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Expert Insight From Miyamoto, Todd Hollenshead

Posted by Zonk on Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:35 AM
from the wisdom-of-the-ages dept.
Entertainment Games
njkid1 writes "Nintendo's legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, id Software's Todd Hollenshead and BioWare's Ray Muzyka offer up their expert advice on how to rise to the top of the industry at GameDaily. Miyamoto says his secret to success is that he makes sure sequels are entirely new games rather than just minor updates to the same engine. From Muzkya's comments in the article: 'BioWare's success is based entirely on the fact that we have a lot of very humble, hard-working and smart people at our company who are allowed to take creative risks. We put quality as our number one studio priority, because we believe it leads to long-term success, and as a result we don't release a game until we've achieved and exceeded our high quality targets.'"
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[+] Writing the Bioware Way 25 comments
Thursday at GDC Austin featured several excellent presentations, but the cap to that day's writing track was without a doubt BioWare's discussion of their writing processes, tools, and the creation of the Xbox 360 title Mass Effect. The talk detailed the numerous revision processes their work goes through, as well as the shape of their writing team across a project's lifetime. Read on for notes from the session, and impressions from the short amount of in-game footage they showed during the event.
Firehose:Expert Insight: Miyamoto, Todd Hollenshead by Anonymous Coward
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  • "Creative Risks" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aladrin (926209) on Friday September 21 2007, @11:41AM (#20697115)
    I think this is the key, more than the 'no lame sequels' bit. If you don't allow your people to take creative risks, they can't produce anything truly new, which means any sequels will indeed be the same game with new graphics.

    Nintendo takes a lot of them, too... Turning SMB into a 3D game... Then turning it into a 2D/3D hybrid RPG... Link went from a side scroller to a 3/4 overhead RPG to a fully 3d realistic-looking RPG... They've split just about every game off into side-games like Dr Mario and Yoshi's Cookie... They're masters of this.

    It's also possible to fail utterly while taking the risks, of course. The other half of the secret of their success is strict quality control. You let your people take risks, but you let them know with no uncertainty if they fail one of them. And you don't ship the product until it's good.
    • Minor nit. "Link" (by which I assume you mean "The Legend of Zelda") started as overhead. It wasn't until the much maligned Zelda II that it went Side-scroller.
      • Hah, yes, you're correct. I didn't actually jump on the Zelda bandwagon until the third game. Game news wasn't as easy to get back then.
    • I'm sorry, but I have to take your geek license away. Link went from a 3/4 overhead Action/RPG to a side scroller, and then back. It did not start as a side scroller. Even the one with side scrolling action sequences had a 3/4 overhead overland map.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Sciros (986030)
        A big risk Nintendo took with the N64 was the controller. An analog joystick that players had to get used to -- it could have failed completely but the design was solid enough (and play control in Mario 64 tight enough; forget about Shadows of the Empire haha good grief, awesome game but the controls... T_T) that it took off.

        The 3D jump had already started before N64. Nintendo just showed people how to do it *right.*

  • Bioware guy makes more sense (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sciros (986030) on Friday September 21 2007, @11:48AM (#20697241) Journal
    Miyamoto is a genius and possibly a demigod, but sometimes what he says just doesn't make sense to me... I think that his success is largely attributable not to the fact that he innovates within his franchises (especially considering the Pokemon franchise, Twilight Princess going back to the "Ocarina" design, Mario Kart for DS being essentially MK64, and so forth), but with two other things:
    1) it has to do with the fact that these franchises started off SO AMAZINGLY HIGH-QUALITY (for their time, at the very least) and retained that quality regardless of whether they were "re-imagined" or not. More of the same (design-wise) is great if it was awesome to begin with.
    2) it has to do with the fact that some of Nintendo's innovation is also VERY HIGH-QUALITY. When I say this I mostly think of Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, but the Wii as a piece of technology is another example. (The Virtual Boy isn't, hence the "some innovation" ^_^)

