How did they finally arrive at such a conclusion? Well, there are eight (8) castle in the original Super Mario Bros., and only one (1) castle contains the actual princess. This, of course, means that seven out of eight (7/8) castles in the Mushroom Kingdom do not actually contain the princess. And, of course, seven divided by eight is indeed 87.5%.
I laughed for a moment and navigated away from the study for a time...until, of course, my evil mind began to twist itself awake. You see, not only is this inaccurate, but I can prove them wrong, cementing myself as the evil one that I am by causing a stir in the video game academic community. And so, I announce to you...
The Statistical Probability of the Princess is in Another Castle!
Ahem. Now, while I agree that eight (8) castles exist in the original Mushroom Kingdom, and seven (7) of these castles do in fact contain a denizen of the Mushroom Kingdom set to inform you, the hero, that your princess is indeed in another castle, I do not agree that this is the probability that you shall receive such a message. The reason for this lies in two points. First, the probability that you, the hero, successfully make the trek to the eighth and final castle in the original Super Mario Bros. is determined by your video game skill level and your experience with the quest itself. Second, the chances that your journey through the Mushroom Kingdom is in order of levels one through eight is slim. And I shall prove it thus...
Your heroic skill level is a great determinant of whether the eighth castle is frequently in your sights. For those who never played the original and suddenly find themselves the hero in the Mushroom Kingdom, my black heart goes out to you. The chances that you will stumble across the final castle containing the Mushroom Kingdom princess in your first try are slim to none. According to an in-depth study I performed myself...it's 0.5%. Don't ask how I came to this probability. It was a long accursed road.
For those seasoned veterans, the chances are slightly higher. Though I must admit that my long-time cohort in evil, King Koopa, has the ability to knock you off your high horse occasionally. I bet even you have fallen to his spiny shell once when you had not expected him to jump at you. Or perhaps you were even burnt to a charred crisp once by one of his long-range fire breaths.
Regardless, I conducted a small survey of 10 people. Five of them are seasoned gamers, three of them are strictly old-school gamers, and two of them have only touched a controller when cleaning off the living room coffee table. Only one of the five seasoned gamers boasted enough to say that every time he journeyed through the Mushroom Kingdom, he reached the final castle. Barring the fact that he is a habitual liar (which he most likely is knowing the person and all) and factoring in the other seasoned gamers' answer, the probability of reaching the last castle at all is roughly 78%. I took an average of their own percentages, if you must know. The old-school gamers hadn't touched a controller in a while, and they placed their abilities at roughly 66%, while the other control group...well, let's just say 0%.
Now, this means that the chances of making it to the 8th and final castle for each play of the game is an astounding 59%.
Second, how many of you heroes cheat? Don't lie. How many of you actually play World 2? How many of you use the "secret" world jump in World 1-2 and suddenly find yourselves on World 4, facing the red spiky creatures dropped by the scurrilous Lakitu? Based on a large study of people (2, to be exact), it was determined that 100% of the time, the warp pipes were used. However, factoring in those that enjoy the replay value of the water levels, I'll be generous and say 95% of you heroes cheat. The most common worlds, therefore, are 1, 4, and 8. This statistic alone would mean that 66.6% (repeating, of course) of the castles players face do not contain the elusive princess. However, factored in with the original statistic, I can only come to one conclusion:
The overall probability that the princess is in another castle is:
62.8%
So, take that academic community.
