The Creator of Smash Bros. Wants to Avoid Excessive Public Attention

Making some of the most popular and universally beloved video games tends to come with a side effect of becoming a bit of a celebrity, at least among millions of gamers who become attached to those games.

This might seem like a good deal to some, after all, fame tends to be a part of the package when talking about achieving success, but Masahiro Sakurai made it clear that he would rather avoid the hassle of becoming a big public figure.

Sakurai recently had an interview Game*Spark, which revealed that despite everything he accomplished throughout his career, he's a pretty humble person who would rather stay out of the spotlight.

A lot of this was said in relation to the recently published manga about his life, the title of it roughly translating to "Masahiro Sakurai: Making the World More Fun with Games." At the time it was being made, Sakurai almost declined the approval for this manga, because not only was he rather busy at the time, but it also went against his usual desire to avoid public attention when it's seen as excessive.

Sakurai will do his best to promote his games and ideas, one of the best examples of this is his channel. The guy spent over half a million dollars to produce those videos, and did not monetize it in any way. However, everything has a limit, and for Sakurai, it comes to drawing attention to himself, rather than his games. For this reason, he often went as far as to turn down interviews if the interview focused on him as a game creator, rather than his games.

This led to the big quote going around, that he would rather people just play games, than focus on people who make them. This was interpreted negatively by many. Often seeing it as promoting the issue of gamers seeing developers as humans, and many creators not getting the proper credit. However, in the context of his overall message, it seems like Sakurai simply doesn't want to encourage idolizing people as it often happens in the game industry.

Figures like Hidetaka Miyazaki, Hideo Kojima, Richard Garriott, Swen Vincke, and many others end up becoming so famous, that they become media personalities, almost overshadowing their work, and also impacting it with anything they say. Sakurai seems intent on severing this connection, or rather not letting it form in the first place, allowing the games themselves to do all the talking.