No doubt, I just feel that we should consider the possibility that some of our hero devs aren't such good business men. We may love them for it but their bosses might feel differently and with good reason.
Moving forward, is there actually any confirmation that it is Metal Gear Solid V that caused the break inbetween Konami and Kojima?
I mean considering how little confidence Konami seemed to have in the Silent Hill franchise in total, couldn't it be rather that him pulling all the guns with Silent Hills, with hiring Norman Reedus and all, be a bigger cause of that falling out ending with Kojima's termination?
I mean sure I can understand that Metal Gear Solid V could have been a big issue too with Kiefer Sutherland and how big this game is going to be. A perfectionist trying to design and polish such a huge playable space naturally does eat up a lot of money, but what if the issue actually was caused by him trying to do that same thing with a game that started to eat up a lot of money already before really going into production and yet would not be able to place its' sales expectations to the same level as Metal Gear Solid could?
Games have gotten a lot more expensive to produce and with the console market being like it is in Japan, I would really understand if a lower confidence project which Kojima was fiercely determined to put his soul behind would be a cause for issues in between him and the business side of Konami.
I don't really understand how MGS3 was so restrained (comparitively) after MGS2, then he just went off the deep end more than ever for MGS4.
Konami needed Kojima. Kojima doesn't need Konami.
Honestly no one should ever be free of all constraints imo.It's supposed to be the other way around, lol. When one proves himself time and time again that he can bring the money, he should have free reign and help to do whatever. I'm sure he'll be better off without them in the long run, it's clear that Konami just wants to spend less and gain more instead of spending more and gaining more.
Honestly no one should ever be free of all constraints imo.
Not surprised, still this was the worst way of Konami handling this.
Honestly no one should ever be free of all constraints imo.
It's supposed to be the other way around, lol. When one proves himself time and time again that he can bring the money, he should have free reign and help to do whatever. I'm sure he'll be better off without them in the long run, it's clear that Konami just wants to spend less and gain more instead of spending more and gaining more.
So who is?Kojima is amazing yes . Is he the Mozart of games that we ignore all budgetary concerns? Very debatable .
After the Keifer stuff I hope some bosses at Konami stepped in and game Kojima a talking to.
What a waste that was.
This makes a lot more sense now and I can understand Konami's point of view finally. I suppose they couldn't just come right out and say it, that would have been really disrespectful towards Kojima and could have really impacted projected performance of MGSV. But then why did they decide to try and scrub his name from the title and from previous games? They were dickish enough to do that but not enough to do this, then again maybe they knew that doing this might have pushed people on the fence even further to support the game (because people are stupid and hypocrites). Well I take back what I said about it all simply being Konami being assholes, looks like the same can't be said for many people here though.
It's supposed to be the other way around, lol. When one proves himself time and time again that he can bring the money, he should have free reign and help to do whatever. I'm sure he'll be better off without them in the long run, it's clear that Konami just wants to spend less and gain more instead of spending more and gaining more.
Weird, i always thought that everyone should.
Fuck Konami, but if true, I understand why they fired him and I'm not surprised by the outcome. That's wasteful and unprofessional, esteemed artist or not.
being a good director goes way over "just" being a good game designer
no one should have free reign,especially if they are not really good at managing the budget
the videogame director job is a strange job,where you need many talents,one of the more important ones,is making good use of the budget...
That doesn't mean overspending the budget though.
The constraints of the MSX hardware is why we have Metal Gear to begin with.
I'm pretty sure respecting Kojima was not on the agenda.
Kojima: I want MGS V at 1080p 60 fps on console
Konami: What's wrong to 900p and 25 fps? You have idea how much could cost?
Kojima: Don't care. I want it.
Konami: That's enough. It's the last game from you, get out!
At a certain point in the brainstorming process, Imaizumi says Kojima came up with the idea for players to be able to change channels. The shift from creating just over two minutes of content to creating five concurrent channels was a giant leap in terms of Logan's workload, but one that excited everybody involved. "It's that satisfaction of having something substantial and deep," Tylevich says. "Unless they want to load the game again, they'd only have a certain amount of time to get through the intro. Most of the content will be missed."
It's hard not to wonder how they got such an expensive part of the project approved through their publisher, Konami, and how they explained the reasoning behind it. When posed to Imaizumi, he reacted as if these questions were completely out of left field. "They don't ask why. Because we wanted it, so they don't ask why or say no or anything."
Tylevich also recalls great creative and financial flexibility during the course of the intro's development. "There were no sign-offs," he says. "There was nothing to be pushing forward, it was very unclear and nice and ambiguous." While trips back and forth and concept-art pitches were still happening, Tylevich was learning more about the creative control Kojima held within Konami. "I feel like he has a lot more power than other game creators. It's his way on everything. It wasn't frustrating; it was just done on Hideo's time. There's no hard deadline for anything. Everything is hinging on when Hideo is happy."
