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Games Entertainment

Miyamoto Gives Advice to Game Design Hopefuls 57

Posted by Zonk from the learning-from-the-zen-master dept.
grenada writes "As reported by Ars Techncia, Shigeru Miyamoto has some good advice for aspiring game developers. Instead of telling kids to focus on video games, he actually says that it's beneficial to diversify your education and personal interests. He says that meeting people and familiarizing yourself to different fields will give you the best perspective of the world in the long run, which will help in your game-developing career. 'While young people are still students, I think it is important for them to not just focus on something like programming or just focus on video games. Instead they should do things that you can only do while you are in college. Get out, meet people, and talk to people.'" As a follow-up, N'Gai Croal at Newsweek has up an interview he did with Miyamoto-san entitled the Artist's Way.
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Miyamoto Gives Advice to Game Design Hopefuls More

Miyamoto Gives Advice to Game Design Hopefuls

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  • More likely... (Score:5, Funny)

    by UbuntuDupe ( 970646 ) * on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @03:19PM (#18592349) Journal
    Here's what actually happened:

    Miyamoto: What the heck is wrong with you people? Get a life! I mean, I love success as much as anyone else, but I can't stand by and watch this any longer. Video games are supposed to be a side hobby, not something you build your life around. I almost fainted when I heard we'd be licensing Mario bedsheets. I mean, get out there. Get a date. Take down the Kirby poster...

    *fat guy in suit waddles up*
    *pulls Miyamoto aside*
    *starts scolding in Japanese*
    *makes huge gestures with his hands*
    *makes gesture for "small child"*
    *makes gesture for "big house"*
    *makes gesture for "money"*
    *makes "cutting neck" gesture*
    *Miyamoto bows to him*
    *returns to stage*

    Miyamoto: What I mean is, if you're going to design a game, you should have separate interests...

    crowd: *Hm, what sage advice*

  • Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Applekid ( 993327 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @03:19PM (#18592353)
    "Get out, meet people, and talk to people."

    What are these "people" he speaks of? Is that some kind of new interactive game demo that's outdoors?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) *

      What's this "outdoors" you speak of? Is that some kind of new RPG?

      • Oh, now it all makes sense.

        "People" are NPCs. Of course!

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by techpawn ( 969834 )
          I heard the frame rate and bump mapping on the "outdoors" is amazing!
        • I wish I was an NPC...

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by Verteiron ( 224042 )
            *sigh* Times are tough [rpgworldcomic.com].

          • You are. I can't pick you in the "new game" menu. As a matter of fact I can't even find the "new game" menu on this outdoor game. Nor any other menu, so the UI is pretty bad on that part. However the game itself plays very smooth. Not to mention the Force Feedback. When I pushed the tough looking guy, it really felt like pushing him. And his reaction showed damn good AI and it really felt like being beating up. Amazing!
            But I don't think this game will be around for much longer. I've found nudity and even h

  • College (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alzheimers ( 467217 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @03:24PM (#18592453)
    "Instead they should do things that you can only do while you are in college."

    Translation: Take lots of acid. Then you too can create the next Mushroom Kingdom.

    • Re:College (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @03:37PM (#18592719)
      > "Instead they should do things that you can only do while you are in college."
      >
      > Translation: Take lots of acid. Then you too can create the next Mushroom Kingdom.

      "Thank you, Mario! But your princess is in another guy's dorm room!"

  • Just what I think (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Esc7 ( 996317 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @03:25PM (#18592473)
    This is good advice for everyone not just hopeful game designers. Seriously everyone, life is too vast to focus on one small thing.

    • Re:Just what I think (Score:4, Interesting)

      by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @04:14PM (#18593431)
      Charles Darwin is a good example of why you need a broad education. He didn't come up with the idea of natural selection by reading a lot of biology papers, he came up with the idea by reading Malthus' book on human population growth.

      If you focus exclusively on your field, then the best you can do is learn everything that is already known in that field. That may be fine if you just want to be a craftsman, using time-honored techniques. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you want to really push boundaries, you need to go outside your field and bring in pieces of knowledge which are foreign, even revolutionary.

