Survey: Developers still worship Miyamoto, Blow too

by Jason Dobson on Jun 15th 2009 11:15AM

Luminary Shigeru Miyamoto hasn't lost his shimmer in the eyes of game developers, with a recent industry poll finding the Nintendo icon to be without equal. The survey, commissioned by organizers of next month's Develop Conference, asked 9,000 devs to name their game development hero, with nearly a third of respondents pointing to Miyamoto as the man with the plan.

The popularity contest also named id Software's John Carmack as the next most idealized developer, followed by Maxis and now Stupid Fun Club brainpan Will Wright. The top ten list of industry highlights was rounded out by Braid dev Jonathan Blow, who's likely too busy rewinding time (to see if he can somehow land higher on the ballot) to care.

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Tags: braid, develop-conference, DS, id-software, john-carmack, jonathan-blow, miyamoto, nintendo, shigeru-miyamoto, shigerumiyamoto, shiggy, stupid-fun-club, Wii, will-wright

Reader Comments (60)

You've gotta admit, Shiggy is the man.

Shiggy is a man-god. It still amazes me that one man brought us Metroid, Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong. Not to mention countless brilliant sequels to all those games.

He may very well be the greatest mind the world of video games may ever know.

I hate being that internet a-hole who likes to come in and correct everyone, but another man-god created the Metroid series. Gunpei Yokoi is one of the greatest things to ever happen to video games, so try not mix him up again, okay.

And Knowing Is half the battle.

@Russ

Ah yes, thanks for correcting me. Wasn't Yokoi Miyamoto's mentor or something? If so he's genius clearly rubbed off.

In any case, replace Metroid with Star Fox and F-Zero. Surely two great games can make up for my mix up!

"Challenged the very definition of gaming?"

Regardless of what you think of the Wiimote, it is true that the Wii did change the way we could play video games. It's gotten to the point that one of the biggest things at E3 were both Microsoft's and Sony's versions of motion control.

Dammit I replied to the wrong post.

Fuck.

Tmac, dark wayne,

Thou hath broken the first rule of Joystiq:

Thou shalt not insult The Great Shiggy!

Be downvoted to hell (or the land of nothing-but-Virtuaboy-games!)

Agreed with everyone.

You know, it's funny, but we don't really see people like Miyamoto anymore. I mean, out of the NES/SNES era, we have received Miyamoto, Kojima, Mikami, Sakaguchi, and etc, but it seems to me as if we've been pointing to the same great developers all these years.

Hell, it's been four generations since the NES, and yet, every time you ask someone to name the top developers, the same developers always make the list (i.e. Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Square, etc). It seems to me that no one else is really making the list. Look at the poll, it's gotten to the point where someone, Jonathan Blow, makes *one* good and, yes, somewhat unique game, and instantly, he makes the list of greatest game development heroes? Doesn't that sound a bit silly to anyone else?

I hate to think about it, but I wonder what will happen when these geniuses of the video game industry pass away. Man, I hate to think about Nintendo when Miyamoto passes away.

I started to think about that too after reading some post on GF about who will compose the music for the new zelda. I know it's not kondo anymore but I started to think about what would happen if some of the other Nintendo stars retired or passed away.

What will happen when the mind behind the most beloved nintendo franchises passes away? I mean he is not only that, Miyamoto IS nintendo, you can't think of nintendo without him, I would dare to say that you can't think about how videogames would be without him, he is like the father of modern gaming (I mean nintendo saved the whole home console industry of dying after the great crash and ET).

Well if you're a game dev, you can't go wrong with following in the footsteps of Carmack and Miyamoto. Both have revolutionized the way we play video games.

So is it like a lifetime achievement thing? I could definitely see that (inventor of the FPS and all)

Carmack is an odd choice. iD hasn't really done much as of late (their last, internally developed project was the 360 launch title Quake IV, was it not? Quake Wars was external)

Point is that John Carmack has changed the way we develop games and equaling or one-uping that feat is the thing all of us want to emulate. Some of the most basic 3d rendering algorithms were devised by this guy. He is a certified genius.

Yeah what Arnie said. I mean Shiggy hasn't really done anything spectacular lately either, but he's still a living legend among game devs and gamers alike.

Quake IV was developed by Raven software. At least the 360 version was idk about PC

nothing spectacular lately? I mean, if you don't like casual gaming, all well and good, but objectively you have to see that he's challenged the very definition of gaming in the past couple of years, to tremendous success

@Khan

Yeah I know what you mean, Shiggy definitely continues to bring gaming to the masses. However, I hate to say this but I think he's done with core gamers.

I died a little inside when he announced Wii-Music.

Almost every special effect and rendering technique used in modern FPS was first developed in an engine written by John Carmack.

Here's a prime example;
http://www.codemaestro.com/reviews/9

"he's challenged the very definition of gaming"

And that's reason for celebration why exactly? Wii sports, Wii fit, Wii Music, and now this stupid "play for you" program?

