So
I haven't written a blog post in awhile. My life has been fairly busy
lately, and I've had to take a bit of a sabbatical from my Zelda
series retrospective. While I intend to finish the series eventually,
today I'd like to take a moment to talk about Nintendo President
Satoru Iwata, who sadly passed away on July 11th, 2015.
I'll
keep this short. I won't bother listing Iwata's myriad successes and
failures. Anyone bothering to read this knows who he was. And I'd bet
that he was just as special to you as he was to me and millions of
gamers worldwide.
What
made Satoru Iwata so beloved? Sure, he was charismatic, fun, and
charmingly weird. But he also fundamentally understood something
about games and the people who love them. He understood that games
aren't just soulless products created to make money; that the
successes of a company weren't only measured by its profit margins.
Games can be profitable, sure, but to Iwata profit seemed almost
ancillary.
Games
aren't just a series of 1s and 0s. They aren't just delivery systems
for DLC and micro-transactions. They can be so much more. Games can
bring us joy. They can help us form friendships. They can provide
hope in dark times. They can take us to new worlds. They can help us
better understand ourselves and the world we live in. Iwata
understood that. He understood the power that games have. He wanted
to bring people together. Boys and girls, the young and the old.
Iwata's Nintendo wanted everyone to have fun playing games together.
I believe that Iwata found great happiness in the fact that the games
he helped create brought joy to millions of people across the world.
Iwata
was clearly passionate about the games his company created. That
passion was contagious. A genuine love of the medium is sadly a very
rare thing in today's profit driven game industry. Iwata's Nintendo
was a bright spot in a bleak world. I will miss him dearly.
The
games your company has made have brought me and so many other so much
happiness. Thank you very, very much.
Sayonara,
Iwata-san. I'll play you off:
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