Miyamoto: "I Never Said Games Are Art"

Greg Tito

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Sep 29, 2005
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Miyamoto: "I Never Said Games Are Art"



The creator of Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda said that he considers himself more of an entertainer than an artist.

Shigeru Miyamoto is the designer of some of the most loved videogames franchises of all time, including Mario Bros. and Zelda, but also F-Zero, Animal Crossing and StarFox. For his achievements, he was awarded a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) fellowship award in London this weekend. He remained humble while accepting the award but, during an interview, Miyamoto said that he never considered videogames to be an artform on par with film.

"It's a great honor that my name might be listed as a fellowship member along with such a great director as Hitchcock," he said. Other winners of the BAFTA Fellowship [http://www.bafta.org/awards/academy-fellows,125,BA.html] include Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Anthony Hopkins and Stanley Kubrick.

But Miyamoto dismissed the idea that his work was anywhere near as influential as other winners of the award. "I have never said that video games [are] an art," he said.

During his acceptance speech, Miyamoto humbly accepted the BAFTA Fellowship on behalf of all of the people who have worked on his games. "I am embarrassed to receive such an award, so I am taking it for everyone who has worked with me in the last few years and I thank them for all their hard work," he said.

He also challenged the videogame industry to take playing games together with other people more into account. "I am more interested in atmosphere where player can interact with each other," Miyamoto said. "Our imagination and creativity takes us to countless fascinating places were we hope to make new experiences for people of all ages. This I call a recipe for joy.

"I hope the videogame industry continues to develop with both entertainment and character."

Miyamoto joins Will Wright (The Sims) and Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) as the two other representatives from the videogame industry to have received a BAFTA Fellowship.

Source: VG247 [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35952226/ns/technology_and_science-games/]

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IamQ

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Mar 29, 2009
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The founder of Atari has gotten this Award too? Hmmm...something about 1983 doesn't seem right...
 

reg42

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Mar 18, 2009
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But games are art!
Dammit, how are going to educate the world if our people won't even follow this way of thinking.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Maybe Bobby Kotick will take his statement out of context to further his agenda to "remove the fun from games."
 

Muffinthraka

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Aug 6, 2009
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Games that are art
World of Goo
The Path
That new one where you throw colour at everything (I forget the name)
Love
Audiosurf

And those are just the obviously arty ones, once we get into the whole "what counts as art" debate so much more can be added.
 

potatowave

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Nov 20, 2009
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I think it's just Miyamoto being excessively humble. I mean, look at the guy. He looks like if you shot him in the face he'd apologize for standing in the way of your bullets.

Edit: on-topic, I think gaming just needs a few more years to gain acceptance. It's easy to forget that storytelling in games has only been in existence for a little over twenty years. That's just barely a generation.
 

JediMB

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Oct 25, 2008
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Video games can be art, but they aren't such by default.

Primarily they're interactive entertainment.
 

Yumi_and_Erea

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Nov 11, 2009
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Whilse some games are art, I agree with the man that his work is not on the same artistic level as Kubrick.

Just goes to show he's still got his wits about him, which is good to hear.
 

Henrik Persson

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Mar 14, 2010
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JediMB said:
Video games can be art, but they aren't such by default.

Primarily they're interactive entertainment.
All paintings aren't art either, but painting is still an artform. And art is entertainment.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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reg42 said:
But games are art!
Dammit, how are going to educate the world if our people won't even follow this way of thinking.
I have to agree, I think they are art too.

They can be both though if we think about it. Boith art, and entertainment. After all thats what they are made to look like for us
 

Trotgar

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Sep 13, 2009
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I think games are more or less art, depends on the game. Sometimes they focus more on those parts, sometimes they don't. Either way, I think he deserves the award.

But why do all the news about Miyamoto here have the same scary picture?