Games at the press of a button: The Rip-O-Bot (1989)

Fukio Mitsuji (三辻富貴朗)—known by his nickname “MTJ”, squeezed from the consonants of his surname, Mi-Tsu-Ji—was the game designer behind Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Syvalion, Volfied, and Magical Puzzle Popils. Surely one of the greatest to walk these hallowed halls. In the late 1980s he also wrote a column for the Japanese arcade magazine GAMEST called ゲームデザイン入門—Introduction to Game Design—aimed at readers who dreamed of becoming game designers themselves. In part 2 of the series, published in GAMEST No. 31 (April 1989), MTJ is railing against imitation games—パクリ, “rip-offs”—and the industry attitude that produces them. He quotes a manager at an unnamed company: 「10年先!? その頃には今のゲームを知らない世代がプレイヤー層をしめてるさ！ だからあえて変える必要もない！ あとは目さき（外見）さえ変えてやりゃあ…プレイヤーなんて与えられたものをやるだけさ!!」 “Ten years from now!? By then the player base will be a generation that doesn’t even know today’s games! So there’s no need to go changing anything! Just tweak the surface—the outside—and… players just play whatever they’re…