Why We Love Developers

There is a very entertaining and informative Iwata Asks interview about Rhythm Heaven. Many fun surprises in that interview so go there and read it (I won’t spoil it). You just got to love the kittens though.

On some comments, I’ve heard people describe this interview as ‘Japanese’, as if Japanese go around laughing all the time during an interview. What it truly reminds me of are what I call the Generation Zero developers. I call them ‘Generation Zero’ because they were developers before video games and did not grow up with video games. To them, there is no ‘definition’ of a video game unlike those who grew up with video games. While today many people can look to a previous game for inspiration or not, the Generation Zero guys had no previous games. They had to look at art, literature, and anything else.

While these guys sound happy, they are working very hard in a high pressure environment. When we hear how Osawa was an emotional mess trying to fix every inch of the game, to make sure the player has no trouble whatsoever, we love that about him.

At one moment, Iwata says this:

When I watch Osawa-san making games, I get a sense of the mystery, the depth, the brilliance of making video games. Most people who play video games probably do not know about how video games are made, but putting together one single game is a lengthy process of trial and error integrating game operation and the structure of gameplay with a theme, a single concept, running through it all. How should I put it? In order to create one thing, you explore its potential, and tie it all together into one bundle. Not very many things are made that way.

Music is generally made this way. A book is made this way as well. In both instances, the musician and writer start and restart the book/song over and over. For the most part, they are never satisfied with what they do but they know they have to charge ahead anyway. In the midst of creation, more ideas appear and the song/book takes shape. The musician and writer do not know how the final song/book will end up which makes it so exciting.

And that is probably why developing games is so exciting. No matter what the initial ideas or prototype is, the end product is something very different and much better than what anyone imagined.