Game Over: Satoru Iwata

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What does it mean to lose an iconic piece of your childhood? Someone who crafted so amazingly crafted games that brought everyone together. Games like Pokemon Stadium, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Super Mario Bros, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Earthbound, and so many others. How can you say goodbye to the very man who wove your childhood together with these classic games and transformed you into the person you are today?

Well, it’s not easy, but most goodbyes never are. On July 11, 2015 Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo, passed away due to a bile duct growth. The bile duct has affected Iwata before, causing him to miss conventions like E3 2014, and to endure surgery to remove a tumor in his bile duct. However, it wasn’t enough; the bile duct growth grew immensely within the year and ultimately took his life at the young age of fifty five. No symptoms were detected prior to the notice of the growth when his doctors examined it only months ago.

Iwata was known for his work with electronic gaming devices from Nintendo and even as far back as his childhood. Born on December 6^th, 1959 in Sapporo, Japan, Iwata took an immediate liking to video games. He liked them so much so that he produced electronic games during his high school years.  These games were nothing more than simple number games on a calculator, but they were enough to entertain his classmates. Knowing what it took to make others smile by means of electronic gaming, Iwata pursued a computer science major at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. During his time at college, Iwata freelanced for HAL Laboratory, a game production company that collaborated with Nintendo, and was an unpaid intern at Commodore Japan working with various software and technical development.

Once Iwata graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, he proceeded to join HAL Laboratory as the company coordinator of software production in 1983. Some projects he worked on were Balloon Fight, a few Kirby games, and Earthbound. Iwata was promoted to president of the company ten years later when HAL Laboratory declared bankruptcy.  In this position, Iwata helped the company get back on its feet and stabilized its finances. From there on, he assisted in developing Pokemon Gold and Silver, Pokemon Stadium, and even helped found Creatures, Inc.

In 2000, Iwata received Hiroshi Yamauchi’s blessing to take over Nintendo as president and Iwata immediately took the position while acting as a counselor at HAL Laboratory. Yamauchi was the president of Nintendo and retiring when he gave Iwata the offer. Nintendo wasn’t doing so well during this period, even with the release of the Gamecube. Iwata sought out to fix this by making games and game consoles that would appeal to everyone. Iwata had taken the Gameboy and transformed it into the DS and even pushed for the development of the Wii; both consoles proved highly successful for the company.  Iwata even helped Nintendo to increase its public relations with fans everywhere by branching out into social media and creating Nintendo Direct and Iwata Asks. These two Internet series allowed fans to understand what was happening with the company, game releases, and different promotions.  He also worked on different Mario series, Legend of Zelda games, and the Animal Crossing franchise.

By far, I believe Iwata’s greatest feat would have to be him cutting his salary in half just to keep Nintendo afloat in the world against competitors like Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo’s finances had terribly dropped in 2009, but with this man’s sliced salary, it was able to rise and take the world by storm once more. For a man to do such a wondrous action takes initiative, devotion, loyalty, and strength.  It’s not a common situation when a man lays his own hard earned money on the line just to see his company succeed. In a way, it’s like a parent raising their child by selflessly sacrificing luxuries and paychecks just to see them grow in life.

Satoru Iwata will be a man missed not only by gamers and Nintendo, but by other gaming companies like Sega. Some game companies refused to post anything on their social media in respect to Iwata’s sudden death. To even add to the man’s tragic farewell, a rainbow appeared over the Nintendo Headquarters with many saying that it was Iwata riding the Rainbow Road to Heaven.

As a gamer and admirer of Iwata’s works and noble feats, I will terribly miss the man who crafted my childhood of spending hours in front of the television and Gameboy, training my Pokemon to take on the Elite Four, battling my friends in Super Smash Bros Melee, and having possibly, the best time of my life. Farewell Satoru Iwata, you will be sorely missed by many and eternally remembered as the man who did so much and understood what it meant to be a gamer. Thank you for understanding and not only creating some of the best memories from my childhood, but a part of who I am.

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So tell me, what’s your favorite Nintendo game?