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Forums - Gaming - Inafune:‘If a Creator Hasn’t Played Mario, They’re Probably not a good Creator’

Veknoid_Outcast on 09 October 2013
pokoko said:
Seece said:
osed125 said:

You are looking at it at the wrong angle, in his opinion, Mario is the equivalent of Beethoven (first musician that came to mind, could be any other), but that doesn't stop death metal bands or rappers for taking inspiration in his music and what it represents.

Nope, analogy doesn't work at all.

Fact of the matter is it could be considered Mario is the bible for Platformers, nothing else.

I would agree with this.  The first Mario game was very important when it comes to platformers.  However, that's just one of many genres.  I would be willing to say that Zelda is much more important in terms of overall influence than Mario.

It would be hard to become a fantasy novelist without reading Tolkien but it certainly isn't a required read for someone who aims to become a writer of mystery novels.

Although I disagree about Mario being mostly important to platformers -- I'd argue its influence transcends genre -- your point about Zelda is a good one. Overall, Zelda might be more influential than Super Mario Bros. in terms of game design.

It's extraordinary that both games sprung from the same mind.



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Pristine20 on 09 October 2013
ROBOTECHHEAVEN said:
there is quite a few people in this thread, whom need to realize wether they want too or not that mario games and ( miyamoto ) . are why the video game industry is where its at today and thriving, because games like mario which a good game designer should play because all the areas u can learn from in the game. also ask almost of the designers in the video game industry whom they hold the most respect for and what game they credit there interest in the industry and they will say mario, that is a statement i know i have heard repeated too many damn times too count. i think most of the people whom have gotten into the gaming industry since say the ps1 days, are the ones whom dont have the respect for the games/people who have done so much for the industry. because dont have the creative mind or imagnation like the ones before them did.

I'll assume I'm one of those people you're speaking to so I'll respond. I never denied that video games continued to thrive after the crash because of nintendo. What you guys do need to realize is that Nintendo isn't an altruistic company. They didn't "save gaming" because they wanted to help everyone. They did it to help themselves because they were heavily invested in it.

What areas exactly can you learn from Mario that you can't learn from any other great game pray tell? Is it because it came first? Industry people respect Miyamoto because of how long he's stayed relevant (mighty thanks to people like you) not because they wish to copy everything he has done. You do not get to decide what is creative. You're simply conservative when it comes to gaming i.e the old way was always better. Ask anyone in politics the problems such views can cause and why such views can stymie progress.



"Dr. Tenma, according to you, lives are equal. That's why I live today. But you must have realised it by now...the only thing people are equal in is death"---Johann Liebert (MONSTER)

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives"---Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler

happydolphin on 09 October 2013
Incubi said:
Seece said:
Yeah because a developer making an FPS could learn a lot from Mario .....

Its funny how the designers at id Software whom made Castle Wolfenstein, learned how to create games by actually copying super mario bros. and submitting it to Nintendo so they could get a job there? They didn't, so they reworked it and made a Mario ripoff for PC. Later, someone at id said: What if this was in first person perspective?

Did you know that the lead designer of Doom states Miyamoto games as his greatest inspiration? Wonder if Mario was one of those games he had in mind.

It must've been Goldeneye. Oh, wait.



HoloDust on 09 October 2013

That's really silly statement - game genres are not like movies genres, so that they build, more or less, upon common ancestry. What's P&C Adventures, Turned-based military strategies or Flight simulators, to name just few (and there are A LOT others), got to do in common with Mario games?



happydolphin on 09 October 2013
HoloDust said:
That's really silly statement - game genres are not like movies genres, so that they build, more or less, upon common ancestry. What's P&C Adventures, Turned-based military strategies or Flight simulators, to name just few (and there are A LOT others), got to do in common with Mario games?

Why is this concept so complex for some of you? There is more to a game than its genre, there is more to a game than its gameplay, there is the idea behind this or that innovation, there is music, there are themes.

In the case of Mario, just the idea of hidden blocks or warp zones through plumber pipes is a concept, the spirit of which can be adopted in an FPS, for example what was done in portal (never played it but I can imagine).



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Incubi on 09 October 2013
happydolphin said:
Incubi said:
Seece said:
Yeah because a developer making an FPS could learn a lot from Mario .....

Its funny how the designers at id Software whom made Castle Wolfenstein, learned how to create games by actually copying super mario bros. and submitting it to Nintendo so they could get a job there? They didn't, so they reworked it and made a Mario ripoff for PC. Later, someone at id said: What if this was in first person perspective?

Did you know that the lead designer of Doom states Miyamoto games as his greatest inspiration? Wonder if Mario was one of those games he had in mind.

It must've been Goldeneye. Oh, wait.

LOL! Thats the thing, isn't it? People are so simpleminded that they do not understand that core game design principles transcends genresXD



Kasz216 on 09 October 2013

I'm not sure i'd go that far... though it DEFINITELY is the game anyone should play before they do make a game.

