Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning recently sat down to speak with Games Industry International, and shared his immediate admiration for Satoru Iwata through recent comments the Nintendo CEO has made.
Having been asked as to whether Nintendo would consider laying off employees to improve the company’s financial fortune, Iwata said that it would never be an option – citing that it would damage employee morale, and would see Nintendo produce games of a lesser quality due to staff being in fear of losing their jobs.
“When he said that, in my opinion, he was immortalised in the creative community. I would work with him in a second,” Lanning confessed. “When a man in that type of position, in a world where the golden rule is the rule and that’s what’s expected at public companies, he stood up and said, ‘That’s not what we’re about. We’re about building great stuff. We have great people to build great stuff. We’re gonna do that.’
He continued, “When I look at the history of Nintendo, I say, “Nintendo is gonna be here in 100 years.” I have no doubt. I doubt Microsoft will be here in 100 years. I know Zynga won’t be here in 100 years. I’ve been here longer than Zynga. [Laughs] We’re not making headlines in the Wall Street Journal, but we’re still building what we set out to build. Now we have to be clever and smaller in how we think, but we’re more self-empowered than we’ve ever been.”
Lorne Lanning: Nintendo will outlast Microsoft and Zynga
