Kojima Wants To Work With Western Devs

[Keane Ng]

Kojima Wants To Work With Western Devs

Hideo Kojima's admired Western game developers for a long time. Now it sounds like he's gearing up to actually work with them.

Asked by Kikizo [http://games.kikizo.com/features/hideo-kojima-interview-2009-p1.asp] what he thinks of Konami's decision to farm out the development of the latest Silent Hill game to a Western developer, Kojima remarked that he's definitely considering doing the same thing with Kojima Productions, saying he's not "sure when this will happen" but that he's "very interested."

Could we be hearing news of a Kojima Productions US sooner or later? If it were to happen, Kojima guaranteed that he'd have a fairly hands-off approach. All developers, he says, are "all special in some way; they have their unique points, and if we were to team up with them I wouldn't dictate to them...I'd have to really try to help them do what they do best as production studios."

"That's how I plan to do it in the future, and to give them freedom," Kojima said, sounding awfully like he's got it pretty set in stone that he's going to do this in the future.

He's already started doing his research, having gone on a tour of Western studios, though it was mostly for his own education more than anything else. Nevertheless, it seems that the trip was fairly eyeopening for Mr. Metal Gear. "I feel it's time to look outside of Japan. You know - what can we absorb, what can we copy from these Western developers?" Kojima pondered. "What kind of steps should we take as Kojima Productions to change for the better and remain a strong global studio? That's what we're thinking right now."

[Via NeoGAF [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=358653]]

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[Dectilon]

Maybe they can help him keep the game time longer than the cutscene time, and maybe he can teach them to actually write stories instead of flinging keywords like "marine", "alien invasion" and "traitor" into a hat and randomly drawing words until they have a story.

 

[Aries_Split]

For anyone with a functioning brain, the stories aren't that complicated. Can't really argue with the overly dramatic part though...

Or the fact he's on a duck.

 

[Keane Ng]

Can you imagine him working on half life...oh i cringe at the thought of Gordon Freemans needlessly complicated and overtly dramatic back story...

You guys talk a lot, but would your precious Gabe Newell ride a duck?

I don't think so.

 

[Tech Team FTW!]

Maybe they can help him keep the game time longer than the cutscene time, and maybe he can teach them to actually write stories instead of flinging keywords like "marine", "alien invasion" and "traitor" into a hat and randomly drawing words until they have a story.

Are you saying he should betray himself?

Anyway, at least he says he will have a hands-off approach to working with Western developers.

 

[Tech Team FTW!]

Can you imagine him working on half life...oh i cringe at the thought of Gordon Freemans needlessly complicated and overtly dramatic back story...

You guys talk a lot, but would your precious Gabe Newell ride a duck?

I don't think so.

If we saw him doing that, we would burn the pictures and any witnesses. That would just be too disturbing...

 

[Avatar Roku]

Well tell him he cant, we wont allow him to slip "Raiden" into any of our games...

That's a crack at MGS2, right? Honestly, I enjoyed it a good deal, I never got what people's problem with it was.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Well tell him he cant, we wont allow him to slip "Raiden" into any of our games...

That's a crack at MGS2, right? Honestly, I enjoyed it a good deal, I never got what people's problem with it was.

Please, Lets not, all i have to say is that "Raiden" Is not Solid Snake!

Exactly. The whole Philosophical Warrior thing gets a bit old. Not sure if Raiden was all that much better, but at least he was different.

 

[chomp.]

I don't quite see why he wants to work with the west:

It couldn't be the money, surely he's already indulged enough with his games, they're not exactly tight with their budget

Also, Kojima doesnt really have a lot to learn from western culture or western game development, he seems pretty well versed in it already; he frequently cites many western movies as influences on his work, particularly for the Metal Gear series

And he doesn't really need to introduce his games to a new market; he's known the all over the world already and everyone in the west is going topounce on his new game whether he has it made in Japan or the US

 

[Doug]

Can you imagine him working on half life...oh i cringe at the thought of Gordon Freemans needlessly complicated and overtly dramatic back story...

And pausing for cutscenes explaining the origins of the crowbar, the hazard suit, the G-man, the combine. And the 1 minute of gameplay later, another 6 cutscenes.

