Around Sigeru Miyamoto: Enactment of "Creator" on Computer Games

This paper examines the work of Shigeru Miyamoto through the lens of the "duality of creators," the idea that computer games are authored jointly by developers, who build the program and rules, and by players, whose engagement completes the work. The authors argue that Miyamoto consistently designed for this duality, balancing developer intention against player agency, and that his design methods, including difficulty and motivation curves, plain and learnable rules, and carefully tuned controller handling, were aimed at making players feel creative while quietly shaping how they play. The analysis draws mainly on Miyamoto's own published interviews and statements, examined alongside specific game sequences from the Super Mario Bros. series and the designs of Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin, and Nintendogs.

The paper's central findings concern Miyamoto's design philosophy. Rather than treating player freedom as an unqualified good, he structured levels so that challenges were introduced in stages, with a progression from remembering to practicing to applying a mechanic, and he favored rules that players could absorb without conscious effort. His stated preference for "golf-type" games with clear, immediately understood goals over "baseball-type" games with complex rule sets is presented as a deliberate choice that shapes the internalization of play.

The authors also identify a limit to this approach. Drawing on criticism from designer Gabin Ito regarding The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which Ito felt was insufficiently free, the paper argues that Miyamoto's "miniature garden" model keeps developer structures largely invisible while constraining players within a designed world. The study's scope is focused on a single designer's body of work and its statements, and its conclusions rest on qualitative interpretation of those materials rather than on player-behavior data or a broader industry sample.