Shigeru Miyamoto views games as products, not art

[Sudenak]

Miyamoto has always been more or less a "toymaker". While someone could look at it and say "this is beautiful art!", the toymaker will always say "but I just made it so that you would like it".

He's a businessman, but one with a creative spark. There's still a little twinkle in his eye, unlike the other soulless machines that loudly belch "I don't want it to be fun to make games" (not pointing any fingers >_>

I do agree with him. When Nintendo makes a new Pokemon game, they're not doing it for the same reason "Flower" was made. They're making it because it's fun for the consumers, and the consumers want to buy it.

Not every game needs to be art. While we can call it art, that doesn't mean that the intentions behind it are artistic.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Is this why nintendo won't enter new ideas? Not because they can't or it would hurt them but because of mad management? If so, he holds back the entire industry.

This statement is beyond crazy.

Let's get past the fact that instead of throwing the dice on new IPs, they create new games of existing IPs.

How on earth is Nintendo not innovating? Nintendo is still far and away the most innovative developer in the industry. This isn't even debatable. Yes, Super Mario Galaxy is "just another Mario game", but it's also one of the most unique and brilliant games ever made. Would you really have enjoyed it more if instead of being a Mario game, it had been a new IP? The Wii and the upcoming Wii U (not to mention virtually every version of their handhelds) have all been innovative consoles/devices.

Shiggy's not holding back the industry. Quite the opposite: he's always been about kind of ignoring the industry and blazing his own trail, leaving other consoles (and unfortunately, third-party developers) scratching their heads. He tries too much to do new things (sometimes to the detriment of the games.) More than once, Shiggy can be credited as having saved the industry.

 

[EBsessed]

Well, games are all art by definition.

I heavily disagree. I think something should have some sort of heart and soul, be beautiful, have some way to change you and make you think and teach you new ways of viewing the world in order to be considered art. M&M's Racing and Imagine: Babyz and Carnival Games and a ton of other such games fall nowhere near that category.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Assuming it's an accurate translation, I can't say I'm all that surprised. Many of Nintendo's biggest titles have basically been refining and rereleasing the same game for 20+ years now. That certainly sounds more like a consumer product than a piece of art to me. It also does little to argue that games can't have artistic value, just that Nintendo makes them to sell rather than to have any real meaning.

 

[GrungyMunchy]

Assuming it's an accurate translation, I can't say I'm all that surprised. Many of Nintendo's biggest titles have basically been refining and rereleasing the same game for 20+ years now.

Yes, especially the Mario ones, dictating how every platform game should be made with every Mario released. How unoriginal of them.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Well, I can see where he's coming from, saying that their games are products first. But still, games are an artistic medium, even if they are not marketed that way.

 

[Prince Regent]

I'm sure that when Rembrandt made a painting he primairily saw it as a product too. Sure it was art, but het painted so that he could pay for food.

For the producer a product will always be a product first, but that doesn't mean it can't be something else too.

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

I feel its always better to remeber its a game and therfore is suppose to be fun. If you get wrapped up in the whole games should be art then you risk running into the "art for the sake of art" trap and then your left with pretensious peices of shit.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Assuming it's an accurate translation, I can't say I'm all that surprised. Many of Nintendo's biggest titles have basically been refining and rereleasing the same game for 20+ years now.

Yes, especially the Mario ones, dictating how every platform game should be made with every Mario released. How unoriginal of them.

It's not a question of quality, it's a question of concept. Nintendo makes, generally, high quality enjoyable titles. The Mario games, however, have basically seen two maybe three lives. One Super Mario to Mario World, the other Mario 64 to present. There's an obvious refinement to the execution and ideas used, but you're fooling yourself if you think that Mario 64 is a totally different game than Galaxy 2. It's the same as with, say, a microwave oven. Today's microwave might cook things more evenly and look prettier than one from 20 years ago, but it's still the same fundamental product.

 

[Hamish Durie]

by definition games are art but fuk the dictionary some games are art but not all games just a select few

 

[Hamhandderhard]

Art... I consider a game by Bioshock to be art, given the immersion, setting, backstory etc. But in the end you can ignore all that and play through the entire game ignoring all the story and just playing the game to have fun and dick around. I mean, we all like dystopian fiction once in a while but who cares when you can set a person on fire and, while they go into some water to extinguish the flames, shock the water and find joy in their screams of pain and then loot the corpse for money and supplies.

 

[MB202]

I just saw someone mention this article:

http://gamez.itmedia.co.jp/games/articles/0910/27/news082_3.html

Since it's in Japanese I can't tell for sure, but the guy who brought it up pointed out one quote from the article:

"What we have created are not an art but products. For us, the most important are the customers and not games themselves. I always tell staff to call Nintendo games products, not an art."

Anyone who can read Japanese want to double-check?

If he doesn't consider his work art, why should anyone else?

Is this why nintendo won't enter new ideas? Not because they can't or it would hurt them but because of mad management? If so, he holds back the entire industry.

I hate to admit it... actually I'm glad to admit it because it's been on my mind for a while, but I'd have to agree with you there. After watching Extra Credits, I'd have to say that Nintendo rarely tries to push the envelope or do anything to make deeper and more meaningful games... With some exceptions, but those exceptions are typically made by second party developers, like Intelligent Systems.

 

[FateOrFatality]

I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive. Movies are obviously considered both an art form and a product. What makes it different to gaming?

 

[Pingieking]

Well, they're not mutually exclusive.

Miyamoto has the right idea; Nintendo is a company that is trying to sell games, therefore they should approach the production of a game as a product. Do their best to achieve the highest quality possible. That doesn't mean that they can't also make their products into works of art at the same time, it just means that it's not on their list of priorities.

I would like Nintendo to push their creative boundaries a bit more though. They have the talent to pull off stuff similar to what Team Ico has done; create great games that can also be considered works of art.

 

[tlozoot]

Death of the author and all that. If your audience finds artistic merit in what you merely release to be a product then they're art. Many Nintendo franchises aren't artistic in the sense that they provoke emotion, but that they're immaculately designed.

Zelda strikes me as something that makes an emotional connection though.

 

[Chelsea O'shea]

didn't need more reasons to hate nintendo,and here still is yet another.

 

[Jegsimmons]

so, the designs, concepts, writting, expression through those means makes video games only a product?

with all do respect japanese guy i dont know.....go screw yourself and read what art says in the dictionary.

 

[Shock and Awe]

I can see what hes saying I agree to a point. Games are certainly products, they are made for the intention of selling. That does not mean they cannot be art as well though.

 

[Sudenak]

Yeah, but I'd say the same about every industry. Most people make games, films, music, etc. to be a product. Is it still art?

That's for you to decide.

(I think yes)

I'm not arguing that no games are art.

Just like Fast Five was nothing more than a product, not all games are art. Nor do they need to be. They can be, even if it was unintentional, but that does not change that they weren't made just to be art. There are some games that were made to just be art, but not all are.

So when Miyamoto says that the most important thing is to make what the customers want, he means that he's putting art second and the product first. If it is art, fine, but that's not the intention.