Miyamoto Gives a Surprising Insight Into What He Looks For In New Game Designers

I make a mean fruit salad. Hire me Miyamato-Sam.

It's a smart perspective to recruit people who aren't fully immersed in gaming culture. Take a look at fan fiction. People who love a thing frequently don't always produce the best content related to that thing. Fresh perspectives make derivative content less likely.

That's smart. I can make Tea at best. Now where can I sign up?

😳what?!🤔

Makes sense for Miyamoto to say that, afterall everytime he got interviewed about the inspiration for his games it was never another game, but an hobby or "something" not gaming related that inspired him.

Then again what about us gamers with the dream of making games? We still have some chances to get hired, right? Right? ;w;

My frosted flakes are divine! Hopefully I can work on the next smash brothers now.

Basically he wants well-rounded people, not just super hardcore gamers. It's the same reason colleges have extra-curricular groups and team sports and stuff: if you don't have any outside hobbies apart from your work, you're probably not a very well-adjusted person.

Read this a week ago. NL you are slow.

Miyamoto knew that if Nintendo hired a gamer, all they do in the office are playing games and not working.

You mean that section on the your CV where you put down non-work stuff like "hobbies" is important? Who knew?

That advice doesn't necessarily hold those for any other industry or even other roles.

I'm not actually sure that's the best philosophy. I mean, when you get people who are REALLY passionate gamers and fans working on something they genuinely love, you end up with a game like Sonic Mania--or you get the official Sega devs, probably many of whom are just going through the motions at this point, who keep churning out meh Sonic games year after year. Just one example, but I think it rings true to a great degree. Another example would be all those utterly dreadful games out there made by random people from film or music or wherever who decided to make a game because it was the popular or cool thing to do and they figured they could make a quick and easy buck from it--and we ended up with crap like Night Trap, the CDI Zelda games, Shaq Fu, Superman 64, Ninjabread Man, etc. Personally, I think it makes great sense to employ especially passionate videogamers to make videogames--the kinds of people who understand they're working in basically the best entertainment medium ever created and who desire to create games that live up to that great expectation (which is not mutually exclusive from having lots of other interests, hobbies and passions too)--but maybe I'm just mental!

And, I don't want to be "that guy"--or maybe I do--but I can actually see a bit of Miyamoto's attitude leaking through in some of Nintendo's recent games to be honest: Star Fox Zero almost certainly would have been a far better game if some truly hardcore gamers and fans of that series had been given the final say on what was and wasn't good enough for a brand new game in the franchise, the first one in a long time (so fans were really desperate for something genuinely great), imo. Again, much like the example of Sonic Mania vs the last however many first party in-house Sonic games, which were all kinda crap imo.

I totally understand why. Miyamoto himself never was a gamer, he started as a product designer. That's why his games are so smart, they focus on how intuitive and usable the product or game is.

Ofcourse you also need hardcore gamers. Iwata for example was a real gamer and a fantastic programmer. Nintendo wouldn't have been Nintendo without him.

I'm glad he looks for devs with diverse interests. Miyamoto-dono himself wasn't a "gamer" when he joined Nintendo. Probably still isn't really. (otherwise what other type of person would have made playing as a plumber so fun?)

Gamers half the time don't know what they want, are resistant to change or those that become devs make games for themselves (great for a personal project, not so much if you are trying to turn a profit from a demographic) and many throw a fit if their personal projects don't turn into wealth and adoration. That's why you get indie devs that have PR nightmares and have to back track. That's why you get devs that demand that the consumer "understand" how hard their job is. (I get that dev work is difficult as I do non gaming dev work myself, however that isn't the consumer's role, prerogative or issue.) That is also why imo we are seeing so many devs exit gaming entirely after they got soul blasted by the reality of business and competing in a (mostly) free market.

Consumer's job is to consume the product for good for ill....most other professions don't whine about how they are misunderstood. You do you job and it is still a job no matter how much you love it or it was your dream, and you do it well or you pay the price)
Decisions like that remind people that Nintendo is an Entertainment company, not a video games company (same as Sony and MS but people tend to forget that) and that they aren't trying to pigeon hole themselves into an mindset that once it outlives its usefulness becomes restrictive.

