Masahiro Sakurai, the director behind Super Smash Bros. and Kirby, has confirmed that the Game Designers Award at the Japan Game Awards will be discontinued after 16 years. Sakurai explained that the decision came after he was unable to find a suitable successor to take over his responsibilities as chairman of the award’s jury.
The category was established in 2010 to recognize games that stand out through creativity and originality. Sakurai has played a central role in the award since its creation, including helping select judges and presenting the winning game. The Japan Game Awards’ official criteria specifically emphasize creativity and originality when selecting its Game Designers Award winner.
Sakurai Warns Games Industry About Losing Originality
During the Japan Game Awards 2026 ceremony, Sakurai also used the announcement to discuss the industry’s relationship with originality. According to AUTOMATON, he acknowledged that originality does not necessarily translate into commercial success.
“Originality doesn’t really have much impact on sales.”
Sakurai argued that players naturally become comfortable with familiar experiences and often prefer games that match their existing expectations. However, he believes this makes creative experimentation even more important for the long-term health of the medium.
He delivered a particularly strong warning to fellow developers, saying that
“an industry that loses its originality will simply die a slow death.”
Sakurai added that the games industry exists today because earlier creators introduced new ideas and developed entirely new forms of entertainment.
The Game Designers Award itself will end, but Sakurai encouraged developers and players to continue paying attention to novelty, originality and the qualities that make individual games different.
Word Game Becomes the Award’s Final Winner
The final recipient of the Game Designers Award was Word Game, developed by Team9. The experimental puzzle game builds its characters, environments and objects entirely from words, allowing players to manipulate the meaning and context of text to solve puzzles.
The Japan Game Awards praised the game’s distinctive design, describing it as a work that is difficult to create and even harder to imitate. It ultimately became the final game to receive an award that had spent 16 years highlighting some of the industry’s most unconventional ideas.
