Kojima and Konami Comment on Departure Rumors

[Steven Bogos]

Kojima and Konami Comment on Departure Rumors

Konami and Kojima's statement skirts the actual issue of whether or not Kojima will leave after MGS V.

In one of the most ludicriously PR-heavy statements I have ever seen, Hideo Kojima and Konami have "commented" on the rumors concerning Kojima Production's impending disbandment [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140169-Konami-Reportedly-Disbanding-Kojima-Productions-After-MGS-V]. I put "commented" in quotation marks, because the statement, while assuring fans that MGS V and the future of the Metal Gear series isn't in any jeopardy, doesn't actually address the issue. Judge for yourselves:

To Customers,

Thank you for your continued patronage of KONAMI products and services.

The latest title in the METAL GEAR series,"METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN" (below, "MGSV: TPP"), will be released as planned starting on Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 in North America, Latin America, and Europe, followed by Japan and Asia on Wednesday, September 2nd. Hideo Kojima will remain involved throughout.

Hideo Kojima stated, "I want to reassure fans that I am 100% involved and will continue working on METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN; I'm determined to make it the greatest game I've directed to date. Don't miss it!"

In addition, KONAMI will continue to develop and distribute top-quality content in the METAL GEAR series following "MGSV: TPP." We greatly anticipate and deeply appreciate your ongoing support for METAL GEAR.

As the next step in the series, KONAMI has already resolved to develop new "METAL GEAR".

We will be conducting interviews for main staff to lead the development.

As you can see, while the statement says there's a new Metal Gear title on the way, it doesn't actually say whether or not Kojima, or his development studio, Kojima Productions, will be involved. In other words, it's a useless statement. I don't think anyone was doubting that Konami would continue running the Metal Gear train with or without Kojima.

The fact that Kojima had to give this statement jointly with Konami, rather than by himself, also gives credence to the suggestion that the developer has had his communications restricted as part of the on-going power-struggle going on at Konami.

We've reached out to Konami for a proper comment, but it has been fairly silent thus far, and we aren't expecting much more.

Source: Konami [http://www.videogamer.com/ps4/metal_gear_solid_5_the_phantom_pain/news/kojima_breaks_silence_over_departure_rumours.html]



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[Darks63]

I never had much love for the series but pushing out Kojima is just dumb. He is the face of MG development and w/o him I see MG turning into just another Battlefield/AC/CoD type yearly shitshow franchise.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Wow, that really was a whole lot of fucking nothing.

Although, I'd say that the "comment" doesn't really skirt it as it gives a Texas sized distance away from making any real comments.

Then again, what that statement leaves out is still pretty interesting.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I wonder if gaming PR reps are just failed political PR reps, because I swear they've both the ability to say whole lot and yet say absolutely nothing of worth in the same breath.

On the idea of Kojima moving on? I'm for it. I think he does deserve to have a new project (or retire) because damn the man has given us so much good stuff in his time as a developer I don't think its fair to demand anything more from him unless he wishes to do more.

Its like my view on Trent Reznor and NIN, I'd love to see them tour again, I'd love to hear another album from a man I hold up as one of the greatest musical geniuses of his generation, but I don't expect anything more from him. He's earned the right (as has any artist actually, whether I like their stuff or not) to continue to do what he does best or retire and comfortably say he has nothing more to prove to anyone. *shrug*

Konami though, like most of the publishers of old are not what they used to be and I can't say that I've much love for them nor do I hate them. I'm neutral, like a sandwich. Points if you get that last reference.

 

[Saltyk]

You know what? Good. I hope Kojima moves on. I hope he makes some of the other ideas swirling around in his brain into a reality. I hope Konami comes to realize that letting their resident rock star (whether you love or hate him, you know it's true) go was a huge mistake.

Shine on, you crazy bastard, you. Make some insane games. And, if you can, why not make a new Zone of the Enders? Imagine what you could crank out with the power of more modern machines.

 

[PsychicTaco115]

So yay for MGS fans but...

What about Silent Hills???

Pls don't abandon all hope on that, the PT demo was so good :c

 

[Oly J]

I think that Konami's restriction of communication as well as the fact they blatantly avoided mentioning that Kojima would or wouldn't be involved in future installments is very telling, which makes me wonder why they bothered to say anything, what I get from this is they are, at the very least, definitely considering cutting Kojima loose, but they seem to know people aren't going to like that, because they don't want to tell people, I'm having trouble finding the logic here, and maybe I'm just a bit cynical, but if anyone seems to just not want to give any information I'm inclined to assume that the truth is not what they think you want to hear, so that's not good.

It's interesting in either case, if they do lose Kojima my first question will be what's next for him, despite my unapologetic love for the series, I have no intention of playing a Metal Gear game unless Kojima is involved, in an industry infamous for being excessively risk-averse he is the only person I can think of that can just do whatever the hell he wants, and has the following to get away with it, letting him go would be a huge mistake, but I can't help but wonder what would happen next

 

[Proverbial Jon]

So yay for MGS fans but...