Iwata-denka was one of the best examples of a gamer doing well at a gaming company, but that was because he kept reinventing himself and molding himself. (even when he was a novice programmer he was known for having management books on hand to read, so obviously he thought beyond his original skillset.)

@irock I get what you are saying but he only wasn't a "gamer" because he got into the industry so early that most people who entered it back then weren't really "gamers" for the most part. In fact, most people who got into gaming back then were really just programming geeks/nerds and happened to find that creating videogames was the most fun way to work with code and express themselves. But, ultimately, they really were gamers--it was in them as much as being a writer or filmmaker was in the earliest writers and filmmakers--they just didn't realise it properly until they started working in the industry. But you generally don't get a writer in to direct a film, or a filmmaker to write a script, or a programmer to paint your next movie poster, or a fashion designer to create your game levels . . . You get in the people that are the best at what they do, likely people who are highly passionate about their jobs and have taken years to be great at them, and who ideally also happen to be well-rounded human beings with some other interests and hobbies and some life experience outside of their chosen field too. Or that's my take on it at least. First and foremost, however, should be that you look for people who absolutely love and live and breath the thing they're going to spend half their waking life working on, ideally--surely.

@BakaKnight Just spread your experience out beyond games. If you only play games you can only make small iterations on previous designs, which is okay, but Nintendo wants to try and break conventions is all. It's basically easier to "think outside the box" when you aren't totally inside the box.

I think that is a good idea. You should obviously hire people who know what they are doing, but also have a variety of sources to take inspiration from. If you only hire people who are hardcore game fans and nothing else, the games that come out, even if they are good, become very insular and self serving. This may work with many other game companies, but not Nintendo, who is always trying to venture into unexplored territory.

@impurekind Yeah, I don't get the impression it's a hard and fast rule or anything, though. Also, just imagine all the candidates they look at. They probably list games they like to express what they'd like to make. The type of people who play a thousand hours a year. How much more exciting would it be to get a qualified person who expresses what kind of things they'd like to do in games that don't share a list of popular games already made.

Still there's quite a bit of specific skills and experience a person would need, and by "super-passionate game fans" I don't think he's ruling out people who like to play games, just leaning away from the excessive/obsessive kind.

@impurekind He still isn't a gamer in his free time, like in the digital or hardcore sense. He sees games as products for people to enjoy: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/shigeru-miyamoto-games-not-art/. He does like playing and experiencing things tho like playing music and gardening and may occassionally play a game in his free time. I don't mind he looks at it that way. Secretly he is an artist if you ask me, he just doesn't feel like it himself.

But I also agree you do need gamers in the business. Iwata was a gamer for example.

@cammy It matters more than you may think. There are people who graduate colleges with perfect marks and try to get a job, but other people who actually have a passion are picked over them all the time. It's very easy to sense passion about work in an interview and some extra-caricular activities that are related can help foretell that in a CV or resumé, maybe get someone that interview in the first place.

Anyway, you won't be able to fake it at the interview, so... only honest relatable hobbies should be listed. Other parts of the document should show evidence of your passion. For instance, don't apply to a game designer job with no finished (even if simple, non-earning, non-digital) game projects!

@irock True.

@aaronsullivan Yeah. I'd personally lean way toward the excessive/obsessive kind and then just try to make sure there's more to them than only that (so they don't simply end up doing the same things over and over). lol But all the best games I can think of, whether they were made by what we think of as truly hardcore gamer types or not, were surely made with the kind of hardcore dedication and passion that can only really come if you do genuinely love, appreciate and understand games on a very deep and personal level--more so than if you're just some cool surfer dude or whatever who also enjoys playing games and decided to get a job in the industry because it seemed to make good business sense--like you just get what makes them so special and you have some pure, heartfelt drive to create games that show other people similarly. I'd like to believe the very best Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Metroid, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Mother/Earthbound, etc titles come from that place. So, for me personally, unless the person is obviously slightly mentally deranged or something, I'd still pick Mr excessive/obsessive gamer out of the crowd first and foremost, at least as an initial first-round choice, and go from there.