You can be good without it, just how some writers and movie makers can be good without reading the great classics... but at the same time, it really does hurt your chances and hurts your credibility.



forest-spirit on 09 October 2013
Veknoid_Outcast said:
pokoko said:
Seece said:

Nope, analogy doesn't work at all.

Fact of the matter is it could be considered Mario is the bible for Platformers, nothing else.

I would agree with this.  The first Mario game was very important when it comes to platformers.  However, that's just one of many genres.  I would be willing to say that Zelda is much more important in terms of overall influence than Mario.

It would be hard to become a fantasy novelist without reading Tolkien but it certainly isn't a required read for someone who aims to become a writer of mystery novels.

Although I disagree about Mario being mostly important to platformers -- I'd argue its influence transcends genre -- your point about Zelda is a good one. Overall, Zelda might be more influential than Super Mario Bros. in terms of game design.

It's extraordinary that both games sprung from the same mind.


Well, there are FPS's with platforming elements, right? I can easily imagine say Mirror's Edge being influenced by Mario. Heck, you could perform a Mario "stomp" in that game, unlocking the "It's a me!" achievement. And just recently the director of Assassin's Creed IV admitted that Super Mario 64 was a big influence. They way the castle worked as a hub and all that.

So yeah, it's not like Mario's influence is limited to just platformers.



MDMAlliance on 09 October 2013

Something I'm seeing a lot of people here kind of missing is that he's saying "probably."

That probably doesn't mean that it's an absolute truth, but that in his opinion it is important to have played Mario to be a good creator (using Mario as an inspiration). Not everyone who is a creator has latent ability in design.



Mr Khan on 09 October 2013
Pristine20 said:
Mr Khan said:

Yes you shouldn't be allowed to drive cars if you haven't driven a model T, or at least taken one apart and put it back together (more important to car design). At least if you're devising consumer cars, anyway. Because if you don't understand why the people of the past succeeded, you will not succeed. If you don't understand why the Model T got millions of skeptical people in town and country alike to take a chance on this mysterious horseless carriage, you are removed from a design that will make your company succeed.

Younger folks can always play these games (type in Super Mario Bros into Google and you too could be playing in the next 15 seconds. If you want to go legal and own a 3DS, Wii, or Wii U, hop onto the Shop Channel, take you 5 minutes to start). The entire problem with the industry is that newer designers *aren't* playing these games. The earliest games are important because these are the games that got people to start gaming in the first place, so they must have done something right. There is this conceit in the development community currently (and your post buys into it as well, with the comment about there being more options today) that people want to play video games so somebody will play what they make because what else are they going to do? This is wrong thinking. Super Mario Bros wasn't so universally popular because nobody had anything else to play at the time. Super Mario Bros was so universally popular because it compelled people to get off their asses, go to a friend's house and play, beg their parents for an NES and start playing. It got people to play because it was that good. Understanding why, understanding what mystical hold this game (and others, i'm just floating it out as an example) had to hook people in, to bring them into a whole new medium, is the very essence of good game design, and if you do not understand how the medium created a space for itself, you are doomed to eternal mediocrity as a game designer, and certainly any hope of growing the medium and making your own mark on it will forever be out of your reach.

Madden 25 is a bad example. There are simply enough people that want to play a real NFL sim and Madden is their only option. EA (the bad new EA, not the good old EA that made Ultima and actually contributed to the industry instead of just leeching off of it and cannibalizing it) has created a monopoly, so their designers get the privelege of existing in a bubble where they can just shit out anything and people will play it because there is nothing else that meets that need.

I would argue that using old ford designs as a recipe for making a modern car is just asking for a disaster. Why not use a successful modern car then as some of the tech used back then is obsolete or downright outlawed nowadays. NES did not necessarily get people to play because it was that good IMO. I played the original mario too and now, I just couldn't go back as it bores me to tears. At some point, NES was pretty much the only meaningful player in the industry so if you wanted to try videogames, there was no other option. Similar situation to madden if you want to use that argument about football sims. Lots prefer FIFA to other "soccer" offerins if you think EA flatout sucks. Any "mystical hold" you think Mario had is just imaginative. i'd make the argument that the negative outlook of women in games started from mario as well and Miyamoto's characters have no development whatsoever, just walking stereotypes i.e problematic direction for people to be emulating when joining the industry.

You argue that these early games got people into gaming but they really only got your generation into gaming not "everyone". I know people who got into gaming thanks to the games we all love to hate like COD. So is it then wrong for a developer to study COD instead to figure out why it's so popular? Why does it have to be the old school stuff? Does Justin Bieber need to study Beethoven to make better music? I'd argue that he's doing plenty fine without doing that .

How do we decide what game "contributes" to the industry and what doesn't. Is it by first to get there or who is most popular?

You've managed to miss most of my points spectacularly.

Can anyone else explain this better?



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