What about Silent Hills???

Pls don't abandon all hope on that, the PT demo was so good :c

Oh my God... I didn't even consider this. Konami already has one barely-alive franchise dragging behind it like a dead limb (Silent Hill), MGS can't go the same way. Kojima is about the only person holding Konami together right about now.

 

[Therumancer]

I have mixed opinions here. I'm not one of the bigger fans of the Metal Gear series, though I think it's okay, but something I notice even among hardcore fans is how much they tend to gripe at Kojima's particular brand insanity, personal hang ups coming out in the game, and how he can literally have these games prattle on for ages in a semi-incomprehensible fashion before everything coming down to a rather simple series of events. Metal Gear was his brain child, but it should be noted that he's kind of a character and it doesn't surprise me he's eventually run into trouble with his bosses one final time and can't dodge the bullet. I remember going back years ago when he released Raiden there were leaked articles from Japanese periodicals where Kojima was saying that if the series was going to go forward he wanted a properly Japanese hero, as opposed to a barbaric foreigner, especially if military might and a warrior ethos was a subject of the game. It got pretty racist, both in a pro-Japanese and anti-western (US in particular) if I remember. This was at a time when I used to follow such things to some extent, and also read a lot of really bigoted anti-US stuff from a lot of different developers, perhaps most famously about how the last part of "Final Fantasy X" was intentionally not being released in the US for racist reasons. Apparently a lot of Japanese gamers being upset when things were released to the rest of the world, and the US in particular, and accusing developers of selling out, and so on. This is a part of why I was once something of a Japanaphille I was cured of it. At any rate this wasn't a big deal because these publications weren't meant for non-Japanese people to consume, and it was shocking at the time that anyone was interested enough in the fandom to translate them. It didn't have enough exposure at the time to be more than a footnote and things died out, but it was sort of "news" in certain circles at a time. Considering that face of Kojima in particular as he was speaking for himself rather than in a general corporate sense like it appeared with things like Final Fantasy (which was in response to pressure, rather than any intrinsic bigotry by the company and creators, it was basically put between Japan and the US and sided with it's own people at the time so to speak), it doesn't surprise me that they might be keeping a tight rein on him especially if he hasn't changed much. Unlike 10+ years ago there isn't any kind of expectation that what is said in Japanese media isn't going to be heard elsewhere. For all I know they have been doing constant damage control with the guy. Also consider that not only is there the apparent racist aspect of this entire thing, but he also managed to slot off the SJWs and apparently set off a bunch of letter writing campaigns given the finale of the last Metal Gear game and what happened to Paz, which went so far as to have SJWs going back through everything Kojima had said or done with women or "the lack of properly presented women" (in their opinion) through his game design career.

Metal Gear is his brain child, but look at it this way, even the fans of Kojima think his story and mythology is totally nuts, and not always in a good way. I see as many fans saying they enjoy these games in spite of his writing and direction as I do people who really get into his mythology and method of story telling. Even people who understand it in many cases don't seem to think it's any better for the understanding. At to it the racism, the political commentary, etc... and ask yourself if the series would be better without him? He's one of those guys where a strong case can be made for him being The George Lucas of game design, even if his reasons for hurting his own work are different, he had some brilliant ideas everyone liked, but then he decided to take things off the deep end and go in all these weird directions people tolerated mostly for the love of the originals. Of course he goes further than George Lucas if you get into the whole racist thing and start getting into how metal gear has in the past been defended as an extension of the writer's personal political beliefs and philosophy. Even if the game was good, having Big Boss fighting on behalf a communist revolution at the behest of a girl named "Paz" (which means "Peace") is something that didn't go entirely unremarked, especially when he winds up giving those same revolutionaries nuclear capability via their very own Metal Gear.

One final note I'll make for people who have read this far and deciphered the rambling since I'm doing this pretty fast, is that the whole "Metal Gear" concept needs some updating. The whole thing was basically a satire of 80s politics originally. For those lucky enough to have it, actually read the story background in your Metal Gear Pamphlet. For those who need even more context the whole "Metal Gear" concept is an unsubtle analogy to the US MX missile program. The idea of that program was for the US government to put a lot of our nuclear capability onto trains and/or possibly trucks and have them driven around the country by a bunch of unaccountable military and intelligence types. The idea being that nobody would know where this portion of the arsenal was at any given time, not even The President, even if he could communicate with those doing the moving. That way if the US was ever attacked it would be impossible to effectively target and destroy all of our ICBMs, and what's more with so few people knowing where this stuff was foreign intelligence assets or terrorists would have a hard time targeting it anyway. The "Metal Gear" is pretty much a science fiction extension of this, where the idea is that we place the nukes on mecha, and thus you don't even need the security staff and such since the mecha can defend itself, and in theory just go stomp around in the wilderness somewhere until it's given the order to fire. Of course bad guys get control of The Metal Gear, and the series commences. Today this is a kind of dated concept as I'd imagine a lot of people today have never even heard of the MX missile program, and the series could probably use an update, part of what made it amusing is how it seemed to be taking something that was seriously being discussed one step further into the realms of pseudo-science fiction. Today a "Metal Gear" is just a big robot with nukes, and such a preposterous idea works even less within the conspiracy-techno-fantasy world because currently nobody is talking about taking the most dangerous weapons in the world (especially then) and ensuring that nobody knows where they are including the people who control them. Of course at the time there was a lot of concern over the idea that black ops could say have an unmarked truck driving through their neighborhood full of nukes, or that if a train derailed it could cause an even bigger "mess", especially if the government itself was slow off the mark because the only people who knew there were nukes on board died in the crash.

