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Miyamoto vs. Everyone Else
Ian_Bailey writes "Wired writes Nintendo won't grow up, because of Shigeru Miyamoto. The creator of some of the most popular franchises, and the head of most of Nintendo's creative development, constantly aims his games at children. Many other devloppers admire his creativity, and believe that a mature-themed game would rock the entire industry. A very interesting read, and a bit of insight into the 'God of Games'."
So what's wrong with colorful graphics and cartoonish characters? Do games have to feature gore and ultra-violence to be entertaining? Hell no.
yeah, he keeps making "kiddy" games, But he makes inovation in design and came up with ,well we all know what hes done. While i do enjoy mature games, i dont see the problem with not making them, he doesnt want to, what would be so much better about a mature game? blood? guns? and there are other people making mature games that are good, so we should all be happy nintendo makes "kiddy" games that ARE good
there was a game on one of the commadore or atari systems (I had both, many versions) called Mario Brothers. Luigi and mario were in a 'joust' style repeating side scroller with pipes, shell turtles, enemies and all before Super Mario Brothers on NES came out. It was by far my fav of the series. He always manages brilliant games.
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Seamus Blackley of MS says: .... He's reinforcing stereotypes about games, not pushing them to a place where they can become something different and truly awesome."
;) .
"He is not helping things
What? All Miyamoto has done throughout his career is making truly awesome and different games!! The idea of a platform game (the original mario); the epic action adventure (zelda series); bringing videogames into 3D (mario 64). Virtually every project he has made or simply produced has been stellar.
Pikmin is a great example of a 'different' game. Has anyone played the latest Metroid (Prime)- the BEST GAME ever. And the next Zelda will be out in March (Metroid may have a short-lived stay at the top).
I've been a videogamer since 85, so I know what this man has brought to every console generation. Nintendo might have to freeze this guy like Disney froze Walt
I liked the article in general though - this man is truly a GOD. I don't care if his games are cutesy - they are the BEST!
smd4985
This all depends on how you look at it, I suppose - on one hand, the generation of kids who grew up with Nintendo are now in their twenties and thirties, and probably want games that have more mature themes, or that hark back to their favourite game characters from childhood (Notice Nintendo's heavy reliance on characters they created in the 1980's!).
OTOH, parents (hopefully) want a game console where most of the game titles would be "safe" for their children to play - Nintendo delivers.
Looks like Miyamoto wants Nintendo to take the latter.
Illegitimi non Carborundum.
I am a 30 year old gamer, I currently own and enjoy games in all three consoles, and I enjoy playing games like Splinter Cell and Eternal Darkness as I do Ape Escape and Sonic. I enjoy a game because it is addictive, it makes me want to play it more and, sometimes, because I like the story. Not because it has an adult theme, whatever that might be.
To finish of, I will say the following: the current generation of games has been spoilt with stupidly complex, hyper-hyped games with idiotic stories without any real substance (the last three Final Fantasy games being the best example) that they cannot appreciate that a game has to be innovative, simple and addictive to be good. There were no such things as "adult games" ten-fifteen years ago, yet people got by... I am looking forward to Zelda coming out in Europe, as I am sure lots of thirtysomething /.ers are. I am hoping it will maintain the standards set by Ocarina of time and Majora's mask and I do not care in the least whether the graphics are "childish" or not. Play the game, I say, not look at it.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Yeah, some people actually enjoy a game that doesn't involve lopping off heads, dismemberment, gratuitous nudity etc, and can actually be played by a general audience.
Games like mario were playable by all ages. While the graphics have grown a bit more kiddish, I've known many parents that would happily sit down with their kid and play a game or two (and often enough, wait for the kid to go to bed so they can play for themselves).
It's my personal belief that because the "computer graphics" industry is so young, we're still trying to pack as much realism into our games as possible.
I think as the medium matures, we'll start to see more interesting and abstract art forms immerging from graphics. Games that are based around gameplay, will start to take over again, as graphics become something that you can manipulate the way you want to.
The graphics should become a way to help create an environment for the game. It shouldn't be the reason for creating the game.
~ "When I'm of that age I'm just going to live up a tree."
OK, for one, this article totally glosses over Metroid Prime, which was an excellent game, and definitely had me a little freaked out and scared for Samus' mortality. not really a game aimed at preteens...
second, i kind of take offense at the idea that a game that doesn't drip with gore isn't aimed at adults. maybe i don't go for the garish motif of games like the Quake series. it's not because i'm unprepared to handle it; it's just that i think it's... tacky.
third, if you look at the general population of adults (not just adult gamers), i think kids are more likely to be able to wrap their minds around videogames than adults. it's sort of a stereotype, but it's true.. how many kids do you know that could wipe the floor with their parents and older relatives with any head-to-head game? so saying a game is "just aimed at kids" is sort of misunderstanding the situation a bit, imho.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
So he design more "childish" games, not "mature" ones. I would think that his track record speaks for itself. Mario. Zelda. Donkey Kong. You know, like, all of the biggest titles from Nintendo.
It's not like money is an issue for him or Nintendo. He could try and design anything he wanted, but this is what he want to do. No one can force him to design a "mature" game, and even if they could force him, his heart wouldn't be in it, and the game would suck.
Article summary:
He's built a huge, successful company. It's still doing well. He's always advanced the state of the art. His games are well designed. They get critical praise, and most sell in numbers that other companies would kill for. But, he didn't great GTA, so he sucks.
A.
My main problem with this article is with Seamus Blackley opening up his mouth.
I'll be honest - the Xbox has some cool ideas to it - I like the hard drive, I like the speed, and the graphics look nice. That Mr. Blackley can be proud of.
On the other hand, can somebody please tell me what game Mr. Blackley has made that was actually fun? Trespasser? (Lord, God, protect us.)
Mr. Blackley is a very good technical person and programmer - when it comes to things like physics, or making complex systems work, he's somebody to talk to.
The problem is he obviously does not know jack shit about what makes a fun game - him spouting off about how Miyamato is maintaining gaming stereotypes is the stupidest thing I've ever seen.
Miyamato has spent almost 20 years making games that are fun - always different, usually surprising and innovative. What, we're going to critique Miyazaki because he makes Spirited Away instead of "Animated Blood, Gore and Guts II"?
Miyamato has the freedom to make whatever games he likes - and I know this sounds fanboyish, but I like them. I have yet to play one that I didn't enjoy, that didn't give me hours of fun and wild-eyed enjoyment, sometimes fast and frantic (Starfox), sometimes thoughtful (Mario Brothers Sunshine), sometimes just beautiful (Pikmin and Zelda: The Wind Waker), and sometimes epic (Zelda: The Ocarina of Time).
I like a good violent romp as much as the next gamer - but when I want to play a game that does more than push my adrenaline button, you always come home to Miyamato. And I honestly thing that Mr. Blackley is a little bit jealous of that - because when the time comes, Blackley will be a footnote of gaming history, and Miyamato will be an entire book in itself.
Of course, I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
"The most important thing is for games to be fun," [Miyamoto] says. "I cannot tell you exactly what that means. It is something you feel, I think."
Ya know, that should be so intuitively obvious, but you look at so many games these days and it seems like this fundamental rule is not followed nearly as often as it should be.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
I think this quote by Miyamoto from the article sums it up best-
""People often talk about Grand Theft Auto. But I am not sure whether that sort of extreme subject matter is always appropriate. They also talk about the future of games being a kind of virtual reality. But I am not convinced that being more realistic makes better games."
More power to him. GTA3 is all bloody and "realistic", to be sure, but there's a reason why i've always seemed to have a copy of a Mario Bros. game at hand for the better part of 10 years now. I play games to escape reality, not to simulate it.
I'm 22 years old, and I think there's enough blood, guts, and violence in life already...Give me something bright, intricate, and engaging(and yes, "kiddy") with his name on it above the latest 3D shooter junk any day.
Children's games? I think not! Miyamoto creates GOOD games. HE focuses on playability and FUN. His games don't involve decaptiations, sex, nasty violent episodes, crime sprees, or insane murders. They are for playing and having fun. And he does it VERY VERY well. People of all ages enjoy his games, he is actually targetting a much larger demographic than most people who produce "mature" games. He makes games that you can sit down and play with your dad, and your 8 year old cousin, and all of you will have fun playing it.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I also reckon that shying away from the photo-realistic eye-candy approach also means that you have to focus on gameplay which I quite often feel is sadly lacking from a lot of the more "modern adult games"
The only Good System is a Sound System
I don't need to worry about GTA-3 showing up in Nintendo land. I haven't yet (NOTE: I said YET) seen a game with obvious gore.
