GDC 07: Japanese gaming in decline, sez Zelda director

Eiji Aonuma, the bespectacled dude behind a little game called The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, related today his efforts to push the Zelda franchise forward in, as 1UP put it, “an increasingly tricky games market.”

Speaking to a capacity crowd at the GDC, Aonuma said he believes that Japan is currently going through a problem he calls “gamer drift.” Aonuma said that people are gradually losing interest in videogames. In America, on the other hand, gamers are getting more and more demanding, looking for increasingly complex and realistic videogame experiences.

Of course, the trick here is to find that sweet spot, that certain point of balance between the two concepts. Aonuma admitted that this was a difficult prospect, and as an example, he points towards The Wind Waker‘s failure to live up to its high expectations. The series had become too complex for the Japanese audience, while American gamers hated the title’s cutesy cartoon style. It was essentially a lose-lose situation.

With these experiences and concepts in mind, Aonuma then began the transformation of Wind Waker 2 into what is now known as Twilight Princess. Everything after that is history, with Twilight Princess getting a lot of high accolades from gamers and critics alike. To read all about how it happened, click on the “read” link below.

Eiji Aonuma, the bespectacled dude behind a little game called The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, related today his efforts to push the Zelda franchise forward in, as 1UP put it, “an increasingly tricky games market.”

Speaking to a capacity crowd at the GDC, Aonuma said he believes that Japan is currently going through a problem he calls “gamer drift.” Aonuma said that people are gradually losing interest in videogames. In America, on the other hand, gamers are getting more and more demanding, looking for increasingly complex and realistic videogame experiences.

Of course, the trick here is to find that sweet spot, that certain point of balance between the two concepts. Aonuma admitted that this was a difficult prospect, and as an example, he points towards The Wind Waker‘s failure to live up to its high expectations. The series had become too complex for the Japanese audience, while American gamers hated the title’s cutesy cartoon style. It was essentially a lose-lose situation.

With these experiences and concepts in mind, Aonuma then began the transformation of Wind Waker 2 into what is now known as Twilight Princess. Everything after that is history, with Twilight Princess getting a lot of high accolades from gamers and critics alike. To read all about how it happened, click on the “read” link below.