 

[L. Declis]

I don't mind he is leaving. I am angry that they removed his name, and his studio's name, from all promotional material. He was the one who made the game. He was the one who paid, out of his own pocket, for the FOX engine (that they'll be keeping), and now they remove all his cudos as a final fuck you

That's what angered me.

---------------------------------------

I gave the above a cursory glance, but there are some things I'd like to address:

Metal Gear has always been a love letter to old action movies, and the more recent ones have been closer to Kojima writing about his own ideas of what a creator should create and pass on.

MGS4 was him saying that he felt he was no longer part of modern games, that the world had moved on without him, and he just wants to stop.

MGS2 was him saying that it is up to each of us to create our own ideas and pass them on as creators, as well as being shockingly prophetic about the state of modern freedom of speech.

Metal Gear 1 was, yes, a massive Cold War metaphor.

And MGS3 was a combination of a return to silly action movies, about having someone else take over someone elses burden (he wanted to move on from Metal Gear) and about loyalty to a concept over loyalty to a friend.

Peace Walker was shit.

And we shall see what Phantom Pain is about. Rumours are that it isn't Big Boss at all, but Gray Fox. I doubt it, but there seems to be a decent amount of evidence and it explains a lot of plot holes.

 

[DanteRL]

This is an instance where silence does the speaking. This is Hideo Kojima we're talking about. If rumours were circulating as heavily as they are and he weren't leaving, Konami would be shouting it from the rooftops. The closer comparison I can think of is if Nintendo had a bunch of rumours that Miyamoto was departing - Nintendo would stamp that out in an instant if it were untrue.

They would probably release a video of Miyamoto and Reggie laughing together at the rumours while holding bananas.

But "As the next step in the series, KONAMI has already resolved to develop new "METAL GEAR"."

There's your answer. Kojima already said that PP would be he last Metal Gear. EVEN if Konami kept the series going. And, at least I think, Konami would never agree to make a Metal Gear game without Kojima if he was still working with them, so the only solution is leaving the bastards while they put his brain child in a hamster wheel and force it to work for years without any soul.

Still, yeah, good for Hideo, now he can go crazy on his own ideas.

 

[SweetShark]

I hope Kojima take a break from the MG series and do whatever he want to do.
A remake on Snatcher will be great.

 

[hermes]

This is a very telling letter. Sure, it is worded to be vague and reassuring, but it is so poorly worded and oddly specific, that it gives more details than it should.

So, Kojima is in charge until he finishes PP. He will be shown the door shortly after, so that the company can milk the franchise themselves, as they see fit.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I thought Kojima wanted out of Metal Gear since MGS3. He just kept getting pulled back in for one reason or another. It seems to have gotten to the point that I would not be surprised whether or not the next MG is done without him or the next, or the one after that... He probably feels burnt out doing the same thing for years, with only a few other IPs. If he does leave, he may come back with a fresh state of mind years from now.

Of course Konami will continue without him if he does leave, though. Is it not their only real cash cow right now, with Castlevania trailing as a distant second? They are sure to make more, even if they lose Kojima, and they probably are trying to keep him. That really was the most fluffed up PR statement I've ever seen come from a video game company.

 

[OuendanCyrus]

So what I essentially got from this is:

"Mr. Kojima, are you really going to depart from the Metal Gear Series after MGSV?"

"Don't worry, I will indeed finish making MGSV and Konami will continue to make MGS games after that."

 

[Danny Dowling]

if he leaves MG goes to shit, no new ZoE and Silent Hills won't be what was intended.

If he stays, he's under the thumb of Konami and very restricted.

 

[RJ 17]

What about that last sentence at the bottom of the statement? "We will be conducting interviews for main staff to lead the development."

Sure, it's a bit of a reach...but I would assume that if Kojima was going to stay then wouldn't he and his staff be "leading the development"?

 

[Lightknight]

The Metal Gear franchise is so thoroughly established that I don't know if it honestly needs Kojima to continue. It might even get better with a return to core competencies and a new lead with fresh ideas. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[Trishbot]

Since 2013, Konami has only released these games on consoles: Metal Gear Rising, Pro-Evolution Soccer 2014 & 2015, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, P.T., and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2.

Lords of Shadow 2 bombed, I'm not a soccer fan, and ALL the other games had Hideo Kojima's direct involvement.

This does not bode well. I am quite fearful for Silent Hills right now.