"The main issue was the now-looming deadline. Everything had to be put through the post-production pipeline; the live-action was just the beginning," Tylevich says. It took months to plan out and coordinate the ambitious live-action shoot. "It was a very stressful thing to produce. Shooting live-action and then all of the animation, producing twelve minutes of content, I'd say it was pretty insane... part of it was the cost as well, we had to do this under some pretty extraneous circumstances." The shoots had a crew of around a hundred people, which, according to Tylevich, is "pretty normal for a live-action shoot."
While America was the game's largest audience, Payton couldn't help but wonder how the rest of the world would react. "I can't even imagine what the Japanese players who saw this thing were thinking. 'Who are these people?' Whereas when you are playing it, you're like, 'Oh, that's David Hayter.' They don't know who David Hayter is. The voiceovers are always Japanese in Metal Gear titles. All of a sudden they start off this game and it's in English with Japanese subtitles. I'm utterly shocked that we did this. It's bizarre."
With a deadline in February 2008, the team had four months to finalize the project. "Twelve minutes of material is just ridiculous," Tylevich says. "It was very stressful." The team at Logan was used to producing short game trailers or commercials; their first iPod silhouette commercial for Apple only required a month and a half. Tylevich summarizes the project's workload multiple times as "insane." "It's essentially a short film, and [without] enough of a budget for what it was."
Imaizumi recalls that the budget became more and more of an issue as the project entered the post-production phase. "Well, we paid some money to Logan, but Logan spent more money than we paid," he says. "That was a problem for them."
Constraints can foster or stifle creativity, but I don't see the value in a complete absence of constraints.Weird, i always thought that everyone should.
It's supposed to be the other way around, lol. When one proves himself time and time again that he can bring the money, he should have free reign and help to do whatever. I'm sure he'll be better off without them in the long run, it's clear that Konami just wants to spend less and gain more instead of spending more and gaining more.
Kojima: I want MGS V at 1080p 60 fps on console
Konami: What's wrong to 900p and 25 fps? You have idea how much could cost?
Kojima: Don't care. I want it.
Konami: That's enough. It's the last game from you, get out!
This just confirms we'll be getting rushed Metal Gears from Konami from now on.
After the Keifer stuff I hope some bosses at Konami stepped in and game Kojima a talking to.
What a waste that was.
MGS5 just seems so unnecessary anyway from just about every point of view I think Kojima was just messing around the entire project seeing what he could get away with.
We don't know who stood firmer. For all we know Kojima was on the verge of sinking Konami financially and they had to draw the line that Kojima was too lost in his own world to reign himself within. Im not saying that is the case but too many people who are clueless about money can say 'fuck konami' when they don't appreciate finance. Sometimes its not just about milking every drop of profit, sometimes its making sure you're still financially viable as a business and you don't go bankrupt Konami may have just have saved themselves by cutting Kojima loose. Obviously now they need to make their own way without his magic touch.
There were better alternatives to how Konami could have handled this, but no, they just go and throw away one of their biggest moneymakers and long-time worker groups.
MGS5 just seems so unnecessary anyway from just about every point of view I think Kojima was just messing around the entire project seeing what he could get away with.
While it is very possible and likely that Kojima needed to be cut loose, the question here is what else does Konami have right now from the perspective of a console gamer other than Kojima? Konami may let Kojima go because of his cost, but will that lead to Konami investing in a variety of smaller console games with the money they would've otherwise funneled to Kojima? Is the budget that would have been spent on a Kojima-made Metal Gear going to instead be spent on bringing Konami up to the level of Namco Bandai, Square Enix, or Tecmo Koei in terms of console titles? Most likely that money is going to funneled into their gambling and mobile divisions, and if people aren't a fan of either of those business like most on NeoGAF, then Konami would effectively be dead to them.
Yong: "So you're telling me that Kojima wanting to make the game the best it can be is what started the conflict?"
Hey SomAbsolutely. They could have given him a contractual ultimatum rather than straight-up severance, no doubt. 'Start being business savvy and taking a stock in the company, or you're more liability than asset to us'.
Honestly no one should ever be free of all constraints imo.
That argument is fine but this thread is filled with armchair business analysts calling Konami morons for letting Kojima go. NeoGAF as a whole is often both unaware and indifferent to what actually sells well in gaming but often think they know better and espouse that catering to their niche tastes is the sure path to success.
this question is not biased at all
Well on his way to becoming videogaming's Kurosawa then!
No not really. Especially if the return on investment can't justify it, at that point you reign in in the costs.I think it depends on the person. If we look at Christopher Nolan and George Lucas it's clear to see who did better with all the free reign they had with making any type of film they wanted because the studio always allowed it.