Yesterday, legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto spoke at a press conference following the news that he’s scheduled to receive the prestigious Order of Culture award from Emperor Naruhito on November 3. Established in 1937, the Order of Culture rewards outstanding contributions to the nation’s cultural development, with only a handful of recipients selected each year. Miyamoto is the first person from the video game industry chosen for the honor, and as the man behind many of Nintendo‘s most beloved games (from Marioto Zelda, from Donkey Kong to Star Fox), there could be no better choice.
Japanese website Game Watch transcribed the conference in full. As usual, Miyamoto-san had a lot of interesting things to say, though one statement stands out in particular: his thoughts on generative AI. Despite being as old-school as they come in the games industry, Miyamoto shared a positive outlook on what offloading work to AI can mean for game creators, while still maintaining that humans will have a role to play in the creative process:
As computers and technology have advanced, individual design skills, such as a sense of layout, have finally come to the forefront. I think that’s exactly what’s happening with generative AI. We separate the act of creating something from the act of doing the work. When we want to create something, we make a big structure. Then we start working on it with our hands. From there on, it’s the work itself. Filling in the empty spaces, finishing it neatly, and so on.
The troublesome thing is that the work itself is enjoyable. That’s why there’s a sense of satisfaction in creating something. However, the scary thing is that if you become satisfied with the work, you might mistakenly think that you’ve created something good. In that sense, the more AI can do the work for us, the more opportunities we’ll have to think about what’s truly important, which is a good thing.
Some past designs were created solely through copy and paste. However, those designs don’t last. There needs to be an individual’s intention to design something. It’s about having an individual’s intention and then having a computer assist with that task. No matter how far AI advances, it might eventually do everything, but I think there’s still a lot we can do.
It’s certainly a more optimistic point of view than one would have expected to hear from the nearly 74-year-old game designer, and it contrasts with the antagonistic stance that some much younger developers have taken against any form of AI usage in game development. Then again, the AI controversy is much stronger in the West, while developers from Asian countries like China, Korea, and Japan seem much more open to exploiting it.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief.
In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech’s gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews.
Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications.
His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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