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The game industry changed with the launch of Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001. It certainly wasn’t the first game with adult content, but its astronomical success helped prove there was a giant audience out there for mature titles. Many major publishers were suddenly a lot more willing to make games that the ESRB would likely slap with an M rating, but there was one notable exception: Nintendo.
“The games industry is broader than ever, and there are many different ways to produce a game these days,” Shigeru Miyamoto said in a 2003 interview with the Swedish Superplay Magazine. That interview has had various translations circulating around the internet for years, including this one from the delightfully named Miyamoto Shrine.
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But while Zelda has experimented with more “mature” art styles – Twilight Princess always seemed to be a way to directly address criticisms of The Wind Waker, after all – Nintendo’s approach hasn’t really changed. “I have never intended to make games for a specific age, I want to make games for both kids and adults,” Miyamoto said in that interview.
And, of course, Nintendo’s never made games featuring wanton crime and murder, either. “I think it’s important that we producers keep things inside moral and ethic borders,” Miyamoto said. “I actually think that game designers have some responsibility for what we create. Of course the art of freedom and the right to speak are important, but we should be careful with what we create. Games are interactive entertainment and could affect young people…”