Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Kirby and Super Smash Bros., is sick of all the established franchises and remakes. Although innovation can be found in the AAA market, the majority of big-budget releases rely on familiar names and easily recognizable characters. Sakurai notes this as a problem within his weekly column in the new Famitsu magazine (via Polygon), and claims this industry is far more attached to its major players than any other.
"Is there any industry that relies so much on reusing and reusing their old titles as much as video games?" he asked. "Compared to other media like movies, dramas, animation, novels and comics, the glut of franchises and remakes is at an unnatural level."
It’s not like video game sequels don’t make sense. Other than the desire to see great characters return, it’s easy to just build on mechanics people already know.
"You have to learn the rules of a game before you can play, and that presents hurdles from the very start," he continued. "That's why you have a generally unified approach to control methods between titles, and you can usually play one by taking what you already know and adding a feature or two to it — X means jump, Square means attack, and so on."
And yet, unique, quality titles will attract people no matter what. If a new IP emerges and does something exciting, the fans will follow.
"Good games attract fans, and if you have fans, you have an advantage," he wrote. "You try to use that to make the title something bigger, but that doesn't mean it's okay to give up on innovation. Popular, well-made games deserve praise, but titles that have some kind of unique creative spark to them also need to be praised in this way. That's what the judges are trying to do here, and it won't work if it was just popular majority vote. That would lead to people just voting on names and past performances."
For now, Sakurai is working hard on the new Super Smash Bros. He’s revealed a few new characters over time, which he’s noted is one of the most difficult processes of development.
