Well everyone, it seems that the
moment that many gamers have been fearing for months has finally happened;
Kojima Productions has been disbanded.
The news came from Akio Otsuka, the Japanese voice actor for Solid Snake
via his twitter account late last night with studio’s latest game, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
nearing completion. But while we had all
been seeing this coming for months, it is, none the less, a sad occasion.
For those of you who aren’t aware,
Kojima Productions is/was a subsidiary game development studio under Konami
headed by a man named Hideo Kojima and was best known for their development of
the Metal Gear Solid series. Under the development of the team, each entry
in main games of the franchise have sold millions of copies and won numerous Game
of the Year awards over series near thirty year history and is often a referenced
point whenever someone points to games as being an artistic form onto
themselves. Solid, confirmed sources as
to just what happened between Kojima and Konami are a little hard to come by
but for the past several months rumors have been leaking that Konami’s
executives had been feuding with Kojima for undisclosed reasons. The result of this has been the unfortunate cancelation
of the Kojima/del Toro Silent Hill
reboot, Silent Hills as well as
scrubbing Kojima’s name from the upcoming Metal
Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, reinstating the games developers as “contractors”,
resulting in the vast majority of the studio’s team planning to leave the
company once the game was complete.
Now
personally, I am not a game journalist so I don’t have a grasp on the situation
as others might nor do I have a full view on just how insane the company has become
as a publisher. For those interested on
more information on the matter from professionals I would recommend taking a
look at the Jim Sterling videos, R.I.P. P.T,-Why We Can’t Keep Nice Things,
Konami is Konami, and a video by Super Bunnyhop entitled Kojima vs. Konami: An Investigation
as both of them seem to have a better handle and more information on the
situation then I do. It should, however,
suffice to say that Konami has had a long history of ineptitude when it comes
to being a videogame publisher as well as being downright spiteful and petty
when it comes to anyone who disagrees with and criticizes its policies. Recently, it would appear that this petty
spite is now being directed at Kojima as well to the point where his name wasn’t
even allowed to be uttered during any kind of promotion at this year’s E3.
Now to be honest, this news probably
doesn’t affect me as it does others. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is one
of my all-time favorite games but beyond that entry, I never had much exposure
to the series. I never was able to get
into the Silent Hill series but the
idea of Kojima being involved, by the sheer amount of respect his name carried
in the gaming community, paired with del Toro, one of my all-time film makers,
had me hyped for the game beyond all belief and I was completely and utterly
crushed at the announcement of the game’s cancelation. So while I am not as mad as others may be at
this news or the general way Konami has allegedly treated Kojima I am deeply
saddened by it and feel for those who are going to have their favorite video
game franchises butchered as a result of this mess.
In the end all we can do is hope
that Kojima Productions’ final game will be a fine one and I have every confidence
that Kojima and company will land on their feet with some other publishing
company or on their own. But for now it is
a sad day for the gaming community. Rest
in peace Kojima Productions and thank you for all the hours of joy that you
have brought gamers over the years.
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