The idea of video game developers as auteurs didn’t exist when the first Pong machines appeared around the US, and it also didn’t quite come up even when we were starting to get classics like Super Mario World and Tekken 3. But Metal Gear Solid struck a chord, as one of the first very successful video games that had overtly adult themes, and was clearly made for older gamers instead of children.
Hideo Kojima may be the first auteur in the true sense of the word, but it’s probably fair to say his success and reputation has popularized this idea around game development. It’s a standard that’s been applied to Western AAA game developers like Ken Levine and Neil Druckmann, offbeat Japanese game developers like Suda51 and Swery65, but is this really a notion that’s applicable to every video game developer of note?
As reported by Automaton Media, former Nintendo developer Takaya Imamura has shared some surprising insights about his former colleague, Nintendo Fellow and Board Member Shigeru Miyamoto. He said this on Twitter:
Mr. Miyamoto studied industrial design at an art university, and he views games as ‘products,’ not ‘works of art.’ I think this perspective is what leads to game development that’s more aligned with the user.
Automaton went on to explain that Miyamoto’s industrial design degree came from the Kanazawa College of Art. Now, industrial design is not a career specific to the video game industry, though it’s more ubiquitous than you may think. Industrial designers help make normal consumer products special, which is why we consider brands like Apple, Alfa Romeo, and Leica premium compared to its peers.
Miyamoto has explained in interviews that when he first joined Nintendo, he was put to work making toys and playing cards. When the company shifted towards video games, he brought that educational background and skillset to their new ‘products’ as well.
If that sounds cold and academic, there’s something that Automaton doesn’t bring up. In an even earlier interview, Miyamoto revealed that he grew up with ambitions of becoming a manga creator. And his motivation then was to create things and see people enjoy them. So, the truth is, there is a convergence in Miyamoto wanting to make games as ‘products’ and also as ‘works of art’, but he really doesn’t make games the way an auteur thinks of making games.
Automaton goes on to share a story of Miyamoto testing his game prototypes by having someone who didn’t know about games play their games without explaining them. Miyamoto doesn’t make games for people who are already hardcore gamers, who could appreciate deeper meanings from deconstructing the medium’s tropes, or attempting to make deeper philosophical or political statements.
And that kind of way of making games clearly remains popular, when you see how successful Nintendo remains to this day. Miyamoto doesn’t even make games for Nintendo anymore, but his philosophy continues to inform their game design.
Of course, this doesn’t’ really stand as a criticism or repudiation of ‘auteur’ video games either. It’s simply true that video games are so broad as an art form that it encompasses different kinds of games, that don’t resemble each other at all.
