Games@lemmy.worldbyvillainy@lemmy.world
24 hours

Miyamoto: Games based on developers’ personal interests resonate around the world, not those aiming for global appeal | VGC

www.videogameschronicle.com English

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49816572

In an interview in the new issue of Famitsu, Miyamoto was asked why Nintendo‘s IPs are enjoyed around the world.

Miyamoto replied that the key to a successful game isn’t looking at what’s trending and trying to capitalise on that, but starting with ideas that the developers personally find fun and working around them.

“People have long asked me, ‘why does a mustachioed middle-aged guy like Mario sell so well?’ and I always think, ‘that’s a bit rude, isn’t it?'” Miyamoto joked (via machine translation). “Well, I wonder the same thing myself – why did an older guy like this become a hit? But if you look at it simply, it’s because he was introduced alongside incredibly fun games.

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    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      9 hours

      It’s the same kind of advice that used to float in the Tech Startup world before it became dominated by money men and frauds: the best project is one that scratches an itch you have.

    • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11 hours

      I have more interest in someone’s passion than a game designed by committees and interests groups.

    • missingno@fedia.io
      19 hours

      I suppose the real point here is to just make the games you want to make, and as long as your passion shines through your audience will find you.

      But it’s interesting to me to contrast Miyamoto’s statement with the fact that Nintendo absolutely has been aiming to globalize their IPs - and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

      Look at Rhythm Heaven for example. DS and Fever had dubbed audio for the international releases, which was somewhat divisive with weebs fans. Megamix featured dual audio for the first time, and that’s good because options are good.

      But then Groove took a different approach, the game is designed to not need a dub in the first place. There are fewer vocal cues compared to previous entries, and they’re either gibberish or in a few cases, English words that are so common to be understood globally (even for the Japanese version, random English words in video games is seen as cool). There simply aren’t any games with full sentences like Ringside or Love Rap this time around. So now the audio is just identical in all releases.

      Vocal tracks are present, and most of them are Japanese, but they’ve also included a few in English, French, Spanish, and Italian. And those are again just the same in every version. Rather than swapping out the vocal tracks for localizations, they’ve opted to give the game a wider mix of more songs in more languages. It’s a deliberate change in direction, and it’s one I think is pretty cool. Reminds me of how Tekken switched to having every character speak their own native language (with subtitles).

      It’s a sort of reverse localization, where they’ve designed the game in a way that minimizes the need to localize much anyway. I think it makes perfect sense to try and move in this direction, and it’s clearly worked out since Groove massively outsold its predecessors, but at the same time it’s a little sad to think there’s probably never going to be anything like Bon Odori in future titles.

    • spicy pancake@lemmy.zipEnglish
      22 hours

      gee, who knew that people prefer art made with passion to “art” designed to make a profit? 🫩

      • mursejoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
        21 hours

        It’s the same thing we see with Star Wars. It was a nerdy thing a guy made and the world loved it. Now it’s a corporate market research driven machine that lacks a soul.

        • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.worldEnglish
          14 hours

          The nerd himself did that to the franchise. Like Ewoks were added to sell more toys and then he made the Prequels which was nothing but corporate slop again to sell more toys.

          • Zarobi@aussie.zoneEnglish
            13 hours

            The path to the dark side is quicker, easier, and far more seductive.

          • bless@lemmy.mlEnglish
            11 hours

            And if that fact isn’t enough to convince anyone, Episode 1 to 3 are right there.

      • ms.lane@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14 hours

        I don’t even mind if it’s designed to make a profit.

        However when it’s designed by a committee or worse a committee of committees, it all feels hollow and soulless.

      • Hakuso@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
        22 hours

        Not sure how well that applies to a company who spends more suing people than it does making games and keeps trying to pretend they never had a massive number of broken JoyCons that they refused to repair without a fee that was higher than they werte worth.

        The biggest problem with Nintendo IP is that Nintendo still owns it. THey’re not EA or Ubislop or Activision, but they’re doing their best.

        • spicy pancake@lemmy.zipEnglish
          22 hours

          Nintendo is a trash company on many many many levels but at least they seem to still give a shit about giving devs creative freedom, I guess?

          • Hakuso@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
            20 hours

            If they are owned by them, and locked out of porting to other platforms.

            None of the other cosole companies flat out refuse ports, some of them have an exclusivity period, but none of them “Nope!” completely.

            Probably because I’m running Nintendo games better with emulation than I did on the actual hardware so porting them would showcase just how much of a joke their hardware is…

            Which was fine when they were built liek a brick and lasted forever…

            My OG Gameboy, the momocrome brick that ate batteries almost as bad as a Game Gear, still works perfectly. I was on Switch number three by the time I gave up and just cracked my library to run o my computer.

            I had every Nintendo system, aside from the original Wii, including that horrible Virtual Boy. They’ve lost me, now, though. I’ll never give them another cent.

            Funny thing is my PlayStation Vita still works, too. And the motion controls and touch on it made things like Gravity Rush possible which worked so much better than waving janky Joycons around. Sadly Sony sabotaged it through their memory cards. The games were larger than 3DS ones by far, but the storage was tiny, slow, and expensive… This may not have been a problem, but we were already in the age of “Ship it broken and patch it later” so updates could end up being MASSIVE. Plus some were digital only, like the Atelier series had no western physical release, the Vita was not region locked, but if you didn’t read Japanese you had to buy digital. The 3DS didn’t need much space but it used standard SD cards that gave you cheap (Well, then, sd cards are insane right now) fast and easily accessible storage So the Vita died despite being on the level of a Switch when the 3DS was new.

            I know not everyone will agree, and some will get downright angry at my take on it, but…

            Animal Crossing is still great, though they have heavily leaned into forcing you to be online, and online for Nintendo is still a complete joke. I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours over years in forums and groups trading island codes to buy things from someone else’s Nook’s Cranny or to attend drop parties for registering rare items to order. All the while subscribing, since you have to be to get online, and while I met some nice people we taled online even when we were right next to each other on the game because Nintendo Online is garbage and everyone knows it.

            Pokemon constantly guts anything good to add “new and exciting” things nobody asked for, they dropped the National Dex, and forced Home integration without even the option to buy DLC to keep all your Living Dex in a game. I spent twenty years collecting them all, every variant, every special edition from events or promos. Then they’re like "Nope, the fact that you buy four to six copies of every game isn’t enough. You must SUBScRIbE! Done. I’ll play on emulatos, or Palworld. Which, by the way, they spent more money suing PocketPair than they did devloping Legends Z/A.

            Metroid was so iconic its very name defined (or half defined, but Castlevania isn’t an exclusive) a genre, but now it’s yet another third person shooter with generic RPG elements. Not bad, but there are better games to fill the same space, just without Samus and that suit which was one of the first things i obsessed over drawing.

            Zelda lost me already, loved the old games, but when it went from a fun adventure to managing weapong breaks I noped right out and went back to playing my NES game. Metroid went from an epic, to the point of defining the genre, Metroidvania to another third person shooter with generic RPG elements.

        • cavitationfetishist2@quokk.auEnglish
          20 hours

          They’re a shit company. Don’t give them your money.

          But they did still make games last I checked.

          • Hakuso@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
            20 hours

            I don’t think they do anymore, do they? I know all the ones I followed were part of toehr companies that nintendo owned, not of Nintendo themselves. Kinda like how Microslop or EA buys a great dev only to ruin them, They find a developer who wants to make a game for their crappy hardware, buys them, and locks them in. Then they are “Nintendo” but aren;t the risk of doing it themselves.

            • Infrapink@thebrainbin.org
              18 hours

              This is not correct.

              Nintendo still make games internally. Some series (Kirby, Pokémon, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Kid Icarus) have always been outsourced. Some (Metroid) have been outsourced recently. Core Maro, Zelda, Pikmin, Splatoon, and Animal Crossing have always been developed internally.

