Kojima quits?

[Cronozilla]

I think Blade said it best:

Some mother fuckers are always trying to ice skate up hill.

[marurun]

Why destroy one of your most creative studios that keep making games that are PROFITABLE??!!??

I mean I know, "let's take less risk and make more money with smartphone shovelware which use our brands to get sales" but still, it's amazingly short sighted imo.

Those high-profile games cost horrific amounts of money to make and just weren't as profitable as Konami's other divisions. Sadly, it is standard practice for companies to drop their lowest performing divisions when the difference in profits is large.

Proctor and Gamble, for example, is dropping the Cover Girl cosmetics line (selling it to someone else) because it's so much less profitable than their other product lines. It IS profitable, but not as profitable.

[the7k]

I know KojiPro makes really expensive stuff, but it gives Konami something other than just profit - a "cultural wealth" so to speak, or at the very least "cultural relevance."

People bought the substandard Silent Hill games because of the Team Silent games that preceded them. After a few entries with no 'real' Silent Hill games, people quickly lost interest and the series became the wasteland it is today.

The same fate is sure to happen with Metal Gear, though probably a lot faster than it did with Silent Hill because while the average gamer doesn't know the people behind Team Silent, everyone who plays Metal Gear knows Kojima. Everyone who plays Metal Gear plays for Kojima.

Of course, Konami is headed by an old fool who doesn't really care, so it doesn't matter. His Contra slots and Metal Gear mobile apps probably won't stop selling until he's ashes - and good luck finding anyone willing to take them into battle.

[Ack]

I still can't help but feel that Konami today is the SNK of the late 1990s, watching their best IPs become pachislot advertisements while all the real talent leaves.

[Tanooki]

Well maybe that's what they need to have happen to them. Let them think they'd doing well and rot, then they can get bought out by a group more competent.

[Ack]

Well maybe that's what they need to have happen to them. Let them think they'd doing well and rot, then they can get bought out by a group more competent.

Except in the SNK example, the company that bought them, Aruze, instead ran them into the ground. Aruze liquidated their assets and licensed out IPs, ended support for the Neo Geo arcade, and stopped distribution of games outside of Japan. It basically took the founder of SNK leaving the company, forming a new company, buying back his own assets, and then suing Aruze to fix things.

[Tanooki]

Oh I know Aruze was a trainwreck that really broke things even worse, but as you noted, anger over his company being wrecked the man himself stepped in and bought back the assets and sued the crap out of them. Perhaps someone with some very deep pockets who had control of Konami in greener pastures days could do something similar. Buy the IPs and, sue the hell out of the tools running it now, and even not under the same name if need be, bring things back the gamer buyers do want (which aren't shitty mobile apps laden with lots of IAP abuse at the cost of actual games.)

[marurun]

I wouldn't mind seeing Konami chopped up and parceled out to different companies. Might save the Hudson catalog which is doing nothing but being buried under current Konami rule.

[Thierry Henry]

Hideo Kojima's Name Removed From Metal Gear Solid 5 Box Art




http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/07/14/ ... -5-box-art

The saga that is the deteriorating relationship between Konami and Hideo Kojima continues as the publisher has decided to remove all references to the Metal Gear Solid creator from the box art for The Phantom Pain.

The latest pack shots were uploaded yesterday, and NeoGAF users spotted a couple of changes appear to have been made. You can see the old box art below on the left, with the new one on the right. In the bottom left of each cover the Kojima Productions logo has been removed, while "A Hideo Kojima Game" is also absent from just below the console masthead.

As for myself I reckon I'll rather print out this alternative Metal Gear Solid V cover instead.

[the7k]

Jesus tap-dancing Christ, Konami is fucking childish.