woman who has been kidnaped by Nagaer (subtle pun), an evil capitalist monster which does evil things because he's really evil.

In May 1981, two months before the release of the game, Hiroshi Yamauchi changed his mind and quit communism after realizing that communists hated international companies and millionaires. Miyamoto had to mitigate the communist symbols in order to preserve the American and European market. The game was renamed Donkey Kong, Nilats was replaced by Jumpman, Nagaer was replaced by Donkey Kong, the sickle item was deleted (the hammer is still present though), etc...

Gallery[]

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