@impurekind I feel you misinterpreted his words. Loving games doesn’t mean you are a good game designer. Every year at our University we have to warn new students that Game Development is way more than just playing games. Theres a lot of overlap with psychology and other human centered design disciplines. Miyamoto isn’t a gamer himself, however he knows damn well the concept of ‘fun’ and how to create certain kinds of fun for specific target groups. Its this knowledge and way of designing that you need to possess in order to become a good game designer. Achieving this means you have to be interested in more than just playing games.

Especially if you are a hardcore gamer and have a blind love for a franchise you have to watch out that you don’t have a tunnel vision. Would a diehard fan of Zelda easily throw away everything that we know about Zelds and break all the conventions? Or would he argue that all these changes “isn’t Zelda like”?

@iMarkU I probably did. But I also think that as he's getting older My Miyamto himself is slightly losing touch with what is really at the core of making truly brilliant, beloved, timeless and magical videogames--and I just get a sense of that in his words here too. It's much like how near his death Iwata started believing that "quality of life" products should be some major focus at Nintendo--because, imo, he started filtering the world through his own personal health issues just a little bit too much rather than stepping back a little and seeing the slightly more objective truth of the situation. Sad, but that's what I believe happened with Iwata near the end. And, although Miyamoto ain't dying anytime soon--I hope--I can see his age is starting to rub off on what he considers the essentials that are core to making games that stand head and shoulder above the rest, which is certainly not what I saw or felt from him in the past. I mean, I seriously don't believe the Miyamoto from the NES/SNES/N64 era would have been anywhere near happy with a game like Star Fox Zero for example, and he would have known better than to let it become the very gimmicky and convoluted game it ultimately became if he were looking at it with those younger and fresher eyes. At least that's my take on it. But maybe I'm giving him too much credit for those past masterpieces, he was after all just one man of many working on and creating the amazing games of Nintendo's past (Donkey Kong, A Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island, Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, etc), and similarly assigning him too much personal blame for the recent blunders as I see them.

Miyamoto should create Nintendo's Next Top Game Designer to find young talents.

@iMarkU Well, I'm a diehard fan of Zelda, and, as an example, I knew from the get-go that a game like Skyward Sword had far, far too long a "tutorial" section and that each main area suffered from being too blocked off; and that the lack of connection between areas made the game feel a little less grand and satisfying as a result; and that some of the motion controls, while often being genuinely the best example of brilliantly well implemented and utilized motion controls in pretty much any game ever, weren't perfect and did feel a bit gimmicky at times; and that some of the fetch quest felt a bit like fluff and filler. I'm still a diehard fan of Zelda now, and I can see that including the ability to fly in Breath of the Wild, using some kind of Loftwing or similar, and also sail around, much like in Wind Waker, as well as having a few more traditional dungeons around the world too, would have made it an even more complete game and even better sandbox experience than it already is--and it is amazing. I'm a hardcore fan of the original Star Fox too, and I could tell right away that Star Fox Zero was basically gimmicky, convoluted meh, and that it was almost all the new and imo basically unnecessary stuff that actually ruined it in this particular case. So being obsessive about gaming and even these particular games hasn't blinded me to what made/makes them great or even how they could be made greater still. But that's me--most people who express an opinion on whatever game(s) are not quite like me--and I do fully hear you on this one.

@Muddy_4_Ever yeah I feel the same way. In addition I think having a wider variety of life experiences will help to inspire some new creative ideas

