Can there possibly be anyone as influential as Miyamoto ever again in the gaming industry as we know it?

[Deleted member 671]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto_gameography

The man, the myth, the legend


Director/Designer/Producer of titles like

Donkey Kong
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario 64
Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time

The man basically wrote the script for how the entire genre of platformers would play out for the next almost 40 years. Mario 64 and Ocarina basically rewrote how games would work in 3D to this very day.


Sales wise, Miyamoto launched some titans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game_franchises

Mario: about 600 million
Wii series: 202 million
Legend of Zelda: 92 million
Donkey Kong: 58 million

These franchises will probably reach a billion total sales by the time he retires. Hell, these franchises are what Nintendo IS to a lot of gamers and help Nintendo break into the North American market. From establishing some of the most beloved franchises of all time, to helping design the foundations of entire genres, to helping launch Nintendo into stardom with Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc. and then later doing it again with the Wii series... is there another creator who comes close to Miyamoto's influence on their chosen medium? The question "What is the Citizen Kane of gaming" is asked frequently. Well I have another question: who is the Miyamoto of cinema?

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Your age of heroes is over!

 

[Khanimus]

Impossible to imagine. Especially with how many projects he's been associated with to varying capacities.

 

[vivftp]

Well I'm just now working my way through the Dreams tutorial, gimme a bit of time and I think I'll get there ;)

 

[Mediking]

I'm the director of Final Fantasy XVI aka 16.

You guys haven't seen nothing yet.

 

[Deleted member 8861]

Every medium of art has had its fair share of titans. We will see directors that match and surpass Miyamoto, someday.

 

[takriel]

Before the dark times. Before the GaaS.

 

[TissueBox]

As Jason Rubin once said, there will be and its name is Tara Reid.

 

[Asbsand]

I believe there's several Miyamotos around as we speak, like Corey Barlog, Hideo Kojima, Neil Druckmann and the like. The difference is that they have different styles and because gaming is so matured that many developers can create great stuff by formula the kinds of successes Miyamoto had won't be as noticeable today and honestly likening a technological shift and boundary-breaking game-design shift because of it is no longer fair to attribute to single game designers in most cases, because game productions require so much more than just a programmer.

Back in the 90s one programmer was the "main guy" in Sonic The Hedgehog. Nowadays one person is the "main guy" who makes a solid indie platformer. The scale of production in AAA changes the perception, and the age of the one-man champion of games is kind of over.

It's also worth mentioning that while Miyamoto has been consistently good for Nintendo's morale, there's been several stories and developer comments suggesting that he struggled to find a way to contribute following the SNES days, like when he would tell developers to "avoid making complex things!" in Ocarina of Time until he decided to implement the somewhat weird carrot mechanic for horse riding, which perplexed his colleagues because it was the most complicated gimmick in the game. He's been hit and miss since the original successes he had.

That's especially why we need to consider so much how we treat employees in this industry now. There's so many who needs to be involved and so much at stake. It's not as cute and cuddely anymore.

 

[Aztorian]

No, Miyamoto was running a family, not a business.

 

[PixelatedDonut]

Miyamoto isn't the only one who worked on those games, I'm sure theirs lots of nameless people who were just as important to this industry. People just don't care about them.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

If you're talking about influence in terms of creating IP that impacts the highest number of people, the answer is clearly no... and that's a good thing.

Single person rockstar devs being the sole creative driving force behind a game is a net negative. Games on the whole now are much larger projects requiring teams of hundreds of people. A diversity of influences and perspectives in the creative process is highly beneficial to resulting in better and more inclusive games.

If you're talking about influence in the process of making videogames... people like John Carmack are far more influential, imho.

 

[mxbison]

Can someone make just as good or better games than him? Sure.

Would that make the person more influential? Probably not.

 

[Exius]

Notch could have been if it he made more games after Minecraft and didnt turn out to be a massively bigoted asshole.

 

[Deleted member 671]

I believe there's several Miyamotos around as we speak, like Corey Barlog, Hideo Kojima, Neil Druckmann and the like. The difference is that they have different styles and because gaming is so matured that many developers can create great stuff by formula the kinds of successes Miyamoto had won't be as noticeable today and honestly likening a technological shift and boundary-breaking game-design shift because of it is no longer fair to attribute to single game designers in most cases, because game productions require so much more than just a programmer.

Back in the 90s one programmer was the "main guy" in Sonic The Hedgehog. Nowadays one person is the "main guy" who makes a solid indie platformer. The scale of production in AAA changes the perception, and the age of the one-man champion of games is kind of over.

It's also worth mentioning that while Miyamoto has been consistently good for Nintendo's morale, there's been several stories and developer comments suggesting that he struggled to find a way to contribute following the SNES days, like when he would tell developers to "avoid making complex things!" in Ocarina of Time until he decided to implement the somewhat weird carrot mechanic for horse riding, which perplexed his colleagues because it was the most complicated gimmick in the game. He's been hit and miss since the original successes he had.

That's especially why we need to consider so much how we treat employees in this industry now. There's so many who needs to be involved and so much at stake. It's not as cute and cuddely anymore.