Sorry, but this guy's as good as dead to me. I'll choose to remember him for what he once was, a great GAME developer.

what? Challenged the very definition of gaming? Sorry, but jumping on spheres or using the wiimote to fire arrows or just fucking waggle it to make music is not challenging the definition of gaming

Since the arcade days we've pretty much used joysticks and buttons to do everything. The Wii challenged that idea and reached a much greater audience then ever before.

"And that's reason for celebration why exactly? Wii sports, Wii fit, Wii Music, and now this stupid "play for you" program?

Sorry, but this guy's as good as dead to me. I'll choose to remember him for what he once was, a great GAME developer."

game1 [geym] Show IPA noun, adjective, gam⋅er, gam⋅est, verb, gamed, gam⋅ing.
–noun
1.an amusement or pastime: children's games.

since my last post is a little foggy, allow me to elaborate

how has Miyamoto stopped making games?

Miyamoto is THE reason that this industry moves forward. Say what you want, but the reason that you have decent controls in 3D worlds can pretty much be placed on his doorstep. He's also the reason you have D-pads (albeit shitty ones on the 360 and PS3), rumble, and it's fair to say that open world gaming owes a lot to Mario 64 and Zelda: OoT. And guess what else? Bitch all you want but Sony and Microsoft are putting motion controls as the main control scheme in their next console. Because of Shiggy. Because the guy is a gameplay God and all anyone else can do is line up at the altar to worship because we all know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

you don't think you're exaggerating a little there WRE? THE reason? All the work everyone else does doesn't mean anything, it's just this one guy that made everything good? What a bunch of baseless hero worship bullshit

@WRE

For better or worse, Miyamoto and Nintendo's focus on motion controls have made an undeniable impact on the industry. But Ihave to say that this statement is going too far:

"Say what you want, but the reason that you have decent controls in 3D worlds can pretty much be placed on his doorstep."

That's just crazy talk. We had decent controls in a 3D world on PCs already. And on the console side, though they were just building on what Nintendo had done, lets not forget that Sony is the one that first used dual analog sticks. That's what truly changed the game for 3D games on consoles. And I know people like to point to Mario 64 as the first example of great 3D platforming controls, and maybe it did raise the bar, but I was playing Jumping Flash just fine before Mario 64 was ever released. You act like 3D games would still be clunky today without Miyamoto... sorry, but that's just insane.

I might be exaggerating a tad, but nobody else pioneers gameplay like Nintendo and Miyamoto is the driving force there.

Duh. Shiggy is the bomb.com.

"It ain't easy bein' white...

IT AIN'T EASY BEIN' BROWN!"

"All this pressure to be bright."
"I got children all over town!"

Franklin was one of the best things to ever come off of that show. that and Michael dating the MRF.

And what will you expect? without Miyamoto is anyone guess what kind of careers they would be pursuing right now... Miyamoto Sama is no less than THE HERO of gaming industry..

What about Warren Spector? :(

I'm getting annoyed that we still have no idea what the man is working on. My fanboyism won't allow me to loose hope though!

Shiggy is a no brainer.

HoweverI don't care much for Blow...yet...Braid had it's moments, especially the last level, but the man needs to get some more quality stuff under his belt...and keep his ego in check before earning the same kind of respect.

He is a LEGEND

It's no surprise to see Will Wright up there either. The man's head created a version of The Sims last year (3008) that is so amazingly realistic a life simulator that people have become trapped inside of it, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Much like your century's World of Warcraft players, except with virtual reality.

It's 3009!? I still have that library book!

Jonathan Blow? Really?

Blow was a one-man dev team, not counting the artist. His game was critically acclaimed and commercially successful. As a game dev (which I am not), I can understand why you would admire/respect his effort even if you weren't personally crazy about the game. I suspect that's why he's mentioned.

Garry Newman is pretty much the same in that respect as well but he rarely gets any recognition.

This article title seems a little ambiguous....

I believe they were shooting for the elusive triple entendre.

Me LOVES TEH JOYSTIQ T-SHIRT

If Blow is the guy that made Braid then he really shouldn't be on that list. I mean he took elements from Super Mario and Time Warping and put them together. He did what World of Warcraft did to MMOs. He just made a really polished generic platformer with a twist.

The last thing we need is for Blow's ego to get any larger. That guy is pretentious as hell.

Would it be going to far if I said that the industry is in debt to Miyamoto?

Don't know how many of you remember, but before Miyamoto came along, the early 80's crash had the video game industry on it's way out (damn E.T. game). It was a Miyamoto's Donkey Kong that re-energized consumer interest in video games and ended up not only benefiting Nintendo, but eventually all companies that had it's hands in video games.

It's one thing to worship him, but blowing him seems a little out of line.

The title of this made it sound like people were blowing Miyamoto...but since it was capitalized I assumed it was referring to Braid.

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Survey: Developers still worship Miyamoto, Blow too

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