Videogames are indeed design: They're sophisticated virtual

“Videogames are indeed design: They're sophisticated virtual machines that echo the mechanical systems inside cars.” — John Maeda

Thus spoke John Maeda, the artist-engineer, philosopher of design, and master of the digital craft — a man who has spent his life bridging the ancient worlds of beauty and function. His words, like a craftsman’s chisel, carve a truth into the modern age: that videogames are design, not frivolous diversions, but crafted systems of complexity and purpose, echoing the elegance and precision of the great mechanical creations of humankind. In saying this, Maeda reminds us that behind every game, behind every virtual landscape and flashing screen, lies a world of structure, logic, and craftsmanship, as profound as the gears and pistons that power an engine.

To understand the wisdom of this saying, we must return to the essence of design itself. The ancients knew that design was not mere ornamentation, but the shaping of chaos into order, of vision into form. The builders of the Parthenon, the engineers of the aqueducts, the clockmakers of the Renaissance — each worked in the same spirit as today’s designers of digital worlds. They studied proportion, precision, and purpose. Their tools were of stone, water, and metal; ours are of code and electricity. Yet the aim remains eternal: to create something that lives, that moves, that responds. When Maeda likens videogames to mechanical systems inside cars, he sees the kinship between the digital and the physical — between the turning of gears and the turning of ideas.

Consider the car, that marvel of human ingenuity. Beneath its polished surface lies a hidden symphony of mechanisms — valves, pistons, sensors, circuits — each piece designed in harmony with the next. Every motion, every hum, is the result of intention and design. So too with a videogame: beneath its surface of art and story lies a network of algorithms, engines, and systems — a living machine of logic, responding to the will of the player. To play, then, is to engage with design made visible; to feel the pulse of technology shaped by human creativity.

One might recall the tale of Shigeru Miyamoto, the humble gardener turned visionary, who created The Legend of Zelda. Inspired by his childhood wanderings through forests and caves, he sought to design not merely a game, but a living world. Like an engineer shaping an engine, he arranged systems that interacted — exploration, discovery, challenge, and reward. He did not build with metal, but with imagination and mathematics. His creation, like a car on an open road, carried millions into new realms of experience. In this, he proved Maeda’s insight: that videogames are not mere pastimes, but designed machines of emotion and understanding, teaching us how systems — whether digital or mechanical — can give life to ideas.

The ancients would have understood this kinship. Archimedes, who studied the movement of levers and water, once said, “Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth.” Today, the designer of virtual worlds might say, “Give me code, and I shall move the soul.” Both are artisans of motion, masters of systems that respond to human intention. The car translates the movement of hands and feet into speed and travel; the game translates thought and curiosity into experience and learning. Both are machines of meaning, and both reflect the same principle of harmony between human and mechanism.

Maeda’s words, therefore, carry a message for all creators of this age. Do not dismiss the digital world as unreal, nor the mechanical world as outdated. They are reflections of one another — two expressions of the same eternal drive to understand and shape reality. The wise designer learns from both: from the hum of the motor, the logic of the algorithm, the rhythm of the player’s heart. For in every great creation — whether forged in metal or in code — lies the union of precision and purpose, of science and art.

And so, O learners of craft and seekers of wisdom, take this lesson: see design in all things. When you drive a car, listen to the symphony of movement and balance within it. When you play a game, look beyond the surface to the patterns and systems that guide your journey. Remember that behind every beautiful creation lies the same principle — the harmony of form and function. Strive, then, in your own work, to design with both reason and spirit, for when the two move as one, the result becomes timeless.

For the machines we build — whether of metal, of code, or of thought — are mirrors of ourselves. And when we design with care, we do more than create objects; we create reflections of the human soul in motion. Such is the sacred art that Maeda speaks of — the design of systems that live, the echo between the engine and the imagination, the reminder that every act of creation is a dialogue between what is seen and what is possible.