10 Things You Won't Believe Inspired Iconic Video Games

Super Mario is arguably the most beloved and influential game of all time. As of 2019, over 330 million copies of Super Mario games have been sold. That's crazy! But what's crazier is the character almost never existed.

In 1981, Nintendo hired out a warehouse to work on a game revolving around Popeye and Bluto (that's right. We have two entries that revolve around Popeye the Sailor Man. What are the odds?). When Nintendo couldn’t secure the rights for the character, Popeye’s sprites were tweaked into a different character called Jumpman and Bluto’s sprites were tweaked into Donkey Kong.

While working on the game, the landlord, Mario Segale, visited the warehouse to collect the rent. Since Nintendo was struggling with money, the company’s president at the time, Minoru Arakawa, couldn't pay up. When Segale threatened to evict him, Arakawa vowed to dedicate the game to the landlord in some way if he could pay the rent later. Segale agreed and so, Jumpman’s name was changed to Mario. The rest, as they say, is history.

If Segale evicted Nintendo or the company secured the rights for Popeye, Super Mario would have never come to be.