Sakurai Ends TGS Award, Warns on Game Originality

Masahiro Sakurai has ended the Game Designers Award he gave out at Tokyo Game Show for 16 years. The prize was meant to highlight games that tried new ideas, no matter how well they sold. Past winners included Life Is Strange, Mario Kart: Home Circuit, Viewfinder, and Scribblenauts.

In a recent interview, Sakurai said originality does not always help sales and is often low on the list of things many people care about. He compared it to people losing interest in limited-time drink flavors once the novelty wears off. Even so, he said game makers still need new ideas if the industry is going to stay healthy.

He also talked about how hard it is to make and explain original games today. He pointed to his own work on Kirby and Super Smash Bros., where he focused on giving players new ways to interact inside familiar genres. But he said it is much harder now to come up with ideas, get teams to understand them, and show publishers what makes them special.

Sakurai said the rise of AI could make the problem worse because it can more easily copy existing ideas. He believes that makes truly original games even more important for the future of the medium.