Masahiro Sakurai feels bad.
In a recent episode of his YouTube series Creating Games, the Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Kirby creator offered an apology to players who have spent a substantial chunk of their lives playing his games.
Super Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai apologies
The video, which covers the awareness creators should have of how much time their games could potentially take from players, was posted on Tuesday. "Play time—especially how it's conceived before starting a game—is better thought of as a cost of sorts," he says.
"In the modern world, you're constantly competing with everything else," Sakurai goes on. "It's a battle for people's time. Even if someone has lots of free time on their hands, that means something different now than it did in the past. There are always things to do. The question is: how do people choose to spend the time?"
During the video, Sakurai also points out that phone screens are the biggest threat to people’s time because there are virtually no barriers of entry. Contrast this with a Playstation, which cannot just be whipped out in line at the supermarket.
Sakurai’s main message seems to be that a game’s appeal needs to be able to overcome the barriers inherent in our day-to-day relationship with technology. Sakurai also praises the game Astro Bot because it doesn’t take much time.
Social media responses to Sakurai's apology
The video concludes that in the war for players’ attention, Sakurai feels really, really bad. “I’m so sorry!” he says to the players who have spent thousands of hours on Super Smash Bros, as he feels they could’ve spent their time doing anything else.
However, players don't seem to be sweating it:
Don’t be so hard on yourself, Masa. Ultimately, it’s up to the user on how they waste their time, right? I’m sure a great number of Super Smash Bros. fans have no regrets.
Take a look at the full episode below:
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