Masahiro Sakurai, the legendary Nintendo developer who created the Kirby series and Super Smash Bros., has some words of wisdom for other AAA developers.
In the latest episode of the “Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games” YouTube series, Sakurai navigates the issue of post-release video game updates and the often sad state of AAA titles at launch in general. Essentially, he says that patches and DLC are good because they improve games, but he also thinks it would be better if developers ensured their projects were as bug-free as possible before launch.
Still, he reviews the many headwinds developers face when making and releasing games that present a challenge unique to modern titles due to their complexity.
“Whenever possible, it’s ideal to have your game in perfect shape by the time it’s released,” says Sakurai. “But in order to do that, you have to already know what the finished game is going to be and how to make it happen. That’s almost impossible with modern titles.”
Sakurai then outlines four major problems facing modern AAA games that make it really, really hard for developers to just release their titles and then move on because they’re perfect. The first problem is that “modern games are too complex,” to the point that “getting things to work properly is a miracle in itself.”
“Games these days – especially AAA games – have extremely complex structures and settings. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are a hundred, thousand or even ten thousand times more complex than the past,” says Sakurai. “This massive amount of data creates volatility that you wouldn’t expect from pure ones and zeros.”
The second obstacle to the perfection of the launch state is the fact that the developers get “almost no hands-on time with the final product” before it launches, because there are so many bug fixes and balancing to implement, all of which require a fresh restart of the game. Then there’s the matter of looking for bugs that only “one in a thousand will see,” making it nearly impossible for developers to catch every single bug before their game is released to millions.
“But nowadays, one person in a thousand can upload a video of the mistake to the Internet,” says Sakurai. “No matter how many testers you have, once your game hits the market, it will be tested to an unparalleled degree.”
Finally, Sakurai points out that at least in the case of balance adjustments and quality of life improvements, these post-market adjustments are a “free bonus.” He admits that “fatal bugs that crash the game should be fixed by all means,” but notes that smaller updates that simply improve an already acceptable game should be appreciated for what they are. are. “And that’s it,” he says.
“Things may be different for games-as-a-service titles, but I’m personally grateful that people choose to invest time and money into improving the games they release,” says Sakurai. “However, from a player’s perspective, no matter how much you improve your games through patches, it won’t mean anything if your players have already given up on the game. So I think you should aim to make sure it’s in the best possible shape from the start.”
Sakurai himself does a good job as a AAA developer, providing insights that help players understand the complexities of modern game development while subtly acknowledging the often sad state of massive launch releases. It’s safe to say that Nintendo’s first-party games are generally more polished at launch, and this kind of wisdom from one of its most prominent designers helps explain why.
It’s never a bad time to check out our list of best switch games.
