Shigeru Miyamoto, a Nintendo icon responsible for some of the most iconic video game IP of all time, obviously has some sort of special touch when it comes to game development, and Takaya Imamura, a Nintendo legend in his own right, thinks he knows what it is.
Imamura, whose work was instrumental to the F-Zero, Star Fox, and Legend of Zelda series, recently shared his interpretation of Miyamoto’s game design philosophy on Twitter, and how he reckons it was influenced by his formal education, writing in his native Japanese (translated by Automaton):
“Mr. Miyamoto studied industrial design at an art university, and he views games as ‘products,’ not ‘works of art.’ I think this perspective is what leads to game development that’s more aligned with the user.”
Miyamoto earned his degree in industrial design from the Kanazawa College of Art in the early ’70s, joining Nintendo in 1977 as an apprentice for its planning team.
Now, there’s a lot to parse here, but at risk of misreading anything through a language/translation barrier, I’ll keep my interpretation super broad and say, if it wasn’t obvious, Imamura is definitely saying Miyamoto’s unique perspective on game development is a positive thing, and that it results in games that are tailored to the wants of people who play them instead of those who make and sell them.
I highly doubt Imamura intended to wade into the ‘games as art’ discourse with this tweet; I take his words to mean Miyamoto’s development process is guided by what he thinks players want instead of what he specifically wants to create at any given moment. A man of the people, basically.
Miyamoto himself isn’t shy to share his own thoughts on making games, recently saying developers should “try to do something that nobody’s done before” because chasing trends is “going to be stressful.”
