“You shouldn’t do that”: Mario creator explains why gaming is struggling

Why have an Italian plumber, collectible pocket monsters and ink-shooting squid kids become global icons? According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, it's because those games were never designed with the goal of appealing to as many people as possible. In an interview with Famitsu (in Japanese), the 73-year-old, who still serves as Nintendo's Representative Director and Executive Fellow, identified what he sees as one of the gaming industry's biggest problems today:

"Many developers take a game they love and think about how they could make it even more fun. I always tell them: You shouldn't do that."

With that statement, Miyamoto also highlights a broader issue facing today's gaming industry. Recent events at Sony and Microsoft show how easily chasing trends can backfire. Sony spent years investing heavily in live-service games before canceling several projects, including a rumored God of War title. Microsoft, meanwhile, pulled the plug on projects such as Perfect Dark and Everwild.

Nintendo takes a different approach

Does Miyamoto mean developers shouldn't take inspiration from other games? Probably not. But in his view, simply copying a successful title, swapping out a few mechanics and adding whatever trends are currently popular isn't enough. Nintendo starts much earlier in the creative process – by asking what players actually enjoy.

"When we come up with a new game, we start with the fundamentals. We don't look at existing games and ask which elements we could change or combine. Instead, we first ask: Why do people play games in the first place?"

Miyamoto is also critical of short-term profit-driven thinking. In his view, developers who constantly ask whether an idea will make money quickly are unlikely to create anything truly original. He argues that it's often deeply personal hobbies and highly local ideas that eventually resonate with players around the world. According to Miyamoto, Splatoon began with nothing more than the idea of claiming territory by covering it in ink. Pokémon, meanwhile, grew out of series creator Satoshi Tajiri's childhood passion for collecting insects, which eventually evolved into the now-famous gameplay loop of catching monsters, trading them with friends and completing a collection.

Fans mostly agree

In a Reddit discussion about the interview, most fans agree with Miyamoto's assessment. However, not everyone is convinced. Some users point to survivorship bias, arguing that for every unconventional game that becomes a hit, countless equally creative projects go unnoticed. Passion and originality may be important, they say, but they are far from a guarantee of commercial success.

Others also note that Nintendo itself isn't entirely immune to following successful trends. Mario Kart World expands the series' traditional racing formula with an open world, while Metroid Prime 4: Beyond introduces significantly larger and more open environments in Sol Valley. In both cases, however, those more open-world-inspired elements have been met with a less enthusiastic response from players.