Smash Bros and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai says he gave away all his trade secrets for free because he wanted to help other developers ‘buff’ players’ lives.
Sakurai was recently awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Association of Media in Digital awards in Japan, and attended the ceremony earlier this week to collect his award.
During his acceptance speech, Sakurai noted that while his knowledge and expertise could be considered valuable enough to sell, he instead willingly shared a wealth of game design lessons and advice on his YouTube channel, without even monetising the videos.
As reported by Oricon News and translated by Automaton, Sakurai explained that the reason he did this was to help improve players’ lives, noting that while he doesn’t see game development as anywhere near as important a job as something like a doctor, he does still feel that video games can ‘buff’ players’ lives when they’re designed well.
“I did something extremely irrational on my channel – I disseminated all of my knowledge as a game director to the whole world for free. Why did I do that?” Sakurai asked during his speech. “I feel like I’m losing to a lot of professions out there. While I am making my own contributions, I can’t even hope to compete with what doctors do, for instance.”
He then added: “In the end, without peace and health, people cannot enjoy digital entertainment – this is something I’m conscious of. But the digital media we create has the potential to ‘buff’ peoples’ lives, making it an extremely rewarding profession.”
Sakurai concluded that with this in mind, he decided to share his knowledge for free in the hope that other developers may learn something, and use his advice to “do their best” to make more games that people enjoy.
The AMD Award for Lifetime Achievement is one of two major awards Sakuari received this month. In early March the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs listed Sakurai as one of the recipients of its annual Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists.
The award is “presented to persons whose outstanding achievements have opened up new vistas in a given year”, and was presented to Sakurai for his YouTube channel, rather than his 35+ years as a game designer.
In a statement explaining why Sakurai was given the award, the Agency said: ” Masahiro Sakurai has made a significant contribution to the development of the game industry by sharing his knowledge of game production widely through YouTube in an easy-to understand, accessible format with a coherent storyline.
“An English version has also been released, and its influence has spread not only domestically but also internationally, and we believe that this is enough to earn him the Art Encouragement Prize.”