 

[Random Argument Man]

Didn't he said that.... like a few weeks ago?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Kojima + Bioware = Game full of dialogue, but with absolutely no combat

So, an adventure game, which would fucking rock.

 

[scotth266]

Yeehaw! This looks to be an interesting thing alright. Bring the East and West together, and something crazy is bound to pop out.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Well, it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

[Medic Heavy]

Jesus...i've never realised how much on this forum just utterly hates MGS4. I personaly thought MGS4 was fantastic considering it was my only MGS and konami ame I was pretty dam impressed.

Can you imagine him working on half life...oh i cringe at the thought of Gordon Freemans needlessly complicated and overtly dramatic back story...

And pausing for cutscenes explaining the origins of the crowbar, the hazard suit, the G-man, the combine. And the 1 minute of gameplay later, another 6 cutscenes.

......For some sick reason I really wanna see that happen.

 

[Woe Is You]

Can you imagine him working on half life...oh i cringe at the thought of Gordon Freemans needlessly complicated and overtly dramatic back story...

And pausing for cutscenes explaining the origins of the crowbar, the hazard suit, the G-man, the combine. And the 1 minute of gameplay later, another 6 cutscenes.

God, can you imagine the mess Valve would make of Metal Gear Solid? They'd delay it for a period well outside normal limits, then when it was actually released it woulc contain precisely jack shit of innovation, make sure the cutscenes are set up so that they're both unskippable and just long enough to break the flow and ruin the mood without being long enough to go do something else, all the while never moving the plot along, without ever looking well done enough to be enjoyed from any perspective, and making you do annoying physics puzzles that lack any creativity, and single fetch quests that take up half the damn game.

You obviously don't realize that Half-Life was really the first FPS to integrate the story as part of the damn game. Show, don't tell. It's something Kojima really should learn to do more. HL2 on the other hand basically succeeded in making a good game out of what Trespasser was trying to do.

The importance of HL as a series might be hard to see now if you weren't there, when just about every FPS since has been taking cues from it. But the leap in storytelling from games like Quake to Half-Life is immense, really.

 

[letsnoobtehpwns]

Lol. That's a funny picture they posted of Kojima.

 

[Woe Is You]

You act as if thats a good thing.

It's certainly a better way of doing it than making more than half your game a cutscene. Just about every game with Kojima involved after the first MGS just shows how desperately he needs an editor.

Meanwhile, Kojima invented a genre, and holds half the list of the best boss fights ever. And no storyline has ever come close to matching Metal Gear Solid

Castle Wolfenstein for the first claim and Planescape: Torment for the last. The second, well... highly subjective I'd say.

 

[jboking]

You act as if thats a good thing.

It's certainly a better way of doing it than making more than half your game a cutscene. Just about every game with Kojima involved after the first MGS just shows how desperately he needs an editor.

I've been biting my tongue about this for a really long time, but isn't how long the cutscenes are in comparison to the length of gameplay all in how you play the game?

I keep hearing, "MGS!? HOPE YOU LIKE TO WATCH YOUR GAMES! LOLOL!", I guarantee you I spent far, far more time playing than I did watching in any Metal Gear Solid. Why you ask? Because I play MGS as though I was Solid(or naked) Snake.

"I am just one guy, one soldier. My job is not to be a killing machine. It is to not let my enemies know I'm there. That way I can sneak by, or if need be, take out my enemy one at a time and hide the bodies so I don't alert any more enemies."

Not to mention, the only way in MGS4 that your cutscene time should run longer than your gamplay time is if you are playing on liquid easy(very easy mode) or are trying really hard to treat a stealth game like a TPS.

I also enjoy the story quite a bit, especially MGS3. I'm sorry if MGS3 was ruined for some of you because it had cutscenes, but I cannot see where you are coming from. The backstory behind Big Boss was epic and saddening all at the same time.

Also...psycho mantis...that is all.

 

[Erana]

For some reason, I want to fence agianst Kojima and Suda51. Sounds like it would be mindlessly drawn out, over-the-top, and tons of fun.