Once upon a time, Iwata’s Ask interviews were interesting and insightful. The reason why is because journalists asked the stupidest questions to Nintendo developers. These stupid questions were done in part because the journalist was a blockhead but also because they were intentional. Stupid questions were like, “So when is Nintendo going to start making games for Sony or Microsoft consoles?”
Iwata Asks bypassed the stupid journalists and Nintendo could say what they wanted. This has been good in many ways where they could talk about the Wii without being asked, “When are you going to go third party? Herp Derp.”
But it appears Nintendo has forgotten about this bias they used to be up against and these interviews have fallen apart into bland, uninteresting, and scripted public relations and marketing exercises. The latest example of this is intentionally summoning up an all female staff just to make some PR moves.
IWATA: “Hello Nintendo employee. You are called here because you are female. We are getting an image that our developers are all men so the only reason why you are here is for a publicity stunt.”
NINTENDO FEMALE: “Oh boy! Cheer!”
IWATA: “Tell me about the first time you played Zelda.”
NINTENDO FEMALE: “The game looked so cute and wonderful! And the tutorial part of the game was VERY DIFFICULT.”
IWATA: “Now I will make a comment about how I wish Zelda to be defined. And you, as employee, will cheerily agree with it. Even though you do not represent the market, I will present your viewpoints as if they are the market’s viewpoints. ”
NINTENDO FEMALE: “Oh of course!”
IWATA: “You loved Ocarina of Time because you liked how the game got you into 3d and away from 2d? It must have been a culture shock!”
NINTENDO FEMALE: “Yes! Of course! There was just so much more for me to do in 3d than in 2d.”
MALSTROM: “You idiot Nintendo PR people. Zelda fans don’t differentiate Zeldas between 2d and 3d like Mario fans do. Zelda fans are more concerned about a vast overworld which has been lacking in every Zelda game after Ocarina of Time. If you are going to create a PR move, make sure you understand what the problem is first. Sheesh.”
It’s impossible to take the interview in any serious way because of how Iwata leads the interviewees to say what apparently the PR department wants out there. Here’s an example:
But how can Zelda have broad appeal if it doesn’t even have broad sales? Anyway, the point of ‘cutting grass’ or ‘seeing responses in the environment’ are all features of a vast overworld not because of the genius of Miyamoto demanding that a sign ‘float naturally’ when thrown in water. No one cares about a sign floating in water or how realistic that is. People care about the overworld. If that is missing, the ‘logic’ of Zelda becomes meaningless. What good is the law of gravity if there are no planets? Nintendo puts the cart before the horse by thinking these ‘logic rules’ create the world where it is the other way around.
It’s either my imagination or it seems like these interviews pick out and praise the things I picked out and held as examples as ‘bad things’. For example, I pointed out how in Wind Waker that one of the worst things was when they took away Link’s sword at the beginning of the game and made it feel like a different game altogether. Link would ‘stealth’ around. and then I read:
In the same way, it is Miyamoto who is driving the Mario series to be 3d only. But Nintendo is now trying to deflect the heat on a Nintendo developer no one hears about and make sure Miyamoto doesn’t publicly say anything about Mario being in 2d or 3d. But it’s too late. The cat is out of the bag.
There appears to be misinformation on Nintendo’s end that in order to appeal to women, Zelda must be about ‘cutting grass’, ‘puzzles’, and ‘giving hugs’. But when you stop looking at just Zelda but look at the ENTIRE universe of video games, women play all sort of games. Women love games where they can get a sword and slay a monster.
One obvious thing is that the Nintendo women said they put in artificial societal responses (ex: people cheering Link in a dungeon). This is why MMORPGs are extremely appealing to women because there is a greater emphasis on the social element. I’ve said this before but Zelda’s future is multiplayer. Zelda’s future is not ‘crappy story’ with ‘dumb NPC’ with progress defined by ‘lame puzzles’.
As game design goes, Zelda also suffers from another big problem. But it is best to illustrate it in another post. Once you hear it, I’m sure we’ll start hearing Iwata and his employees express how much the ‘problem’ is actually a ‘good thing’. You laugh but just wait and see!