Pac-Man's Iwatani: Devs need to create games "people will remember a decade from now"

Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani feels game developers need to create games "people will remember a decade from now," instead of being more concerned with expanding profits.

Speaking in an interview with Game Developer magazine and posted over on GameCareerGuide, Iwatani said when creating Pac-Man, he wanted a game which was not only appealing, but "very detailed, yet neat and approachable."

This is what the believes games makers need to focus on today.

"The reason I want to emphasize this is that starting last year or so, you've had this flood of very simple games on the iPhone and social networks and so forth," he said. "They're very 'easy' games, and by easy I mean easy to design and to pump out by the dozen.

"I think more thought needs to go toward how games present themselves to the user, to how they can be made more fun Making games with this well-thought-out approach to design will help them become loved and fondly remembered for a longer time.

"When you look at games coming out today, it's doubtful that any of us will be talking about them in ten years' time. We have to focus on making games that people will remember a decade from now, or else we'll lose our audience, probably."

Iwatani feels that at the core of the industry, most companies are more interested in "maximizing profit," than creating something memorable.

"I think that developers need to leave that sort of thing to the management, the specialists in that field, and think more about what games mean to them, and how they can contribute to that," he said. would.

"Making 'products' isn't something developers should have to worry about -- they need to concentrate on making good games, on really pouring their souls into them."

You can read the full interview through the link up top, and it's a very good one at that.

Thanks, Gamasutra.