Miyamoto Dreams About Rivalling Rubik's Cube
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
As far as I can tell, a gimmick is a feature that gives an individual game a new twist (like the weapon/tool in Mario Sunshine), whereas innovation is a feature that is likely to change the franchise, the genre, and/or the entire industry (Like the gravity mechanic in Mario Galaxy). Both are new ideas; neither one is bad, and neither one refers your opinion on the idea. (I am tired of seeing people think "gimmick" means "something I don't like").Caliostro said:
As for your original comment, there is a lot of variety between each installment of LoZ and Mario. (In case you didn't notice, the last few console Zelda titles in reverse order are: Farmboy-turned-warrior gains the ability to shapeshift into a wolf and battles a demonic invasion with the help of a snarky imp, cartoon about a young boy exploring the ocean on his talking boat, and an experienced Hero stumbling upon an alternate universe that is about to be killed by its own moon.) As for Mario, you have the space games with 360-degree gameplay, the 4-player 2D platformer built in classic style with newer features (pure fanservice at its best), and the vacation where he is framed for graffiti and must fight his enemies with a new weapon/tool.
I made this list without getting into the spinoffs or handhelds, but I hope the examples are enough to get my point across. Yes, they have common gameplay and plot elements, but the setting, story, and art style provides more variety than you see in most other franchises throughout the history of the industry.
verb (used with object)starwarsgeek said:
5.
to equip or embellish with unnecessary features, esp. in order to increase salability, acceptance, etc. (often fol. by up): to gimmick up a sports car with chrome and racing stripes.
Most "new ideas" you're talking about are gimmicks. Crap that's tacked on for the sake of the sale's pitch. Like the asinine water pistol in Sunshine.
The gameplay is always the fucking same. Don't get me wrong, they're fairly decent games in their respective areas, but it's like Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 (pretending, for a moment, that MW2 didn't just do everything wrong), or Modern Warfare 2 and the upcoming Medal of Honor, or Final Fantasy's... Well... Almost all of them really. Except Mario doesn't have a fucking story (and what little of it there is there might as well not be), and Zelda has a flimsy excuse for a narrative at best.
If you tell me "Miyamoto created one of the industry's most recognizable characters!", I'll agree. If you say "Miyamoto was one of the people that "started" this industry as a whole", I'll say "surely, back in the 1980s". But Miyamoto is no more of a visionary than Rockstar, or EA, or iD, or most companies that have ever advanced anything really... Hell, GTA has more of a variation between games than fucking Mario, and at least those games usually have stories (ranging from "meh" to "pretty fucking good", depending on specific title).
He lost his shot, there's already a video game version of Rubik's Cube, and it's called Tetris. It's been around for a while.
You know what the funny thing is? Nintendo was actually a toy company once. 
Anyway, I actually completely disagree with Miyamoto-san. I don't think he took the "easier way". On the contrary, I would dare say he took the harder one.
Nowadays, being a game developer can be a preety lucrative career. But back when Miyamoto-san got involved in game development, the industry was still very much in it's infancy. There was very little to go on (the Magnavox Odyssey and the Atari 2600 weren't much of a starting point and they had no presence in Japan proper) and the future was one giant mystery, making game development a career of questionable value. Combined with the stereotypically negative view on gaming, the mere decision to become a game developer at the time must have taken a lot of guts. Iwata-san, for example, was almost disavowed by his parents beacuse he decided to use his prestigious computer-science degree to join Nintendo's HAL Laboratory subsidiary.
Love him or hate him, this industry wouldn't be the same without him. So even if you don't like Mario or Zelda, Miyamoto-san deserves respect for being one of the earliest pioneers of one of our favourite mediums. In comparison, while the Rubik's Cube is undoubtedly an ingenious invention, it was originally intended as a teaching tool. It's success as a toy was almost accidental and the survival of the toy industry didn't rely on it's success.
EDIT:
Anyway, I actually completely disagree with Miyamoto-san. I don't think he took the "easier way". On the contrary, I would dare say he took the harder one.
Nowadays, being a game developer can be a preety lucrative career. But back when Miyamoto-san got involved in game development, the industry was still very much in it's infancy. There was very little to go on (the Magnavox Odyssey and the Atari 2600 weren't much of a starting point and they had no presence in Japan proper) and the future was one giant mystery, making game development a career of questionable value. Combined with the stereotypically negative view on gaming, the mere decision to become a game developer at the time must have taken a lot of guts. Iwata-san, for example, was almost disavowed by his parents beacuse he decided to use his prestigious computer-science degree to join Nintendo's HAL Laboratory subsidiary.
Love him or hate him, this industry wouldn't be the same without him. So even if you don't like Mario or Zelda, Miyamoto-san deserves respect for being one of the earliest pioneers of one of our favourite mediums. In comparison, while the Rubik's Cube is undoubtedly an ingenious invention, it was originally intended as a teaching tool. It's success as a toy was almost accidental and the survival of the toy industry didn't rely on it's success.
