Inside the genius of the original Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto

198.4 billion dollars. That’s how much the video game industry drummed up in 2021, topping the record-breaking 2018 $41.1 billion movie box office. Yet while Hollywood personalities are well known, many folks have never heard of Shigeru Miyamoto, the mind behind Super Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pikmin, Star Fox, and more.

Shigeru Miyamoto

Miyamoto helped cement home video game consoles as a mainstream form of entertainment. His works remain among the biggest franchises in gaming. Yet originally, Miyamoto wasn’t even a video game designer. Instead, Nintendo initially hired him to work on manga comics in 1977. When Nintendo plunged into the video game industry, they turned to Miyamoto to design their games.

In the industry’s early days, stories were often thin and hard to come by. Many “technologists,” as Miyamoto called programmers, would first design a game and then try to slap on a plot at the end. Miyamoto flipped the script by creating plots and designing games around them. This paved the way for “Donkey Kong,” which featured Jump Man, the character who would eventually become Mario.

Miyamoto leaned heavily into his own life experiences to design games. For example, the original Legend of Zelda was arguably the first open-world game that players could explore and get lost in.

Miyamoto leaned heavily on his childhood experiences exploring the Kyoto countryside.

Ultimately, Miyamoto argued that “inside every adult is the heart of a child,” and so by making fun, family-friendly games, Nintendo could appeal to a wide audience. Immersion is also vital, with Miyamoto noting that “players are artists who create their own reality within the game,” a fitting view for a video game design whiz who started his career as an artist.