Shigeru Miyamoto, game designer extraordinaire and the father of game icons such as Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda and the brains behind the concept of the Wii, says he is very concerned about the state of gaming.
He said the trend towards excessive violence in video games is an issue that needs to be addressed by game companies.
"I don’t want to curb freedom of expression, but I am concerned many developers focus on excessive violence in order to stimulate people’s minds. I believe that there are more ways of grabbing players’ attention than violence alone."
Miyamoto doesn’t want to pin all the responsibility on game developers though. He also believes that parents must do their share in monitoring the games their kids play.
"I also hope that parents take advantage of age ratings when letting their children play." Miyamoto is a dad of two and is evidently practicing what he preaches.
With the recent downturn in the global economy, Miyamoto says that having fun should still be an important priority in order to live a balanced life. And by that, of course, he means video games.
"We need to eat in order to live, that’s our first priority. But entertainment and the enrichment of our souls must come in second place. Nintendo’s mission is to take advantage of improving and [developing] cheaper technology to create reasonable and affordable entertainment. It’s very good value."
Well, we can’ really blame him for a little self serving advertising for Nintendo, can we? But ironically, Nintendo has been trying to shed its "kids only" image with titles such as Manhunt 2 and the upcoming Call of Duty: World of War (Nov 2008), Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (2009), The Conduit (2009), Fatal Frame (2009), and the ultra violent chainsaw slice and dice game, MadWorld (2009).
With titles in Nintendo’s library such as these, Miyamoto’s argument for more discretion in producing violent video games seems to have fallen on deaf ears because the very company he works for is publishing the types of games he finds so disturbing.
[via developmag]
