TL;DR: The author asserts that Nintendo is able to be so creative because they retain employees long term rather than hiring and firing like other game developers.
Some excerpts that I found interesting:
All of the designers of the original Super Mario Bros. on the original Nintendo Entertainment System are credited designers on Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
Back in 2013, the late Satoru Iwata — the former president of Nintendo — said this at a shareholder meeting:
“If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.”
This is exactly right. Having worked in these environments before (and currently), no one wants to stick their neck out if their head is just more likely to be chopped off. As a result, only the projects that are least objectionable to a committee of decision makers (so formed to reduce risk) move forward.
I work in the opposite environment now, and it’s great. Most people have been there for 15+ years, and the CEOs are super chill about everything, besides missing demo deadlines (which I get).
The company is very successful because everyone there is happy and not in constant fear of being fired.
Do you work for Valve?
Nope, totally different industry.
Well, I would say this is not the only reason (though it is part of it), company has to also develop an internal culture where people can be creative. I am currently working in a company (general software dev, not gaming industry), which retain employees for long term, but they haven’t developed a culture of creativity, so most people don’t bother going out of the way.
One of a very famous example of company culture these days (from anecdotal reports) is Google, apparently you are rewarded for making new stuff, but not for improving / fixing / maintaining existing one, which is why they keep making new stuff and abandoning older one.
Is this supposed to make people feel better about Nintendo suing emulator developers for big dollars, crushing YouTubers for showing gameplay, absolutely hating and shutting down tournaments run by the little guy, somehow make every game port to a newer console worse, etc
That’s a good quality for them to have.
