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Konami has been trying its best to silence Kojima and not offer any confirmation as to what is going on between the two. The company even went as far as to say that Kojima was merely ‘on vacation' recently but that illusion was shattered last night when Geoff Keighley revealed that while Kojima had planned on attending the Game Awards, Konami's lawyers stopped him in his tracks.
Metal Gear Solid V won the 2015 award for best action/adventure game, and Big Boss voice actor, Kiefer Sutherland accepted the award on Kojima's behalf, following which, Geoff Keighley decided to break the silence and just give us the truth that Konami has trying to keep hidden. You can hear what he had to say between 0:56 and 1:59 on this video captured by Kotaku. Alternatively, you can read what was said below.
“As you noticed Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight, and I want to tell you a little bit about that, Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight's awards ceremony to accept any awards. He's still under an employment contract, and it's disappointing, and it's inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates.”
From the sounds of it, due to Kojima's employment contract with Konami, which doesn't officially run out until later this month according to previous rumours, the famed game designer was not allowed to travel out of Japan to attend the show.
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KitGuru Says: Sony also held a PlayStation awards show earlier this week in Japan, at which Kojima also wasn't allowed to accept an award for MGS:V, instead Konami's head of PR accepted the award so at this point it seems that the bosses at Konami are just being spiteful, despite the fact that the game went on to sell millions of copies.
I wonder if they will become worse than EA
I wonder if they will become worse than EA
I’m sure we will hear Kojima’s side of the story eventually, hopefully after his employment contract ends. I’m sure it will be fascinating reading for most gamers.
nothing can be worse than EA
Ubisoft sure is trying though.
Well, looks like a good reason to never buy anything from Konami again.
Well, as Jim Sterling says, “F*ck Konami”.
EA are awful in their own, special ways. Konami are awful in weird, spiteful ways, however, alongside a lot of the same terrible treatment of employees that EA are famous for. Frankly, with what Konami are doing to the Silent Hill franchise, I’d give up hope of them ever being remembered for producing great games and more instead for ruining them.
Disagree, EA at least is improving by polishing the games and getting rid of the VIP access code they had. Ubisoft imo is far worse
and what about activision?
Konami says,” we dont need Hideo to release these great games.”
You mean like how the NFL didnt need to pay its athletes more in the 70s because they could just find others? How did that work out? Or how they didnt need to pay the referees because they could bring in other refs? “Its a touchdown.” “No its a touchback.”… ” Fuck it, its a fucking fieldgoal!” I can only imagine this is bickering over contracts and if Konami pushes too hard they are going to end up the losers. Good for Hideo keeping a level head and not saying “screw you im going anyways.” Hope this can all be worked out but if not i side with Hideo Kojima. At least with the limited info we have right now.
Agreed. Ubisoft is very quickly growing into a monster. I especially love the DRM’d games that make it harder for legit players to play the games than pirates…..
In that case the games industry is doing well. Because while people love to bitch on EA, they on average produce better games than every other publisher, and are in a lot of respects not as annoying as Activision, Ubisoft, or Warner Bros.
So what is Konami’s problem exactly?
Fuckonami
They won’t because they seem to want to leave the console market.
Their last 2 big titles still developped on consoles were Metal Gear, which has a grim future now that the whole kojima prod has be closed, and Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) which has been behind FIFA for a few years now, and Konami even released a free-to-play version lately.
They clearly intend to focus on mobile & pachinko games.