Game creator Takaya Imamura recently shared some comments about his experience working for Nintendo – particularly about how frustratingly talented everyone around him was. Before going independent, Imamura worked for Nintendo for 32 years, serving as art director and designer on The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox and F-Zero franchises.
“There were so many incredible people at Nintendo,” Imamura writes on X, “and I remember constantly wondering how I could demonstrate my own worth in such an environment.” He goes on to say that, while he was working for Nintendo, he would always feel a sense of inferiority. So much so that leaving the company came as a relief.
“I felt like I was finally free from the inferiority complex I’d been carrying for years,” Imamura says. At the same time, the creator admits that he felt sad knowing he’d no longer be able to work with those same people. Ultimately, his desire to create games at his own pace and with greater creative liberty was what drove him to leave Nintendo.
In response to Imamura, another former Nintendo developer – Shinji Watanabe (now CEO of Epsilon Software) expressed a similar sentiment, even likening Nintendo’s highly skilled staff to “celestial beings.”
Ken Watanabe, who was a software developer at Nintendo for 10 years and now works as an independent creator, also joined in the discussion, commenting, “There really is nothing but amazing people [at Nintendo]. Trying to find a way to stand out among them was both draining and fulfilling.”
This silent pressure caused by the high level of Nintendo’s human resources seems to be a recurring topic among developers who used to work at the company. While the testimonies from Imamura and his former colleagues come from a mostly positive place, there have also been creators more negatively affected by the environment. CG designer Miura Koichi went viral in 2023 for saying that Nintendo was “like a haven for geniuses and superhumans, but for an average person like me, it was hell.”
With its long history and prestige, Nintendo is a very attractive employer in Japan, which secures the company a big pool of talent every year as the competition over human resources in Japan grows fiercer. Not only that, but Nintendo has an unusually high employee retention rate at 98.8%, meaning that its expertise and knowledge stay in-house and only keep expanding. These could be some of the reasons why positions at Nintendo might seem like they’re only meant for superhuman geniuses. Although, seeing even highly skilled creatives like Imamura talk about struggling to feel good enough kind of makes you wonder “What hope is there for the rest of us?”