EDIT:
Funny you mention Tetris, considering it was Game Boy's killer app.The Random One said:
Bullshit. He breathes money? You know that Miyamoto largely waives his salary so that he only earns as much as other designers at Nintendo and can be on their level? He didn't want to seem like a boss or higher ranking developer to his coworkers so he refrained from cashing in thousands upon thousands of dollars just for the sake of having a better team spirit and making better games.sooperman said:
Now, I agree that he isn't a flower child of creativity and good will, but he still has amazing values and tries to create good products. He hasn't made too many games that captivated me, but I respect the man.
I like how he keeps approaching video games from the toy angle. It's a good angle for the business and especially for a business like Nintendo.
That's hardly a list of Mario games- it has about 15 different franchises on it. If you're talking about the real Mario platformers, there are 9 on the consoles (not including Yoshi and Wario), and for a genre as broad as platforming, that's not very many at all over the course of 25 years. And like I said, just because there are lot's of games starring Mario, it doesn't mean any 2 of them are remotely similar. (spare me the arguments over Mario Party and Mario Kart) If they had stuck new character models on everything, would that make it okay? There are only a handful "genres" that a game can be labeled by the community. If a concept Nintendo comes up with involves a lot of running and jumping, you can bet your ass that Mario's gonna be the star, but that doesn't make it "another Mario game." I feel like he can star in a 3rd person shooter and people would say "OMFG ANOTHER MARIO GAME GOD!!!!"sooperman said:
Also, I would hardly call some of the best games of all time "garbage."
1. What exactly is that Mario concept you're talking about? Get to the end of the level without dying? In that case, every game ever made has the same concept. And also, every console platforming Mario game has added something new.WilliamRLBaker said:
2. Every Zelda has a fresh mechanic, several new utilities, and very different settings. Just because they involve collecting items and solving puzzles, it doesn't make them all the same. For god's sake Zelda doesn't even have a genre- It can be said that any game where you're character travels to many different settings, collecting items that enable new types of puzzles and access to new areas is a "rehash of Zelda." Except, sadly, there are no games on other consoles that I'm aware of that utilize this brilliant design.
3. To say that the man who basically created video games, is responsible for some of the best games and concepts of all time, and was the driving force behind every Nintendo innovation to gaming is "no more creative than any other game maker out there" is completely asinine.
This is exactly the point I'm trying to get across. It's easy to say that every Mario game is the same and every Zelda game is the same just because they have the same basic outline, but by that logic, every shooting game is the same, every racing game is the same, every sports game is the same. Nintendo can come up with an entirely new and original concept for a game, make Mario the star, and people would still say "OMFG NOT ANOTHER MARIO GAME!!" For any game that's released today, I could tell you one that came before it and did almost the exact same thing. The same goes for movies and books. Mario is a blank slate- there's a reason they made him a short, mustachioed, overall-wearing, high-jumping, and apparently athletic plumber from Brooklyn, and that's so they could apply him to any type of game. And they want to do this for the simple fact that he's a colorful and appealing character that anyone can love (and of course for marketing purposes).
sooperman said:
Agreed. It took Final Fantasy over 20 years to get to 13 games. It took Mario Party just over 10 to reach 8 games. I will forever respect Miyamoto but the company he works for loves milking franchises more than even Activision. I mean come on, instead of a fully 3D Donkey Kong game like DK64, we're getting yet ANOTHER side scrolling platformer. On a console which makes it worse. They could at least try.sooperman said:
Why would Nintendo release a game that isn't on their console? That's a really really STUPID request on your part. Donkey Kong 64 was terrible, and when you have a formula that works, don't change it so much because people like what their familiar with. As for your "yet ANOTHER side scrolling, platformer", what the hell is wrong with it if it works and makes people happy? God damn it, gamers are falling into the category of people that are impossible to please, they want everything to be the same or want everything to be different. If they put the character list of SSBM (Brawl never existed), into an FPS with weird effects and scenarios I'll bet people will still ***** about it for lack of creativity.AzrealMaximillion said:
>_>.
Lemme put my comment in layman's terms just so you can understand. Why the hell can't Nintendo put out a 3D DK game on their console. (Which was a damn good game by the way). This new DK COuntry game is something that in all honesty should be on the DS. That's how I meant it. I don't know how you could've interpreted me saying that Nintendo should be making games for other consoles. That's a stupid assumption. It's not that I'm impossible to please, I just expect people to use their resources to a decent extent. Seeing that the first DK game to come out in 11 years is a side scrolling game coming for Nintendo's main console makes me disappointed. A lot of side scrolling platformers have gone to handheld consoles, and downloadable services like PSN, WiiWare, and XBL. Why should I spend $50 on a Wii side scroller when I can get 2-3 side scrollers of the same quality on other platforms? There's a precedent that has been set in this day and age and people expect everyone to follow the standard. Take Dead Space: Extraction for example. Great game, but it was a rail shooter sold on the Wii for $50. As great as the game was, it essentially flopped. HARD. People don't want to pay full price for games that can be implemented as a mini game in other games. Back to DS: Extraction, they're just throwing that game onto the disk of the PS3 version of Dead Space 2. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is another example of an on rails shooter that hasn't been selling well. I just expect Nintendo to put the same effort into DK and Kirby and Star Fox as they put into Mario and Legend of Zelda. It's kind of sad.Lightslei said: