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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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
" 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.