Nintendo on appealing to all types of players
USgamer has published a massive feature in which it delves into the topic of Nintendo’s quest for inclusivity. It features plenty of comments from EAD manager and original Animal Crossing director Katsuya Eguchi as well as Animal Crossing: New Leaf director Aya Kyogoku.
Among the topics discussed is Nintendo’s mission to create games that appeal to all types of players. Eguchi started off by saying:
“When we create games, the thing that is the most difficult for us is the need to create a game that will appeal to both people who enjoy a good challenge as well as for people who aren’t, you know, quite as experienced. Making sure everybody has a good time. Mario Maker kind of answers the difficult question of how to adjust game design for different skill levels, just in and of itself. You know, video games are just one genre of play, of pastimes, and I think that what’s essential to play is to use your imagination and try out new things. Those are the kind of video games I want to continue making.”
Kyogoku added the following:
“We want to reach out to a very wide audience. As Mr. Eguchi mentioned, there are people who are good at games or bad at games. There are adults, children. We want to reach out to all of those people. We think about who we want these games to be played by and how we want them to play the games. But ultimately, we won’t know until the game is released how that will play out. At the development level, we try to imagine and play out scenarios about how this type of people will play, or that type of people might play, to keep that at the forefront as we move forward on the development of each title. We obviously make games that cater toward a wide range of audience, but we also do games that cater to a specific audience. Those are just differences in genres of games. Not only do we want diversity within one game, but it’s also beneficial to have diversity across genres and the type of games we can make at Nintendo. Looking at it from that perspective, it’s beneficial to have development teams that are diverse in their life experience and backgrounds.”
