Shigeru Miyamoto Interview with The New Yorker

Published today, The New Yorker gave us a wonderful glimpse into the mind of the father of Mario himself, Shigeru Miyamoto. In the interview, Miyamoto talks about his desire to reject violence in video games, trying to not let power get to his head and be a good boss, and how he and Nintendo began building their own version of Disney Land.

The interview is a lovely read that really helps us to understand one of the founding fathers of modern video games. The New Yorker interviewer, Simon Parkin, did a wonderful job covering numerous areas, including his personal life, his creation process, how competition breeds inspiration, and how he feels about the over-saturation of violence in video games these days.

At one point in the interview, Simon Parkin asks Shigeru Miyamoto the following question:

I believe in video games as a medium, and believe they can often tell us things about ourselves that are different from the insights offered by literature or film. There’s also a part of me that recognizes they can occupy a bit too much space in a person’s life. They are demanding and alluring; the obsession they inspire can squeeze out important things. Your job, usually, is to keep players engaged. Do you ever feel a tension between that role and the responsibility of putting things into the world that don’t diminish people?

Miyamoto’s response was not just insightful, but it was also inspiring and beautifully said:

It’s kind of hard to build a game where the player can quit anytime. Human beings are driven by curiosity and interest. When we encounter something that inspires those emotions, it’s natural to become captivated. That said, I try to insure that nothing I make wastes the players’ time by having them do things that aren’t productive or creative. I might eliminate the kinds of scenes they’ve seen in every other game, or throw out clichés, or work to reduce loading times. I don’t want to rob time from the player by introducing unnecessary rules and whatnot.

The interesting thing about interactive media is that it allows the players to engage with a problem, conjure a solution, try out that solution, and then experience the results. Then they can go back to the thinking stage and start to plan out their next move. This process of trial and error builds the interactive world in their minds. This is the true canvas on which we design—not the screen. That’s something I always keep in mind when designing games.

This idea about not wasting time: it’s something I also think about in regard to the creative process. I try to reduce as much routine work in the office as possible and increase the number of new experiences that we have while creating.

It is amazing that Shigeru Miyamoto constantly engages with these types of questions and ideas and wants to further the discussion and improvement of the video game medium. Some people may think that his thinking is a bit archaic, but I think Nintendo’s successes speak loudly of the world’s desire for similar ideas and approaches.

The whole interview is a delight to read, and it is heavily recommended to check out in case you want to learn more about Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo, and the Super Nintendo World opening in Osaka, Japan in 2021.

People like Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata have not only cemented their legacies at Nintendo, but they have both become icons in the gaming world. It was a sad day when we lost Iwata-san a couple years ago, but thankfully the west will be getting a lovely reminder of his impact in the form of an Ask Iwata book coming in 2021.

If you have not checked out the Super Nintendo World Direct yet with Miyamoto, then please do yourself a favor and check it out as soon as you can.

Despite Nintendo’s flaws, we are seemingly reminded on a regular basis of their humanity and desire to be a positive impact on the world. This interview with The New Yorker only furthers that image.

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