    • Tell that to John Carmack.
      • I don't know if that was meant to be a joke, but you are aware John Carmack also is the founder and lead engineer of Armadillo Aerospace, which has nothing to do with video games...right?
        • As perhaps his biggest fan, I am aware of that. However, I consider his interest to be "engineering" not "programming video games". He does nothing with his time except engineering, which is why he is so good at it.
  • Go run and play with your friends. That'll teach you how to program... I spent the past 10 years programming, you can't say you can learn what I've learned by hanging out with your friends and going to college. It's called experience.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's called experience.

      Exactly, and in this case the experience we're talking about is life experience, which I believe is a fundamental prerequisite for the type of creativity that makes a good game designer. This has nothing to do with programming.

    • I spent the past 10 years programming, you can't say you can learn what I've learned by hanging out with your friends and going to college. It's called experience.

      Look dude, you need both programming skills and a personality to call your very own. Those people who spent the last ten years in their mother's basement learning to program might be the best coders ever but if they can't work with people and relate to them, if they don't have experiences from which to draw inspiration, then they're worthless in

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by grumbel ( 592662 )
      And all that programming knowledge will help you *design* a game exactly how? Just because you are able to design an game engine doesn't mean that you can design a game. For game design, especially if you want to do something different then just yet another FPS game, you need knowledge of things outside of gaming and computers. Programming experience will help you program, but won't help you much with the non-programming aspects of games. It might not look at that from the distance, but game design is actua

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by syrion ( 744778 )
        Honestly, this is one of the reasons I am usually underwhelmed by Western games. (A generalization, I know.) It seems that most of the "great" game designers we have in America are actually just great coders. I think it all goes back to John Carmack--everyone wants their game to be nifty, not necessarily a good game. They want to invent the Quake engine again, and don't have any unique ideas or approaches. Of course there are exceptions--Insomniac and Retro Studios have produced some great games recent
        • Insomniac isn't a second party. They're completely independant.

          Sure, they have really, really close relations with Naughty Dog(who are a Sony 2nd party), and are effectively Sony exclusive, but they're still third party(as is Sucker Punch).

          I also wouldn't call either Insomniac's(I mean Resistance pretty much just combines every FPS cliche under the sun, and Ratchet/Spyro are basically Mario 64 derivatives) or Retro's stuff full of unique ideas(well, maybe the level of attention to detail, like looking up w

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by syrion ( 744778 )
            Well, I think Pagan was '94, but you can be forgiven for forgetting that. What a giant up-screwing of a great franchise. As for Insomniac, well--they don't revolutionize genres, but they do execute their games very well. Ratchet & Clank is more of a 3D Mega Man than it is a Mario 64 derivative, really.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rakarra ( 112805 )
            I thought Ultima VII part 2 was more like splitting an immense game into two smaller parts (if you're thinking about serpent isle..) rather than releasing an expansion to an existing game.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 7Prime ( 871679 )
        Bingo. Programming is a tool. Knowing how to use a hammer doesn't make you a good architect. That said, playing games is important. You're not going to write an interesting piece of music unless you listen to a lot of music, same with every genre. Learn to understand the success and failings of those who came before you. Then get out, and use your own life experiences to build on those things that you feel worked... it's like any art form, you're better off learning much more than just how to create in that

    • I spent the past 10 years programming, you can't say you can learn what I've learned by hanging out with your friends and going to college.

      Most decent universities that I know of have a program called Computer Science, your mileage may vary. (Especially if you ignore lecture to /., as I am now.)

      It's called experience.

      In my experience, going to work in the "real world" the programmer with 15 years of "experience" wrote 100% pure www.thedailywtf.com worthy code, he quit shortly after I started submitting patches. Couldn't stand the egg on his face.
      Lets not get started with the one with 20 years experience.

      I'm not saying that experience is valueless, indeed, the best

  • My opinion (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Darkstormeffect ( 1083707 )
    Basically Miyamoto is saying you have to enjoy life while at college because all you will do afterwards is work. So go outside and be social while you still can.

    • There was a point there, son, you missed it.</foghorn_leghorn>

      The point is that enjoying life is what makes you a well-rounded person, not academic success or preparation to be a code drone.

