When Nintendo released Donkey Kong in 1981, it was one of the only arcade games in which you did more than just blast space invaders. It contained an entire world, with a damsel in distress and an unlikely hero: a little Italian plumber named Mario.

Mario is perhaps the only character from that first generation of arcade games still to be a huge presence in gaming. Nintendo just announced that it is releasing Super Mario Bros for its new handheld console, the Nintendo 3DS. 

Maybe no one is more excited than Tom Chatfield, the author of Fun, Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century, who compares Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto to “Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas wrapped up” in one person. Chatfield describes his three-decade-long love affair with the plumber in the hat. Produced by Mark Anderson.