Nintendo seems to be changing its tune on this topic. Blood Omen 2, Resident Evil, and several other moderately graphically violent games are available for the Gamecube.
I'd be surprised if something like Soldier of Fortune were released for their system, but I think even Nintendo realizes that they need to broaden their selection of titles to have the widest audience possible.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
I expected to see people raving about how much crap Nintendo games are. They're kiddy games etc. Thankfully few people have chimed in with that garbage.
People make fun of me for owning a Gamecube. Why would I play a bunch of goofy little kids games? I say, since when did I need to play video games to feel grown up? I can go down a couple blocks to the bad part of town, or watch the news to see violence and war. I want to get away from that for a little while.
I wish there was some there was some way that I could be outside playing basketball, in the rain, and not get wet.
Miyamoto is truly innovative and a great game designer, but his innovations are not all encompassing. He focuses on the one player gaming experience. Nintendo is notably neglecting the online experience reportedly due to Miyamoto's direction.
I believe online has more than proven itself. Nintendo's stubornness to deny its gamers online experience will be seen as akin to their mistake in denying developers the CD medium (which they've finally caught up with in the GameCube with the proprietary mini-disc).
Miyamoto continues to break new ground and innovate but he does not address multiplayer issues. The online experience is open for a new generation of game designers. The PC game designers are likely to migrate to the consoles for a more controlled, reliable gaming platform, and the online gaming experience will eventually become the principal area for gaming and innovation.
Miyamoto trailblazed one player gaming. It'll be fun to see who trailblazes the next generation of games.
Just because you played Nitendo games as a kid doesn't mean that they have to suit you. This is like expecting Fisher Price to grow up with you and make sex toys now that you're 22. C'mon, if they want to target kids, let them do so, it's a hell of a profitable market really. Let Playstation 2 be the adult toy.
Miyamoto's games--and Nintendo's games in general--are targeted toward all ages, with the exception of a group from about 15-25 who reject them as being remnants of the childhood they have left behind. The typical pattern is:
:)
Ages 6-14: "These games are great fun!"
Ages 15-25: "Nintendo games are for kids! I want mature games!" [Where "mature" means either dark science fiction or extreme violence.]
Ages 26+: "These games are great fun!"
It's been amusing to watch how often this occurs. You can see kids hit an age where the reject Mario and flock toward stuff like Resident Evil. Then after a while they work through it all and just play what's fun. Most of the time. Some people never give it up
This is silly. Miyamoto is the guy that produced Metroid Prime. Without him, it probably wouldn't have been the same. He was essentially in charge of overseeing that game- and it's far from a child's game.
This whole "kiddy" criticism of Nintendo really needs to stop. Miyamoto's games are usually brilliant. He actually realizes that he can make awesome games without hookers and crack dealers. It shows you that he is in it to make awesome games- not just make a quick buck like the folks at companies like Rockstar Games.
It's too bad that people just don't appreciate it. So what? Pikmin and Mario are cute games. They are still loads of fun. Everyone's knocking the new Zelda game because of its cartonish, cell-shaded look. But they won't be dissing it when it totally blows them away.
I think that the funniest part of the article was where Blackley, the XBox guy was like, "he's not helping the industry, he's hurting it," i guess because this genius believes, like someone who had heard about darwin but doesn't really get it, that game development is going somewhere in particular -- in this case, the guy clearly assumes that selling games to people who won't buy something without a lot of blood would mean that games have 'made it'.
What a moron. You've got the guy, the only guy who has like ten multi-million sellers under his belt, the guy who brought the console back and brought us Zelda with it, a guy who has been through two video game recessions and helped see to it that they gross more than hollywood, and he's not helping games. Ahem. Pardon me, Seamus, but how are XBox sales?
I appreciate the fact that lots of people think that games are for kiddies, and surely Miyamoto's not doing a lot in the way of evangelizing to those poeple. And I'm glad, because every minute he spends doing that (for what, by the way?) he's not making the next Pikmin or Mario or Zelda.
god is just pretend.
This discussion will continue to falter so long as "mature" remains code for "juvenile." In most cases I've seen "mature" game is one with blood, boobs, and base language. But this is not truly mature; it's really juvenile since it is appealing to a person's base instincts. Likewise, "childish" is code for "cartoon." It has little to do with the game story or themes.