              Nintendo rarely buy other companies. They bought Alpha Dream, to whom Paper Mario had been outsourced, because Alpha Dream was looking for a buyer and Nintendo had previously worked with them.

              The only company that kind of fits your statement is Monolith, which Nintendo acquired in the 2000s after Monolith had achieved acclaim with Xenosaga and Xenogears. They make the Xenoblade games nowadays, but that series connection to the previous Xeno games is by theme and style rather than story and character.

            • tomalley8342@lemmy.worldEnglish
              20 hours

              Nintendo EPD division (Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Splatoon) can be traced back to like the 80s.

      • cavitationfetishist2@quokk.auEnglish
        20 hours

        Almost like I’m curious to engage with others and don’t want slop designed to slide down my throat easily, or something.

        Oh well; everyone who decides what gets made is a shallow narcissist with no interiority these days.

    • thingsiplay@lemmy.mlEnglish
      18 hours

      I think it depends on the genre and even down to each individual game. Especially cheaper the game to produce, the more can be experimented not caring if its a failure. Because some taste might work for a small group and others might work for a bigger group. To me its fine to have games trying to appeal globally, but not in cost of individual games. I like both type of games, as long as they are realized well.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16 hours

      Miyamoto-san, the games that are released now are based on the personal interests of the publisher. "Gimme money!"is a game that deeply resonates with their desire.

    • marighost@piefed.socialEnglish
      11 hours

      He’s a hypocrite because in the same interview, he defends their unnecessary remakes by saying it allows new players to experience them if they can’t go back to play the original versions.

      He then confirms that Starfox and Yoshi were released this year to coincide with the Mario Galaxy Movie. So are they games that developers want to play, or marketing stunts? This old man needs to retire.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12 hours

      Chud gamers: “This means all games must contain racist and sexist elements!”

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22 hours

      What‘s Miyamoto‘s history with apes and plumbers? I would love to hear about those stories.

      Really the only time I remember him giving examples of drawing inspiration from real life was a fox statue at a shrine inspiring him to design Star Fox or something. That seems pretty far removed from reality if you ask me.

      • Jomega@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19 hours

        Oh, I know this one! ahem

        So Donkey Kong came about out of happenstance. Nintendo was just getting into the budding arcade scene, and was in the middle of producing a licensed game based on Popeye. In fact, they were so far into production that when some behind the scenes bullshit meant the deal was off they had a nearly finished game that they still wanted to sell and not feel like they wasted all that time, money, and effort. That’s when Miyamoto had the idea to keep the gameplay while changing the games art assets and premise. Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oil were replaced with Mario, Donkey Kong, and Pauline respectively. After the unexpected success of Donkey Kong lead to them to do more with these now unaffiliated characters, there came a need to flesh out the world they lived in. Miyamoto always thought of Mario as a cartoon character, perhaps owing to the circumstances of his creation, so the Mushroom Kingdom as it was now come to be known was given a sort of classic cartoon aesthetic, the kind where it feels like anything could happen. The rest is history.

        Star Fox doesn’t have quite as interesting a story behind it, sorry to say. Miyamoto said he had seen Top Gun and wanted to make a game about fighter pilots.

        Sorry for the wall of text, I’m autistic.

      • cavitationfetishist2@quokk.auEnglish
        8 hours

        Did you ever play Zelda: links awakening? Play that and tell me that isn’t about someone’s childhood spent by the sea. Play that without crying over a fucking ‘game boy’ game.

        Edit: but I don’t think he ever made out with a dream manifestation of a metaphor for a seagull.

        • thingsiplay@lemmy.mlEnglish
          18 hours

          Link’s Awakening (the original on the OG GB) has a very special place in my heart, just like A Link To the Past. For years I debated with myself (no we are not split personalities) about the ending. I could listen to the tunes all day long, especially Tal Tal Heights. :-) You just unleashed a wave of nostalgia feelings.