Fun for Everyone: Why Games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Astro Bot are Now More Important than Ever
Video games are in an unprecedented era of mass layoffs, publishers chasing the live-service carrot on a stick, and toxic, unsustainable business models and budgets. Games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Astro Bot are stark reminders about what makes the medium of video games so great and why the industry needs to refocus on what matters. // Image: Nintendo, Sony
“Above all, video games are meant to just be one thing: Fun! Fun for everyone.”
This is one of the most well-known quotes to come from the late-and-great Satoru Iwata, former CEO of Nintendo, who, in the decades before his position at the top of the company, had additional credits on various Nintendo games as a programmer, producer, and designer. It’s very rare for CEOs to garner such a level of respect, admiration, and appreciation by the broader community - and yet Satoru Iwata is fondly remembered among video game and Nintendo fans as one of the most beloved leaders at any video game company because of his deep understanding and lifelong commitment to video games and what they’re capable of.
On the surface, prioritizing “fun” as the primary function of games sounds like an obvious, practically unnecessary reminder of what video games are for. Games, like any hobby, are a pastime that allows people to relax after they spend much of their days working, tending to their responsibilities, spending time with their family, and so on. The reason why you engage in any hobby of yours is because you enjoy doing it. If you play sports, see movies at a theater, listen to live music at a concert, or create art of any kind, you do so because it brings you joy - fun.
So, if having fun from engaging in such a hobby is so fundamental and goes without saying, what makes Iwata’s quote about fun be so remembered? What’s the relevance of this quote in today’s video game industry?
When creating a game, there are various aspects you need to consider. As a developer and a creator, you want to make something that will be enjoyed by as many people as possible. You also likely want to make something that will stick with players long after they’ve put the controller down. Whether it’s through a profoundly told story that hits a chord with audiences, or the inclusion of gameplay features that keep players wanting to keep coming back for more, games are often made with the intention of being as enjoyed as possible. As a publisher and businessperson, though, their primary concern is making a return on the investment of development costs.
The nature of art is the necessary push-and-pull that comes from the creative and business angles. You can’t make money off of products of artistic expressions without the work and ideas of creatives, but those creatives can’t produce anything without salaries, resources, and technology that all require a monetary investment from some source. From movies to music to art to games - the relationship between creativity and business is nothing new, and it won’t be going anywhere so long as anyone releases any type of art that costs money to legally access.
The video game industry, specifically, has found itself in a distinct, concerning position over the last few months and years. With the mass layoffs among video game companies only accelerating this year, the closure of various developers and publishers, and growing concerns over the stagnation of the industry, it’s been difficult to be hopeful about the future of games. It’s certainly been very difficult to be a person that makes games or wants to make games and have faith that there’s a healthy future for this industry.
In the face of a rapid, unstable market following the pandemic alongside global inflation rates, publishers have opted to shift their strategy on releasing and monetizing titles. Now more than ever, companies are going all-in on live-service titles - ongoing projects that are continuously updated over time with new content (and purchasable add-ons and expansions) often created with the aim of perpetually generating revenue.
Live-service games are nothing new - titles like 2004’s World of Warcraft have relied on monetization models such as subscriptions and paid expansions to monetarily sustain the server-upkeep that’s necessary for games like World of Warcraft to even be playable. Following the explosive successes of games like Minecraft, Fortnite, Apex Legends, and similar games in the 2010s, many publishers and executives began oogling at such success stories as dollar-signs popped in front of their eyeballs. They wanted this success for themselves.
It’s no coincidence that the late 2010s and early 2020s have been consistently peppered with large-scale, large-budget live-service games that have failed to grab audiences. Many of these titles, such as EA’s Anthem, Bethesda’s Fallout 76, or PlayStation’s recent flop, Concord, weren’t conceived as titles to create unique, fun, and engaging experiences that would uniquely captivate and intrigue audiences. They were conceived with the idea of being platforms that could perpetually generate revenue for their parent companies while heavily borrowing their mechanics and gameplay ideas from other already-successful games. Why make one-time-payment releases when you can create games that invite people to spend more money over a longer period of time?
As someone that loves this medium and firmly believes in the unique possibilities of video games, it’s difficult for me to be cynical about video games. I aim to have as hopeful of an outlook as possible on the future of my favorite hobby and what I aspire to make my profession - but even I have found myself deeply disappointed at this prospect of the industry over the last couple years. Maybe these companies do only care about making money. Publishers and executives may only see games as products to perpetually generate revenue and nothing more - but when such games get released, they’re often met with tepid critical reception, and in extreme cases, catastrophically poor sales that necessitate server closures and removal from retail and digital stores.
Creating titles with the intention of having a large audience that consistently purchases content to fund further development of that very game in the long-term is precisely as backwards a game’s development can and should possibly be. If you conceive a game as a vehicle to make money, then work backwards to make that game as replayable as possible to entice players to spend money on it, then that video game is no longer seen by its creators as a video game first - it is a product first and a video game second.
While, yes, all video games are products that you either buy from a store or download from a client, there is a key difference between games that are sold as a video game first versus games that are sold as a product first.
A game sold as a video game first is an experience crafted by presenting ideas and challenges to players, and is funded, marketed, and sold to players accordingly. Some games may have more widespread appeal while other games inevitably have a more niche audience - development and marketing budgets scale accordingly on the projections of expected sales and audience size. While the scope of a game can certainly be limited by budgetary restrictions, games sold as video games first are conceived and developed in pursuit of offering ideas to players, be they storytelling ideas, puzzles to solve, or challenges to overcome through acquiring an understanding and mastery of the game’s mechanics.
A game sold as a product first is an experience that is primarily conceived as a way to capitalize on market trends. This can mean deciding to make a game that is in a popular genre (think the battle royale craze of the mid-to-late 2010s and the oversaturation of rhythm games in the late 2000s and early 2010s), becoming derivative of the design of other games that sell and review well (at the cost of these derivative games often lacking an identity of their own), and lastly, games that are primarily conceived as platforms to create revenue for companies in the long term. These types of games aren’t born out of a desire for developers to express ideas and challenges through game design - rather, they are born out of a desire for a piece of the large pie that is consumers’ money, interest, and time.
It’s easy to complain whenever we see companies put out games that feel derivative or even predatory and reject them. It’s easy to say that we want all games to be conceived and developed as games first and products second. But ultimately, complaining about underwhelming releases or vaguely pining for games to be better in online forums, social media, or review platforms seldom makes any kind of meaningful difference on the overall landscape of games. What does make a meaningful difference is effectively voting with your wallet - supporting games that embody the spirit that you wish to see in the broader video game landscape.
Even in the face of so much drab discourse about the last few years making for a disappointing console generation and the lack of many original titles, there is indeed a plethora of phenomenal games that deserve both financial support and critical praise. Games that embody the very essence of fun and inviting players to overcome challenges and fully enjoy the process of doing so are precisely the types of games that I want to see more of. And there are indeed games that perfectly embody this.
Games that represent the fun capabilities that only video games can provide are precisely the type of game that I feel we both need and deserve more of. There are two games released within the last year that embody this dedication to fun and what video games are all about: Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Astro Bot.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is lauded as a return to form for 2D Mario platforming after the decent-but-fatigued formula of the New Super Mario Bros. games. Wonder was developed with a "content over schedule" philosophy that made the final game filled to the brim with creativity and impeccable level design. // Image: Nintendo
Like many of you, I have a tantalizing backlog of games that I aim to play. I aspire to play (and complete) as many games as I can so I can have a diverse and informed understanding of games’ design and ideas that they want to communicate to players. I personally value doing everything in a game (including things like talking to every NPC, completing every side quest, gathering every collectable, etc.) - within reason, of course. For some games, this process can be an absolute drag.
When I played through Super Mario Bros. Wonder earlier this year after finally deciding to get it out of my backlog, I had one of the most effortless completion processes for a game that I have ever had. Even among the best 2D platformers, there are often small sources of frustration - maybe a level or two doesn’t feel tightly designed or getting some collectables feels like monotonous busywork. But with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, I was earnestly taken aback by just how much raw fun I was having.
Shortly before the game’s launch in October of 2023, Wonder’s developers shared in an Ask the Developer article that the development team had over 2,000 ideas for the game in idea-sharing sessions among developers. In addition to having an overflowing amount of ideas to include in the game, Wonder was developed with a “content over schedule” philosophy that aimed to empower developers to focus on making a game brimming with ideas without having to limit the game’s scope or creativity due to budgetary or time restrictions.
