
The Era of Japan’s All-Powerful Videogame Designers Is Over - agonzalezro
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/era-japans-powerful-videogame-designers/?mbid=social_twitter
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aaronbrethorst
I don't understand how any article with this title can get by without mention
of Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. He's probably the _most famous_ of all of
Japan's 'rockstar' executive producers.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto)

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Hedja
Probably because it doesn't feed into the narrative he's trying to make.

Nintendo have been pretty much been releasing highly memorable and praised
games year-on-year. Most of which have a big designer behind it or at least
providing advice, whether it's Miyamoto, Sakurai, Aonuma or whoever.

But of course, times are changing. These people have been in the industry for
decades. A new generation will need to take its place so they'll gradually
move into coaching roles to pass on their knowledge and experiences.

Also, most games developed by large companies are hardly ever attributed to a
single person. It's a lot more collaborative now as studios get bigger and
more people are involved compared to back then (where most well-known
designers got their popularity from) when it was couple of developers writing
assembly.

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aaronbrethorst

        Probably because it doesn't feed into the
        narrative he's trying to make.
    

Right, that's my point: Miyamoto undermines the thesis of the article.

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gcatalfamo
I'm not knowledgeable enough on this topic: can you explain what you mean? I
am interested.

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dragontamer
Miyamoto's creations:

* Mario

* Luigi

* Peach

* Bowser

* Donkey Kong

* Link

* Ganondorf

* Zelda

* Fox McCloud

* Olimar (and Pikmin)

He's still around and is one of the major players of Nintendo. Another major
figure is Masahiro Sakurai, who was the creator of Kirby and Super Smash Bros.

Unfortunately, Miyamoto is spinning down his work and involvement in Nintendo.

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electricblue
Miyazaki is a rising star at From Software. Also Kojima isn't dead. I don't
expect him to stop making games just because he broke up with Konami. I have
no doubt he'll land on his feet.

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Tiktaalik
Kojima isn't dead, and I'm sure we'll see another game from him eventually,
but is he going to once again be in a position where he yields unquestioned
authority over a top Japanese publisher? Not likely.

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arielweisberg
Maybe this is where crowd funding steps in. It's hit or miss because some
times the demand really isn't there, but you can get AAA level bankrolling
from crowd funding.

If you can't maybe it's time to learn to manage scope and deliver iteratively.

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BillTheCat
You can't even get close to AAA-levels of funding through crowdfunding. The
only exception is Star Citizen which has raised $80 million by promising to be
all things to anyone who wants to fly around space and do things.

The highest-funded video games on kickstarter barely crack $3-4 million, not
even close to what you'd need to make a fully-fledged AAA game for current
consoles.

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a-saleh
To be honest, I don't really care for the games made on AAA budget.

For past two years I have mostly played FTL, Shadowrun Returns, Transistor and
Heartstone.

Two of those were made mostly on kick-starter money. Rest of them are far from
AAA budgets :-)

When mr. Kojima leaves Konami and decides to create a small, tightly budgeted
stealth game, I might give it a shot.

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ronniemcdon
Great article. I remember going out and buying a PS2 the day FF 10 part 2 came
out. (I had played all of them up to this point, just didn't have my own PS2)

That was the biggest piece of shit. They took some of the original places in
10, and added shitty boring minigames to do. That was the entire game. Oh, i
guess the girls could all change into different swimsuits or something, but
the plot was they were going to be rock star girls or something.

Final Fantasy took a nose dive right after 10 imo.

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tehchromic
I am not sure that I agree with the article that the age of the video game
auteur is over. There are so many shifting elements in video gaming that it
seems like it is hard to tell what will emerge. I imagine that, no matter what
platforms exist, just like in the music and movie industries, a singular
individual vision will always work its way to the top.