An easy example is found in movies: "Toy Story 2" is considered a "kiddie movie" because it's a cartoon. Though it readily appeals to children, it addresses the mature themes of friendship, loss, and death.
Likewise, most "mature" action movies are largely juvenile, appealing to people's desire to see stuff get blowed up real good. They don't actually have any mature themes.
I welcome truly mature games, and there are some out there. But let's make the discussion easier by not mislabeling the juvenile games as "mature" and not calling games "kiddie" just because they have bright colors.
ShoutingMan.com
Higginbotham's 'bouncing spot on an oscilloscope' hack in the fifties could only be called a video game in the broadest possible sense of the word. It was a nice hack but it never went anywhere, and the man himself didn't see the potential in it either.
As to Bushnell and Baer, they started the arcade and home video games industries, for which all credit is due to them, but I wouldn't call them great video game designers. Great businessmen, yes.
Miyamoto has been a visionary in many of his games, ahead of his contemporaries, over a period of several decades. Even if you insist on drawing a line from Bushnell & Baer to Miyamoto, I think you will have to admit that the student has surpassed the masters.
Great games
The sales of his Mario series alone has done $7billion. Comparison in the article to the Star Wars movies doing only $3.5billion.
His games are entertaining, and playable. A kid can enjoy them all, and adults usally enjoy most of them. Just because you are the opinion that his games suck, or are lame, boring, whatever; is fine. There are other games out there for you. But there should be games for the little guys too, just as there were when we were younger (I was 10 when the NES came out).
I say let Sony and Microsoft ignore the 'kids games' and let the master do what he shall.
" Seamus Blackley of MS says: .... He's reinforcing stereotypes about games, not pushing them to a place where they can become something different and truly awesome.""
"He is not helping things
And that right there is the huge difference between Miyamoto and Sony and Microsoft. Miyamoto has never "pushed" in his life. He doesn't make games to "push the technological envelope" (but they usually end up doing so). He doesn't make games to "push to a new demographic" (which he doesn't need to do, he hits everybody).
Miyamoto writes games! Miyamoto games are the perfect example of ars gratia artis. He doesn't make these games for the money or the fame, he writes them for himself. Which is exactly why he gets all the money and the fame.
It's just a shame so many people refuse to understand this one simple concept.
This article reminds me a lot of the old American football saying, about how fans give their coach too much blame when the team loses and too much credit when the team wins. American McGee's comment is a great example of this:
"Grand Theft Auto is basically a rip-off of Zelda, because Zelda invented massive-world games that let players explore freely, rather than following a linear path. Miyamoto innovates, so he's pushing the form. End of story."
I'm sorry, but Ultima III and the Wizardry series were doing massive-world free-exploration games long before the NES even existed. And even those had predecessors. And from the way this article sounds, you'd think Miyamoto was the first to ever use 3D or a camera in a game.
This seems to be an underlying theme in the article -- that the video game industry is looking to Miyamoto for guidance, blaming him for not guiding them in the right way, and giving him way too much credit for its current state. It's as if Miyamoto is successful due to some magic he alone possesses, rather than because he was able to build on lessons of the past in the right ways.
It seems ridiculous to me.
I'm so very tired of the "Nintendo is teh kiddy!" argument. I'm happy the way things are. While Nintendo's kid-friendly reputation may keep it nipping at the heels of the Xbox and PS2, the bazillions of copies of Pokemon and Gameboys that are sold every year will keep them afloat to make more games like Metroid Prime and Zelda.
...we would loose games that let us be childs again :-) And, BTW, what's wrong about targeting children and never-grown-ups ? As long as they are able to pay (or let pay) for Nintendo's consoles and games, everything is OK.
Without Miyamoto Nintendo would be toast already, I guess. And I wouldn't love Nintendo as much as I do without him. Except for the GameCube which I have yet to buy I own every console Nintendo has released in Europe and the charm of Mario and Zelda is... unique. And they managed to make a cult out of it.
One strength of Miyamoto's games is simple gameplay. They are easy to learn and understand but yet get challenging lateron in the game, without getting boring. And this is something very special that is not often found in games, unfortunately. And I guess focussing on children helps him keeping this concept of easy to use/learn games that get challenging (but seldom unfair).