The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma has participated in a lengthy interview with GameSpot now that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake has finally launched globally on Nintendo Switch 2. One of the topics that popped up is layoffs in the video game industry especially amongst Western developers, which Nintendo tends to avoid. Mr. Aonuma said that the company likes to retain its talent as there’s “a real benefit” to keeping staff long-term as the Kyoto-based company has an established “base that we can build from.”
Nintendo has a unique culture, especially for Western developers, to keep employees for years. You referenced in the Q&A that you went to the artist who originally drew the map and had him draw a map. Why does that culture feel important to Nintendo, and how does it help you preserve parts of your legacy like Ocarina of Time?
Aonuma: I think you see a real benefit to having some very long-term-tenured staff members around who have shared the same experiences over time because every time you get to the next step, it’s easier to discuss how to proceed, or if you’re going to do something new. When you have new staff coming in, of course you want to make sure that you’re bringing everyone up with a lot of discussion, explaining how to do things, why you’re doing things certain ways, as well as the language that you’re using, but that takes some more time as well. So you need a bit of a balance. You don’t want your new staff doing things by rote or without understanding the reasons, you have to invest there. And so you do see the Zelda team change over time, but there is a continuity of core staff, certainly at least from one project to the next, so that we have that base that we can build from and bring up new staff within it. And this is something that I think Nintendo has done for a very long time, even since Miyamoto originally worked on projects like this. And it contributes to some of the sense of continuity that you do feel in games in the Zelda franchise, for example.
Good in Nintendo: if only more big gaming corporations knew how to treat their developers.
Literally how corporations should function.
And that’s why I love them. I hope to work there at NOA, and secretly translate mother 3 and put it on the eshop.
What’s funny is, the mother 3 translation team already offered their translation to Nintendo in the past.
At least Nintendo showing some company pride. This is why I love about them.
The financialisation of everything will eventually capture Nintendo as it does to everything but we need to appreciate this version of Nintendo while we’ve got them. There are many bad things about Nintendo but there are also some uniquely good things and who else would put out the suite of software they’ve put out this year. We will not have them forever, don’t take them for granted.