@impurekind
I certainty agree with you on the aging part. But I also believe that this is in combination with the Japanese culture and resistance to change. Miyamoto is not aging well with the current situation and this means that he is sometimes out of touch. Does this mean he shouldn’t design games anymore? Not necessarily. Game design keeps evolving, but a lot of mechanics, concepts and their roots trace back all the way to the 80’s. Having this knowledge and experience is really good to have in a company and you want to transfer this to the new generation. And that is what Miyamoto’s rol is and should be.
Star Fox Zero is an interesting case. The end product and failure could also be attributed to the end of the Wii U period (was there no budget anymore? Did team members got transfered to other project? Or did Nintendo simply not want to invest in the WiiU anymore). What I am teying to say is that there could be more reasons why this game failed and I feel its unfair that you are highlighting this specific game while there is a whole backlog which proofs his skillset.
Also your Zelda example is a very anecdotal one. I didn’t argue that every diehard fan would think this way. Seeing what is wrong with a game and criticize it is easily done. However, there is a difference between seeing what is wrong and can be improved VS how to actually pull this off. And to link back to the original story (gettig a bit offtrack here huh?) the second ond is what Nintendo needs. A young group of designers which can not only identify which parts of Nintendo’s heritage needs to change. But also how to pull this off.

@iMarkU All good points.

I'm just using Star Fox Zero because it's a clear example of what I'm getting at imo. I could pick other examples in other games, even the recent Super Mario Odyssey for example, but I fear I'd just be gunning for trouble if I went down that path. lol

And my point in pointing out the things I saw in Zelda is that I'm saying, even as a total diehard gamer and Zelda fan, if I were in such a position, I certainly would have been aware of and tried to address those issues in Skyward Sword and included those things Breath of the Wild, such that the final games would have been even better in both cases imo. And Similarly with Star Fox Zero, I would have made sure that game didn't go out like that if I had any say in the matter.

But Nintendo does indeed need some fresh new talent going forward as people like Miyamoto slowly wind down their careers at the company--I just don't think Miyamoto is necessarily taking the best possible approach to picking these people based on both his words above and my impression of his most recent approaches to overall game design lately. Although, again, that's just my take on things--and I couldn't really say who else would be better than him at the company for such a task anyway, if I'm being fair.

Before things get too drawn out, can I remind everyone that the man said, "I make it a point to ensure they’re not just a gamer, but that they have a lot of different interests and skill sets".

"Not just a gamer" implies they are in fact, gamers. That is, being a gamer is a positive attribute. One among many that are deemed necessary to be a good game developer.

Anyone saying "you wouldn't want a painter to do your plumbing" or similar is missing the point. You obviously want someone with a good grasp of what they're working with. But in a creative field - any creative field - you also want somewhat with a broad enough palette of interests and ideas that they can bring something new to the material. Otherwise they're not being creative at all. They're just being repetitive.

Games are one of the most versatile and open-ended forms of entertainment we have. You can literally make anything, inspired by anything. So I think it's fair to say you'd be missing a certain imaginative spark if the only inspiration you fall back on is 'other games'.

@Muddy_4_Ever and yet Todd Howard and Bethesda has a requirement to have experience in playing Bethesda games.

@amrole Cause they're making the same game over and over again.

@Maxz Yes, but first he did specifically also say "I always look for designers who aren’t super-passionate game fans", and that's the point I'm wary of personally. To me, that says anyone who comes across as a super-passionate gamer is potentially immediately dismissed as a serious candidate, and then he tries to make sure that the people he has seen fit to give a shot, probably not the super-passionate game fans, also have other interests and skill sets too. Again, taken as it's written, I'm not sure that's the best approach here.

My personal approach would be to absolutely look for designers who ARE super-passionate game fans, first and foremost, and then ideally find and pick some people in among those candidates who also have a lot of other interests and skill sets too. I don't think the two things are mutually exclusive, that one of them is a negative in any way, but I get the impression Miyamoto is sort of making that kind of pre-judgement here.

Miyamoto: So, how much do you love videogames?
Candidate: They are the thing I Iove most in the world. Videogames are the greatest entertainment media ever. I play games all the time and have studied them in detail for many years. I play all types of games and own many different consoles, and I've even tried creating a few of my own games too.
Miyamoto: Do you love other stuff as well and have many other interests and skills?
Candidate: I guess I have some interest in art and reading, but it's really games that I love most in the world.
Miyamoto: I'm not sure you're right for Nintendo.

Me: WTF!

I think that's the way to go: "different interests and skill sets". It certainly allows them to have a wider world insight to ideas going into concepts to integrate or capture in gaming.