Click to shrink...

Granted, there's always more than just one person. Kubrick, Spielberg, etc. didn't singlehandedly make their movies either. So I do agree with your point that we need to work towards having the industry treat employees better. Treating them like human beings rather than temporary work horses to be discarded at a moments notice should be the fucking baseline, but unfortunately here we are with 100+ hour work weeks, no job security, record profits being followed by massive layoffs, etc.

 

[Chackan]

Kojima is also huge, game wise and even spans into movie territory (a lot of tweets of him with known movie makers)

 

[Deleted member 10737]

there's never gonna be anyone who influenced video games as much as miyamoto did.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Let me get into gamedev and i'll beat out Miyamoto easy.

 

[BocoDragon]

No.

To be Miyamoto, you'd have to come from an eccentric toy company who'd actually put one man in charge of all their in-house blockbusters. In some sense old Nintendo pres Yamauchi merely mandated Miyamoto and R&D4 would make all their "big games", and he lived up to it, delivering Mario, Zelda and so much more.

Since any current and future dominators of this industry will probably be technology companies of some form, who will surely seek content though multiple studios and third parties and all the modern techniques, no one man will ever dominate a company's first party output ever again. Sony and Microsoft will never make games with one guy in charge of anything but business decisions... Let alone Facebook, Google, or anyone else who could challenge the gaming space.

If game platforms were still made by small game-focused companies like Sega, NEC, etc... then maybe it could happen. But that era is decades finished.

 

[pixelpatron]

As high as I hold the great Mr M...and I'm forever greatfull for the franchises, mechanics, characters, stories, and worlds he's crafted with his teams at Nintendo. Our medium is in it's infancy when compared to film; would audiences of their time proclaim Chaplin, Hitchcock, Disney, or Harryhausen would never be outdone? Like the leaders of film, there were clear pioneers and visionaries, yet I believe Miyamoto will be the first of many rembered for thier contributions to the medium. But those that will build on the foundations started will be the gaming equivalent of Spielberg, Woody Allen, Nolan, Lucas, R Scott, Burton, James Cam, and Lasster...Among others. More greatness is to come.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Yes? Why the fuck wouldn't it be possible.

 

[TheUnseenTheUnheard]

He amazing but yes. Wait until we fully unleash AR games with glasses. There will be a whole other platform that will be around forever. Someone will need to show us what an amazing AR game is.

 

[BrickArts295]

Miyamoto is on an S league on his own.
Its harder to pick someone to compare him to nowadays because videogames have SO many people working on them.

I feel like these are some names that keep coming up when it comes to videogames influencers in general:
Hideo Kojima
Tetsuya Nomura
Houser Bros
Hidetaka Miyazaki
Eiji Aonuma
Mark Cerny
Hironobu Sakaguchi
Yoshinori Kitase
Alexey Pajitnov
Shinji Mikami
Hideki Kamiya
Todd Howard
John Carmack
John Romero
Satoshi Tajiri
Bruce Straley
Neil Druckmann
Amy Hennig
David Jaffe
Chris Avellone
Warren Spector
Ken Levine
Gabe Newell
Vince Zampella
Will Wright
Yu Suzuki
Allan Alcorn


And even after listing all these names no really comes close to the level of Miyamoto. Unless we go further beyond and look at his inspiration, Tomohiro Nishikado (Space Invaders).

 

[tadaima]

No.

To be Miyamoto, you'd have to come from an eccentric toy company who'd actually put one man in charge of all their in-house blockbusters. In some sense old Nintendo pres Yamauchi merely mandated Miyamoto and R&D4 would make all their "big games", and he lived up to it, delivering Mario, Zelda and so much more.

Since any current and future dominators of this industry will probably be technology companies of some form, who will surely seek content though multiple studios and third parties and all the modern techniques, no one man will ever dominate a company's first party output ever again. Sony and Microsoft will never make games with one guy in charge of anything but business decisions... Let alone Facebook, Google, or anyone else who could challenge the gaming space.

If game platforms were still made by small game-focused companies like Sega, NEC, etc... then maybe it could happen. But that era is decades finished.

Click to shrink...

I'm glad somebody has already gone to the effort of writing what I would have otherwise wrote. Thanks!

 

[julia crawford]

No one will have the opportunity.

 

[Thera]

I don't think it is possible simply because he was at the start of gaming to the mass.

 

[Deleted member 671]

Yes? Why the fuck wouldn't it be possible.

Click to shrink...

I mean in our current context. As VR takes off, streaming takes over, etc. I'm sure that there will be other massively influential people. However, the reason I listed sales is due to Miyamoto's unparalleled reach. Combined the games he's worked on as director, designer, producer, executive producer, etc. have sold over a billion copies. To not only help create Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, and the Wii series but also work in varying roles like producer/designer on Star Fox, Pokemon, Kirby, and other such series is a tall order to match.

 

[Harry Potter Obama]

Will Wright is/was up there with him IMO.

 

[plié]

I had to Google this guy 🤷‍♂️

We have Will Wright, Molyneux, Kojima, Sid Meier, John Carmack.
Those I would call influental

 

[JoeInky]

The game industry is too diluted for anyone else to be as influential.