“To create something truly enjoyable, we decided to take our time and dedicate ample budget for development without having to worry about the production schedule,” said Takashi Tezuka, producer on Super Mario Bros. Wonder and long-time Nintendo veteran with credits including 1985’s Super Mario Bros.
Let’s get this out of the way: this isn’t normal. Games are never given blank checks and no deadline on a final release. Getting to create a game in such a way is a privilege due to Nintendo having an incredible amount of money (thanks to currently being the richest Japanese company) and the fact that the Super Mario IP is one of, if not the most recognizable video game franchise in the history of the medium. If there’s any game that Nintendo could afford to dump as much money and time into as possible, it makes perfect sense for it to be a Mario game. While this particular development situation is a privileged one, it nevertheless embodies that having a development team and environment filled with opportunities for expression and creativity results in games inheriting that creative DNA to an overwhelming degree.
While 3D Mario games have consistently impressed audiences and critically review incredibly well, they have actually failed to sell as well or better than their 2D Mario counterparts. Historically, 2D Mario games have sold better than 3D Mario games (until 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey’s 28 million units sold as of writing broke this trend). This frustrated many hardcore Nintendo fans, as the New Super Mario Bros. titles, while decent games in their own right, were consistently seen as inferior to the likes of 3D offerings like Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D World. The New series felt both cheaper and safer - they took less risks, were mechanically and aesthetically similar to each other, and didn’t really push the series forward in any significant way beyond introducing co-op multiplayer.
Despite the New titles feeling creatively safe and even bland, they sold significantly better than the 3D titles that were consistently lauded for their creativity and exploration of brand-new gameplay ideas. These games likely required far less resources for Nintendo to produce than their 3D counterparts. Between 2006 and 2012, Nintendo released four New Super Mario Bros. titles, each selling between 13-30 million units each (combining NSMBU and its deluxe rerelease on Nintendo Switch). These games were lucrative - they represented a massive return-on-investment for Nintendo. They were ironically light on new, creative gameplay ideas and likely didn’t cost as much as 3D Mario games did and raked in hundreds of millions of dollars with each release. Nintendo had every financial reason to continue making New Super Mario Bros. titles to capitalize on their safeness and massive ROI.
But they didn’t.
After New Super Mario Bros. U released in 2012, Nintendo didn’t release another original 2D Mario game for 11 years. While there were level-creator spin-offs with Super Mario Maker and its sequel along with a rerelease of New Super Mario Bros. U on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo went an entire decade without creating a new 2D Mario game despite the fact that another New Super Mario Bros. installment would have essentially been in easy payday for the big N.
Nintendo practically never comments on what extent they use player feedback when considering new releases - but time has proven that they do, in fact, listen to their community. 2011’s The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword received an incredible critical reception, but was, for a time, lambasted by many series’ fans for being far too handholdy, linear, and reliant on a formula that had started to become tired. While many of the game’s critical players have warmed up to it over the years, it was clear that the community had begun wanting for the series to diverge from a formula that Skyward Sword represented the apex of. They wanted something different. It’s no coincidence, then, that when The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was informally announced in a 2013 Nintendo Direct, one of the first bits of information about it was that it was rethinking the series conventions. Perhaps this was born from a mix of fan reception to Skyward Sword along with developers’ interest to try something new - whatever the reason, the result was a game that is now considered to be among the greatest games ever made.
Indeed, 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an incredible video game that is overflowing in player freedom, opportunities for emergent gameplay, new mechanics, new ideas, and endless opportunities for fun moments. While the game certainly borrowed some elements from other open-world games, Breath of the Wild marked a bold new direction for The Legend of Zelda while not compromising the series’ commitment to creating colorful worlds filled with thought-provoking puzzles and navigational challenges.
All this is to say that Nintendo has proven themselves to do two things: they listen to both critical and fan reception when determining how best to move forward with new titles in a franchise and that they’re unafraid to take bold leaps instead of playing it safe when needed. As soon as 2013’s A Link Between Worlds did we see that Nintendo was willing to completely re-evaluate the series for the sake of keeping things fresh and fun - something that you wouldn’t think a company as large as Nintendo would do for a series as seemingly sacred as The Legend of Zelda.
Sure, Nintendo didn’t need to re-invent the Zelda formula after Skyward Sword. They could have easily continued reiterating on the formula established in 1991’s A Link to the Past and the Zelda series would likely continue to sell and review very well. They could have chosen to continue to iterate and play things safe for the sake of making consistent sales across future releases. But instead of doing that, Nintendo chose to create something that was new, fun, and bold. Through choosing to do so, Nintendo created a game that is both one of the company’s most critically acclaimed titles and the best-selling Zelda game ever.
2D Mario was very much in the same boat as Zelda was during this time. Nintendo could have easily continued making New Super Mario Bros. titles that offered the sub-series’ lack of aesthetic and mechanical originality, but impressive sales. Nintendo chose not to do this, though. Rather, they decided to significantly invest in a new 2D Mario game through empowering developers to approach the project with as much creativity, attention-to-detail, and pure fun that they could cram into a single, cohesive adventure.
The result is a game that is purely magical - and a clear reminder of why video games are so special in the first place.
It's impossible not to smile when playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder. From the cheerful tone to the cute interactions between characters to the bizarre Wonder Flower effects to the inventive and thoughtfully crafted levels - Wonder reminds us that games can transport us to different worlds while keeping us in a joyous trance the entire time. // Image: Nintendo
What made Super Mario Bros. Wonder instantly become one of my favorite games of all time was its commitment to presenting new ideas but never dwelling on them for too long. Many of the game’s Wonder Flower effects come to mind. These effects are level-specific gimmicks present in the majority of the game’s 152 levels. Some of these gimmicks transform elements of the stage such as turning the water into the air. Other times, they change enemy behaviors, turn Mario and friends into enemies, and my personal favorite, cause characters to walk on the background to reframe navigation akin to something you’d see in a top-down Zelda game.
Many of these effects temporarily transform how players need to approach challenges in the game. Some of these shake-ups introduced by the Wonder Flowers are so in-depth and contain so much potential that many other developers and publishers would opt to develop one or two of these Wonder Flower effects into being entire game-spanning mechanics - but Super Mario Bros. Wonder foregoes this. Instead of being a game built around a few gimmicks or central mechanics - something that many other platformers, including other Nintendo games, wouldn’t hesitate to do -, Wonder ensures players enjoy an idea that’s satisfyingly presented before moving onto the next without the possibility of any idea overstaying its welcome.
It’s a bold and seemingly chaotic way of presenting a platforming adventure, and yet it works with the game’s brisk pace and levels that are smaller than their packed density of things to do in them would lead you to believe. Anyone who has played Wonder can easily believe the “2,000 ideas” anecdot from the previously mentioned Ask the Developer article without batting an eye. Wonder is so full of ideas that it’s somehow questionable to believe if any of those 2,000 ideas didn’t make it into the game in some way.
Wonder consistently keeps things fresh for the sake of crafting an adventure that’s unpredictable in the most fun and exciting way possible. It’s very rare for me to select a level from a world map screen in any game and always be excited about what the game could possibly throw at me next. Every level feels like a distinct idea and challenge that feels competently explored, then moves on to the next idea. It’s the quality, creativity, and sheer variety of ideas on display that makes Wonder become a constant treat.
This is to say nothing about the game’s badge system and commitment to player expression. Throughout Super Mario Bros. Wonder, players can acquire and purchase badges that give characters unique abilities, including a grappling hook, a chargeable jump, faster swimming, and more. Different levels may be more suited to different badge types, but every level save for the ones designed around certain badges can be completed with any configuration, allowing players to navigate through the game in whatever way they desire. In conjunction with this is the diverse cast of playable characters - the largest playable cast of any Mario platformer to date.
The inclusion of badges and multiple playable characters empowers players to play with creative expression thanks to whatever badge skill they want to play the game with while playing as whatever character they like the most. Giving players this freedom to express themselves is yet another indicator of how player-focused Mario Wonder’s design is. When games are so player-focused and present so many ideas for the sake of making a consistently fun experience with practically no downtime - that’s when games are at their very best. It’s through its commitment to being fun and freeing to players that makes Super Mario Bros. Wonder such an exceptional experience that’s unlike almost all other games releasing today.
The cherry on top that makes Mario Wonder such a massive improvement over its New Super Mario Bros. predecessors is its incredible art direction and animation. Characters are consistently expressive in ways unseen by any previous 2D Mario game. A key aspect of making movement a fun mechanic in and of itself is to make movement feel satisfying just from looking at it. Seeing and hearing Mario’s feet scampering atop different surfaces makes for a visual and auditory treat. Moreover, touches like seeing Mario walking into a warp pipe and having to grab his hat after it pops out is an incredible animation touch that makes the game more charming and just plain fun to look at.
From its varied and dense level design to its charming visuals to its wacky soundtrack, I was naturally compelled to want to see through all of the game’s content purely because I just wanted to see everything that the game had to offer. I enjoyed myself consistently throughout the entire experience so much that getting every collectable and completing every level was as rewarding as the actual reward of unlocking the Special World levels.
Due to my busy schedule and other commitments, I can only play through most games once - with replays being something I can only fit in for a few games. I so thoroughly enjoyed Mario Wonder that I felt compelled to play through it again - something I earnestly plan on doing within the year. In spite of my limited availability to play games, I still want to find time to play Mario Wonder again because of how joyful it made me feel. Indeed, Mario Wonder reminded me of why I fell in love with games when I was a child playing Super Mario 64 in the late ‘90s and Super Smash Bros. in the early 2000s - I just had so much fun that I didn’t want the experience to end.
My love for games is as simple as that - I pine for the feeling of time not existing. When I’m immersed in a game and am enjoying all of its systems, then the world fades away - for a time, all that matters is the raw joy of completing a level and seeing what the next one has to offer. I walked away from Mario Wonder wishing that every game could make me feel this way - so why don’t they? And what can be done to lay the groundwork for more and more games to immerse players with a fun-first mentality? Simply put, the journey towards this starts with supporting what fun-first titles we currently get.
Astro Bot is more than a celebration of PlayStation history - for many, it embodies the spirit of a bygone era of PlayStation producing games with creativity and playfulness. Astro Bot being such a critical success is proof that people still want whimsical games made with a fun-above-all-else philosophy. // Image: PlayStation
My intention with this is not to come off as cynical - but in the current landscape of games, it’s hard to believe that the majority of games are conceived, developed, and delivered to players with this fun-above-all-else philosophy. Perhaps there’s pressure from stakeholders and/or executives to create games with features and mechanics that are in other popular games. Perhaps the current instability of many game developers’ jobs in thanks to a culture of rampant layoffs, crunch, and burnout prevents games from being fueled by creativity and fun. Perhaps the incredibly high price of AAA game development scares many developers and publishers from taking creative risks, causing their games to be iterative and safer for the sake of securing more sales. There are various problems in the modern game landscape that explain why many games prioritize appeasing financial targets before considering how to fully realize that very human impact that games leave on their audiences.
Thankfully, there is a solution to this problem: we need to recognize and support the very types of games we want to see - games that prioritize the humanity of their developers and empower them to craft experiences fueled by ideas and heart that will leave a profound impact on players.
And don’t fool yourself - these games do, in fact, exist. The explosion of the indie game space in the 2010s has given rise to this very spirit of game development. High quality independent games are often developed by smaller teams with smaller budgets that are less concerned with turning a massive profit. Often, indie developers create games to just give themselves the opportunity to make a game that will mean something to people. Games like Undertale, Celeste, and the recently released The Plucky Squire are games that embody this very idea: games that just want to craft fun experiences while also telling human, meaningful stories and exploring them through game mechanics in ways that only a video game can. These are games that prioritize fun and creating a game as enjoyable as possible before any consideration of adhering to popular trends in game design for the sake of potentially higher revenue.
Games made with humanity are, in fact, the very type of games that leave the deepest, most profound impact on their players in the long term. For me, making a game with “fun” is as human a game development process can possibly be - most people that play games were introduced to and fell in love with the hobby because they simply enjoyed what games were. Players of these games growing up and wanting to take that pure joy and make something new that can then spark that same joy to a new generation of players, some of which may be playing a game for the very first time, is the very human essence of game development that makes for the best games out there.
Of course, “fun” is a nebulous experience that is born from experiences that vary from person-to-person. I’m fully aware that some people just don’t like 2D platformers and likely wouldn’t get much from Mario Wonder as a result. Fun looks and feels different for every person - so instead of making a broadly “fun” game that tries to appeal to everyone, the best thing that developers can possibly do is to decide on a very specific type of experience and present that experience with the most ideas, enthusiasm, and humanity as possible. Super Mario Bros. Wonder did this with creating varied 2D platforming, and as a result, feels like it fully realizes its potential for the type of game that it’s trying to be. “Fun” may appear differently in different types of games, but what matters most is the spirit of a game. A creative, fun-filled spirit can give a game a level of charm and joy that can make enjoying the game nearly infectious. A recent success story of a game achieving this is PlayStation’s Astro Bot.
I’ve truthfully been frustrated by PlayStation’s direction over the last half-decade. Up until halfway through the PS4 era, Sony had a diverse portfolio with games of varying styles and scopes. For every God of War or Uncharted, there was also an Ape Escape or Gravity Rush. From action games to JRPGs to rhythm games, Sony brought a variety like that of Nintendo - and they achieved a similar level of success on delivering games that primarily aimed to be as unique and fun as possible. Some games put out by Sony were smaller in scale and had accordingly narrower budgets - and that was okay. It didn’t matter if every game put out by the publisher was a massive-budget blockbuster with mass appeal - the company embraced the diverse strengths and creative capabilities of its studios.
In the late 2010s, though, things changed. PlayStation shifted their focus towards exclusively greenlighting games with huge budgets. Sony began producing less and less games per year - and the majority of what did get released have been either rereleases, PC ports, or new installments in long-running franchises. 2023’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was PlayStation’s only original first party release that year and cost an unbelievable (and unsustainable) $300 million USD to develop.
PlayStation has been going all-in on massive budget titles alongside producing live-service titles that can generate revenue perpetually over time - something that has garnered mixed-to-negative results for them. Creating these massive games with a wide appeal and producing games intended to make money over many years through in-game purchases communicate exactly what PlayStation’s goals are now: that of creating games with a profit-first mentality. Creativity and risk-taking is downplayed when the company wants to instead improve their bottom line as much as possible.
That said, things aren’t entirely doom-and-gloom. PlayStation has been willing to still produce some projects that take creative risks. 2021’s Returnal, for example, is a rogue-like third person shooter with elements of Metroid-esque progression and an ambitious story drenched in stylish sci-fi ambience. Returnal delivers a unique gameplay and story experience that sticks with players because it’s so different - and it’s that distinct identity from the game’s creative ambition that makes it fun and memorable.
Astro Bot is very much the same. There’s a reason why Astro Bot is being compared to Super Mario 64 as much as it has been - the game is an incredible exploration of level ideas and carries with it a level of charm that just makes any person playing it smile. From the dozens of cameos across PlayStation history to the playful, catchy soundtrack to the fact that the titular character waves at you when he faces the camera, Astro Bot oozes playfulness and creativity. Much like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Astro Bot is all about creating a fun gameplay experience that will stick with you. This fun factor is crafted through strong pacing, level variety, collectables that are rewarding to collect, and a visual and auditory charm all-throughout.
Team Asobi, the developer of Astro Bot, gets their namesake from the Japanese word “Asobi” - meaning to play and to partake in fun activities. Indeed, Astro Bot lives up to its namesake because, from beginning to end, it is a game about playfulness and wonder - adjectives that best describe why video games are so special. In a tight 10-15 hour runtime, the game invites players to bask in the game’s imagination and forces players to get lost in the charm of the game’s world, characters, and vibe.
Video games continue to deliver unforgettable experiences despite what negative headlines about the state of the industry may suggest. There are games that still invoke the child-like wonder that made us fall in love with games in the first place. These are precisely the games that we need to support now more than ever. // Image: Nintendo
I’ve chosen to proudly support Astro Bot because it is precisely the type of game that I want to see more of from PlayStation. Beyond being an exceptionally well-made game, Astro Bot represents so much of what I value and appreciate. The game was developed by 60 people over a reasonable three-year period. This controlled number of developers gave ample room for creativity and collaboration without too many cooks being in the kitchen (something that results in reduced creativity and style when a game has hundreds of developers working on a single game). More than anything else, Astro Bot is a purely fun game that bears not a single shred of shame for being a video game. It celebrates PlayStation history while being an incredibly rewarding game all its own - resulting in a stylish game that will doubtlessly be on many game of the year lists and remain in its players’ hearts and minds for years to come.
And that is what it’s all about - sticking with people. Whether you grew up playing platformers or feel nostalgic towards a certain era and type of game, there is undoubtedly a game that has stuck with you throughout your life. Maybe there was a game with a plot twist that caught you so off-guard that you can never forget how surprised you were by it. Maybe you were stuck on a challenging puzzle or boss fight and still remember the pure elation you felt when you finally conquered it. Whatever situation created a gaming memory that’s stuck with you - you have a gaming memory that you can recall. Creating memories through games is a deeply personal thing, and yet it’s exactly what binds so many game players together.
Games are more than just games - they’re microcosms of memories and experiences that stay with us for the rest of our lives. These memories can be associated with different emotions, but the one that binds them all together is fun - the reason why we choose to engage with this hobby in the first place. Even if a game frustrates us, we come to the game in the first place because we want to have a good time, we want to escape the franticness of our lives if for only a few moments. And when games deliver an experience developed with a philosophy that, above all else, wishes to give us that joy and escape that we come to games for - that’s when games leave a deeply profound impact on us.
That’s why it’s important to celebrate, support, and spread the word about games that embody this fun-first mentality. Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Astro Bot are fantastic examples of this, but in truth, there are hundreds of games that come out every year that are worthy of being included in this category of games that deserve to be recognized as the model for what all games should be. Mario Wonder and Astro Bot are particular examples worth recognizing and celebrating because they come from platform holders -two of the most significant publishers and developers in the industry. These games represent some of the biggest brands in the game industry - with that recognition comes opportunities for their releases to influence the games for the future. The form in which this inspiration takes is threefold:
It informs the design philosophy that other developers, big or small, choose to adopt. It gives players the ability to support the types of games they enjoy and want to see more of. And lastly, it communicates to developers and publishers what the market of video game players want and are choosing to purchase, informing future decisions about what games will and will not be greenlit.
Put simply, I want a future where more and more games are developed with a fun-first philosophy - a design mentality that puts player enjoyment above all else. While I understand that other factors such as market trends, profitability, and monetization are necessary evils in relation to the business side of video games - I feel that we need video games without these necessary evils being at the forefront of the game’s conception and development process for a healthy industry moving forward. The best way that we can pave the way towards this future of more games like the ones we love is to support developers in any way we can. Whether it’s through purchasing and playing the games you feel deserve more attention or writing a blog post or making a video sharing your thoughts on the game and spreading the word about why you enjoyed it so much.
It’s a simple thing, but in an age where negativity bias seeps through every scrollable inch of social media and practically every week comes with negative headlines about the game industry, any positive messaging about the types of games we love that remind us of why we adore games in the first place is exactly what the world needs more of. Even if it’s just a conversation with a friend - you can share the joy of the incredible games still releasing just by talking about how much they meant to you.
Despite all the darkness currently surrounding the industry at the moment, games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Astro Bot prove to be a beacon of light that remind us that there is still always hope for the future of games. Games that embrace fun, creativity, style, developer expression, and consumer-friendly release models still exist and they’re still thriving - but such a thing is tenuous if taken for granted. If games that embrace creating fun experiences above all else are to still continue, supporting these games in whatever way you can is the best way you can do your part towards crafting the industry towards a better, more hopeful future.
The future of the game industry is unknown, perhaps now more than ever. In face of the unknown future, games like Mario Wonder and Astro Bot give us the solace and confidence that video games, when made to be fun for everyone, have a promising tomorrow if we do exactly what a fun-first philosophy is meant to inspire: play.
Thank you very much for reading! What are your thoughts on Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Astro Bot? Are there other games with a fun-first design philosophy that you feel deserves more attention? As always, join the conversation and let me know what you think in the comments and on Twitter/X @DerekExMachina.