@amrole certainly true! Heck, Davide Soliani made a Nintendo classic this year for Ubi and he's arguably the Nintendo's biggest fan.

I think the benefit of looking for folks who aren't just fans of video games and have a wide range of interests and experiences is that you'll have more diverse thinking. Perhaps those people with different interests will integrate their hobbies and knowledge into a game somehow.
They simply won't come to work and say "hey, I played this game this one time that had this mechanic, so I want to put it into our game because it's cool!"

@impurekind Sure Sonic Mania is great and up there with the best Sonic games. But it's derivative and an iteration. It came from people who recreated Sonic in the way Sonic already used to be. However it wasn't a brand new way at looking at a Sonic game, it was good for the same reasons Sonic 1-3& Knuckles were. But I always appreciate the surprise of a series I love being done differently in a way that still captures the feel of the old, equalling it or even exceeding it despite being different.

Someone who isn't just a gamer probably has a different point of view. Who'll be willing change up a genre with their ideas rather than follow established conventions, which allows more room for innovation and risk taking. Shigesato itoi for example diverging from RPG conventions to deliver something like the Earthbound/mother series which has a very unique feel. Similarily Satoshi Tajiri's Pokemon series coming from his experience as a child catching bugs, again giving a big divergeance from common RPG conventions to make one of gaming's biggest and at the time most creative IP...on the least powerful piece of hardware available at the time.

Perhaps its just me but I find a lot of the time the most passionate gamers are producing really good products based on repeating something they understand intricately and play it safer. Rather than trailblazing risky new ideas and concepts or changing the way you look at a genre.

I've heard other game devs (Avalanche) say the same.

You can't bring anything new to a medium if your only source of inspiration is content within that medium itself.

Nintendo's mantra is to surprise and delight, and and it's hard to surprise if you only take delight in what's already been done.

@Lizuka
I don't think that has been Miyamoto's approach specifically. Games he has personally designed are the likes of Steel Diver and Star Fox Guard.

I like the idea. Zelda and Pikmin didn't come from playing gamed, but from Miyamoto's own experiences and hobbies. It brings new ideas to the table that may not happen otherwise.

@Dr_Lugae I hear you and I agree to an extent, but I personally don't think a new game in a series particularly has to do anything obviously new or different to be something genuinely amazing in its own right. Super Mario 64 was utterly revolutionary for its time, but I'd absolutely argue that Super Mario Bros.3, Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island are still superior games (especially looking at all of them now years down the line and seeing how well they hold up), and while they did add some new elements and improve on the formula, they were still basically the same Mario-esque platforming game design but just iterating and improving on itself each time--so I'd ultimately always pick any of those games of Super Mario 64 when all is said and done. I also don't think changing things up is bad either, so long as it's done right, which it absolutely was in games like Super Mario 64 and Zelda 64 for example, but I'd say that 4/5 times it happens it actually isn't done right for the most part imo. So there's strong and weak examples either way, but to me the most important thing above all is just doing it right--and I honestly think the super-passionate game fans are often more likely to get that and do it right than other people who maybe don't care too much about the fundamental game stuff, and the things that made whatever particular game so brilliant in the first place, as maybe some other things like just telling a cool story or being all artistic or getting some message across or trying some new gimmick or whatever. I think a game like Star Fox Zero suffered from some of that stuff--and I absolutely believe that if a hardcore fanboy like me had been in charge of making a new game in such a beloved series, given all the same resources and access to talent that were available when developing this game, that it would have blown Star Fox Zero off the planet.

I totally feel you on the Mother/Earthbound series--a fresh approach to the RPG genre definitely helped there--Mother 3 ranks up there as one of my top games of all time:

http://www.inceptional.com/2016/08/18/my-top-games-of-all-time/

And the Pokemon games are on that list too--not any of the random off-shoots but the mainline Pokemon games (all of which are just slightly improved and tweaked iterations of the very first game when all is said and done, which actually goes to my core point again).

Great! I love me some musical theatre. Now, where do I sign up, Miyamoto?

I can do everything...everything but develop....but I do it well.