Master of Play - New Yorker Article

 
"When you play his games, you feel like you’re a kid and you’re out in the back yard playing in the dirt." 

- from Master of Play by Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker

I think we all have different memories of play as a kid, and remember many of those times as some of the best of our lives.  Everything we experienced, like playing Nerf football on the street, or trading baseball cards, or catching tadpoles, today will put a smile on our face and often make us wish we still had that same wonder and excitement today.  And for those of us from the Nintendo Generation, we all have a similar memory that immediately brings us that smile and gives us those warm fuzzy feelings.  The names are legendary in our minds: Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong.  These were more than just video games, and it wasn't just because they were the first games we played.  They were also the best video games we would ever see in our lives.  And they were all created by Shigeru Miyamoto.  Miyamoto created what every artist dreams of: unique, unrivaled masterpieces of their medium that forever are the benchmarks that everything that comes after is compared to.

"Miyamoto has designed or overseen the development of many other blockbusters, among them the Legend of Zelda series, Star Fox, and Pikmin. Their success, in both commercial and cultural terms, suggests that he has a peerless feel for the pull, that he is a master of play—of its components and poetics—in the way that Walt Disney, to whom he is often compared, was of sentiment and wonder. Certainly, in Mario, the squat Italian plumber who bops around the Mushroom Kingdom in a quest to rescue Princess Toadstool, Miyamoto created a folk hero—gaming’s first—with as great a reach as Mickey Mouse’s."

Miyamoto's greatness comes from a source of wonder and curiosity he experienced growing up in rural Japan that he constantly draws from during his creative process.  He seems to have devoted his life to creating games that bring the same joy and happiness that he had as a kid exploring the forests and caves near his home.  Definetely ironic that his love of nature inspired his love of video game development, but somehow that makes sense.  When you play Mario Brothers or Zelda, undertaking a quest through a magical world, you can definitely see the connection.

As author Nick Paumgarten discusses, what sets Miyamotos' games apart from the rest are their perfect combination of joy and challenge.  I think this balance is what Miyamoto perfected in those early Nintendo games, and when we look back now we see that no video game since then has struck that same balance.

"His games strike this magical balance between the excitement that comes from facing new problems and the swagger from facing down old ones. The consequent sensation of confidence is useful, in dealing with a game’s more challenging stages, but also a worthy aim in itself. 'A lot of the so-called ‘action games’ are not made that way,' Miyamoto told me. 'All the time, players are forced to do their utmost. If they are challenged to the limit, is it really fun for them?' In his own games, Miyamoto said, 'You are constantly providing the players with a new challenge, but at the same time providing them with some stages or some occasions where they can simply, repeatedly, do something again and again. And that itself can be a joy.'"