It's a massive industry now with 10s of platforms, hundreds of games released a day and the big games are a much more collaborative effort due to the expanding scope of games so the idea that one person could completely influence the entire industry that way anymore seems almost completely impossible.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

I had to Google this guy 🤷‍♂️

Click to shrink...

you can't possibly be serious

 

[ShadowMurloc]

Not possible. He's from a different era, games were simple to make and innovation and originality weren't hard to come by.

 

[Interested Observer]

I think Gabe Newell is up there. Not for his game design obviously, but it's hard for me to imagine the PC gaming landscape today in a world without Steam.

 

[PenultimateFantasy]

No because he was there near the start and has been there through the evolution of video games into where they are now

In the same way there will never be music artists as influential as the Beatles, beach boys, elvis etc as they were amongst the first to have the tools and use their creativity to find new ways to use them

 

[plié]

you can't possibly be serious

Click to shrink...

I had a idea that he founded Nintendo or something, but yes I am.

I know absolutely nothing about the Japanese gaming scene, even if I have been gaming since the early 90's. My interests have always lied elsewhere.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

I had a idea that he founded Nintendo or something, but yes I am.

I know absolutely nothing about the Japanese gaming scene, even if I have been gaming since the early 90's. My interests have always lied elsewhere.

Click to shrink...

even with that i thought it would be impossible for anyone with a more than passing interest in video games to not know miyamoto is the creator of donkey kong, super mario bros and zelda.

 

[KillLaCam]

Yeah If they had that type of opportunity that he did. But gaming is too big now for that to happen.

 

[sir_crocodile]

There already was (Gunpei Yokoi), but again? No.

 

[Deleted member 5535]

Probably not until we're all dead

 

[Deleted member 8593]

That's like asking whether someone will be as influential as Shakespeare or Plato. When you're there at the very beginning, being instrumental in creating the fundaments of the very medium, it's difficult for someone else to rival you in "influence", which is a loaded concept in the first place. Unless there is a massive paradigm shift in gaming, it's simply unthinkable.

 

[MistaTwo]

Nah, I don't think it will ever happen again.

 

[medyej]

John Carmack. Just look at the things pioneered by Quake alone and how influential they were on games.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

That's like asking whether someone will be as influential as Shakespeare or Plato. When you're there at the very beginning, being instrumental in creating the fundaments of the very medium, it's difficult for someone else to rival you in "influence", which is a loaded concept in the first place. Unless there is a massive paradigm shift in gaming, it's simply unthinkable.

Click to shrink...

pretty much. the circumstances just aren't there for a similar figure to emerge in the medium of video games.

 

[Code Artisan]

Notch could have be.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

I believe there's several Miyamotos around as we speak, like Corey Barlog, Hideo Kojima, Neil Druckmann and the like. The difference is that they have different styles and because gaming is so matured that many developers can create great stuff by formula the kinds of successes Miyamoto had won't be as noticeable today and honestly likening a technological shift and boundary-breaking game-design shift because of it is no longer fair to attribute to single game designers in most cases, because game productions require so much more than just a programmer.

Back in the 90s one programmer was the "main guy" in Sonic The Hedgehog. Nowadays one person is the "main guy" who makes a solid indie platformer. The scale of production in AAA changes the perception, and the age of the one-man champion of games is kind of over.

It's also worth mentioning that while Miyamoto has been consistently good for Nintendo's morale, there's been several stories and developer comments suggesting that he struggled to find a way to contribute following the SNES days, like when he would tell developers to "avoid making complex things!" in Ocarina of Time until he decided to implement the somewhat weird carrot mechanic for horse riding, which perplexed his colleagues because it was the most complicated gimmick in the game. He's been hit and miss since the original successes he had.

That's especially why we need to consider so much how we treat employees in this industry now. There's so many who needs to be involved and so much at stake. It's not as cute and cuddely anymore.

Click to shrink...

Don't disagree on the whole, but you're definitely missing Hidetaka Miyazaki from your wee list of legends

 

[PinballRJ]

Are sales a measurement for influence? If so I would say Satoshi Tajiri

 

[Fevaweva]

As people have said, I think Will Wright, Gabe Newell, Sid Meier and John Carmack are certainly up there on the Mount Rushmore of gaming.

Kojima? Ehhhhh

 

[Asbsand]

Don't disagree on the whole, but you're definitely missing Hidetaka Miyazaki from your wee list of legends

Click to shrink...

I was just namedropping anyway from the list of often-mentioned figures.

 

[plié]

even with that i thought it would be impossible for anyone with a more than passing interest in video games to not know miyamoto is the creator of donkey kong, super mario bros and zelda.

Click to shrink...

I'm really not interested in video games outside of this forum and actually playing them.

 

[massoluk]

I had to Google this guy 🤷‍♂️

We have Will Wright, Molyneux, Kojima, Sid Meier, John Carmack.
Those I would call influental

Click to shrink...

Not to be rude, but this statement said more about your knowledge in the game industry than Miyamoto influence in the game industry.