    A more rubbish developer/publisher can innovate within its franchises all it wants, but it won't reach any level of success unless the franchises start strong and the innovation keeps them strong by being well designed/executed. Likewise, a strong developer does not need to innovate within a franchise (to the degree that Miyamoto suggested) to remain successful. Halo, Ninja Gaiden, DMC, Pokemon, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and even Zelda are examples of very strong franchises that remain[ed] strong even without massive innovation in successive titles.
    • Pokemon is not his, nor is Mario Kart. And Zelda was because fans pushed like hell to get him to do it, the mechanics of the game though play very little like Ocarina.
      • I have Twilight Princess... I think it plays a lot like Ocarina as well as other Zeldas. It doesn't feel like a "different design" to me in the sense that even Mario Sunshine compared to Mario 64 did... but anyway, I still don't see how this gives his comment more validity. As much as Nintendo always privileges innovation, it's *design done right* (innovative or not) that sells and that people enjoy. Nintendo, luckily for us gamers, designs stuff well and does it right a lot of the time ^_^
        • you dont think the whole Twilight World wolf thing was different from Ocarina? I mean there is not a huge difference between Mario 1 and 3 but there thats vast... but there IS a difference here.
          • The wolf thing was a "new" addition to Zelda... but then again I didn't like it much, heh. Anyway the core gameplay is very much "good ol' Zelda" and to be honest I like it that way ^_^
  • Every Zelda game has followed the same formula since the nes.

    Super Mario Sunshine??? Take Mario 64 and give him a water pistol! Mario Galaxy, put Mario 64 in Space. hmm. There's not denying he makes great games, but they are hardly original.

    • Every Zelda game has followed the same formula since the nes.
      The formula of The Legend of Zelda or the vastly different formula of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link?
    • Let me try...

      Ipod, shrink a boom box and add some headphones. Porsche, take a wagon and add an engine. Aircraft carrier, put a small village on a boat and add some guns.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by alvinrod (889928)
      I think the jury is still out on Super Mario: Galaxy. I've read a few different impressions from various journalists who play tested some levels at E3 this summer and they've said that it's amazing. If you compare Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Japanese version, not the American one.) how much changed between the games? They were both 2D side-scrolling platformers with a lot in common. Super Mario Bros. 3 was also fairly similar, but did feature some upgrades. In a similar fashion, I don't ex
    • Every Zelda game has followed the same formula since the nes.

      No, they're not at all.

      Zelda 1 was about exploration.

      Zelda 2 was a side scrolling game that added RPG elements.

      Zelda 3 went back to the Zelda 1 core style, but took away much of the focus on exploration, and replaced it with an emphasis on story and puzzles.

      Ocarina of Time shifted further towards story and had only minimal exploration.

      Majora's Mask was basically the movie Groundhog Day turned into a video game.

      Past that, they aren't as distinct. W
      • Man you just nailed what I've never been able to put my finger on about Zelda. I love the original Zelda, and I always find myself interested in each new Zelda game, but I haven't really liked any of them since the original. The exploration is all I cared about in that game. Drop me in the middle of nowhere and give me a wooden sword. No talk bubbles to click through, no horribly mindless errands to run for characters about which I couldn't be bothered to give a damn. Just let me go on my way!
        • I feel the same. I tend to lose interest in a game when they lock me into a static environment, or I've been everywhere.

          I want plot, too, but not 'boy meets girl' crap that's been done a billion times. Since 'every possible story has already been told' (a mangled quote from a great philosopher whose name I forget now) and I read a -lot-, I don't expect to find much worthwhile in the plot of any new video game, or most movies and books.

  • From the Todd Hollenshead Book of Success: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alzheimers (467217) on Friday September 21 2007, @11:54AM (#20697343)
    Step 1) Find a John Carmack
    Step 2) Feed him lots of junk food and soda
    Step 3) Harness his creative energy to publish some tech demos thinly disguised as games
    Step 4) Sell the engine to someone who can make a game better than you can
    Step 5) Profit!
    • Step 1) Find a John Carmack
      Step 2) Feed him lots of junk food and soda
      Step 3) Harness his creative energy to publish some tech demos thinly disguised as games
      Step 4) Sell the engine to someone who can make a game better than you can
      Step 5) Profit!

      The physics of this universe could not possibly cope with 2 John Carmacks. The concentration of genius would overload the known universe and we'd have a 2nd big bang expanding into 144 D Branes.
      • i = 0x5f3759df - ( i >> 1 ); // Collapse the universe!

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by EricR86 (1144023)
          That fast square root function was NOT written by John Carmack. Beyond3D has a whole article dedicated to the history of that line of code.
    • Enough of this rubbish. You don't have to enjoy them, but I'm tired of this "id makes tech demo" garbage. If they made "tech demos", they would BE tech demos... not full blown games. If you want to argue that id makes largely mediocre games with a powerful underlying engine... we could certainly have a discussion. When people continue to try and be clever and say id releases "tech demos" then they, and you, are just wrong... inarguably wrong. repeat after me, id does not make "tech demos".
  • Toilet humor and violence, oh and a massive game world worked wonders for GTA and the sequels

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