Entertainment and Education Aren't Very Different, Says Shigeru Miyamoto

The gaming industry has, as with most other entertainment branches, a few people who have led the way and brought innovations in every game we play today. Even though developers like Cliff Bleszinski, responsible for Gears of War, or Will Wright, creator of Sims and Spore, have become very popular, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto is one of the biggest names in the industry.

The Japanese designer is responsible for cult games such as Mario or Zelda and has brought innovative ideas for which Nintendo is so popular these days. He always placed the player first, struggling to offer him a top-notch experience of the highest quality, even though that meant delaying games or making other difficult decisions.

Miyamoto has talked to Edge about the role of games in today's society, especially in education. The famous designer went on to say that even though games couldn't have a role in education, there weren't a lot of differences between these two notions. He exemplified his statements with Brain Training, as people didn't play it for the educational value, but because they had fun while they uncovered new talents.

“I think I need to come up with very fine and delicate wording about the educational ability of entertainment but, frankly speaking, I have never intended to make educational software. But I think it’s wrong to completely build a wall between the two. I really don’t think that education and entertainment are two different things. I have never thought that education couldn’t be entertaining. I wish that the education I received during my schooldays could have been much more fun than it was. From that perspective, I’m trying to expand the fun nature of things. Once again, I am not intending to make anything educational, but if the resulting software is taken as educational, that’s OK.”

Even though some studies show that games such as World of Warcraft might have an educational role, there is a long way to go until games can be used in the process of education. But, as more innovative titles appear, we might see entertainment play a bigger role in the normal education of a child.