      The further point is that a well-rounded person makes a better game.

      If you want to be emotionally and socially healthy, you need to actually live your life. Watching other people live theirs and attempting to analyze it is no substitute for having your own life. And unless you have your own existence, you can't

  • An Ironic experience for me . . . (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Badgerman ( 19207 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @04:05PM (#18593263)
    I was a computer and game enthusiast for over two decades. I wrote business software, websites, databases, and soforth. Nothing exciting like gaming supposedly is, and my skillset wouldn't have worked in the gaming world except, perhaps, as a webmaster.

    When I became a Project Manager? THEN I got interviews at game companies.

    You never know.

  • miyamoto-san? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @04:18PM (#18593505)
    > As a follow-up, N'Gai Croal at Newsweek has up an interview he did with Miyamoto-san

    Look, you're writing in English, the name is Miyamoto. This just makes you look like some goofy otaku fanboy.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by patio11 ( 857072 )
      Lots of Japanese people I meet at my job (technology incubator in Japan) will go out of their way to stick a Mister on my name (or a close approximation thereof), because they think its polite. Even when they're talking in Japanese, which obviously lacks "Mister". Even when they're addressing me on a first name basis, for some folks. Many foreign businessmen who don't speak word one of Japanese will put a -san on everything in sight, because they think its polite. My policy is to accept both in the spir

  • Article Link Points to a Game Review (Score:4, Informative)

    by TexVex ( 669445 ) on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @04:24PM (#18593609)
    The link in the article points to a review of "Cooking Mama". What's up?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by VJ42 ( 860241 ) *
      First off, seeing as you read TFA, You must be new here etc. etc. ;P

      To answer your point, scroll about a quater of the way down the page, past a bunch of other articles, and you'll finally reach the article. Not the best thought out link in the world, I agree.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RyoShin ( 610051 )
      When Miyamoto mentioned diversity, he meant things like Liberal Arts, Ancient History, and Underwater Basket Weaving.

      These are, of course, great tools for when you begin your career at McDonald's, hence the relevance of the linked review.

      Cooking Mama trains our future!
  • Imagine my surprise when I heard that Miyamoto Usagi was giving advice to game design hopefuls! What, one might ask, could an anthropormorphic rabbit ronin have to teach us about games? Let alone one who supposedly lived almost four hundred years ago...

    Then again, I guess you could think of Usagi as someone who studies life and the world around him - perhaps we could learn many things from his unique perspective!
  • Game designers or teams go unrecognized, and it's TEAMS not just "designers". Designers are good for vision, but the most recent Nintendo's games on the cube and even TWP prove that Nintendo or it's development teams are losing touch with gaming.

    1) Wind waker and TWP, both games that could have been much better
    2) The tragedy that was Starfox assault since Nintendo desperately farmed it out (bad decision), most likely killing the franchise even more then it did with the re-badged dinosaur planet.

    Miyamoto is
    • Tell that to Daisuke Amaya.
    • no single game designer has had anywhere near as much impact on video games as miyamoto throughout his career. i dont know what miyamoto had to do with starfox assault but one mediocre game means nothing. even 10 mean nothing when you've been invovled in as many games as miyamoto has. also "TWP" as you call it is an excellent game thats judged 10x harder than any no-name game simply because it's zelda and it has a legacy of one of the greatest video game series of all time (if not the greatest). i'll gladly
  • That's the thing, so many people who want to be game designers go out and get CS degrees. This is probably about as far as you want to get to break into the video game field. For every programmer, there are like 10 designers behind him: graphic artists, game theorists, UI developers, screen-writers, composers, sound technicians, etc.

    It's basically like if everyone who wanted to be in cinema went to study cinematography. Cinematography may be the thing that actually produces the final product, but a film is
  • 1) I build experience in creative thinking by studying many different fields, arts, ways of thinking, etc.

    2) I get all you coders to make the games for me.

    3) I hire some middle men who can tell you to make the games for me, without sounding like an asshole (like me).

    I think I'm set for life.
  • How do you say "developers ! developers ! developers !" in Japan ??

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