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[TheSeks]

https://twitter.com/iiotenki/status/628070888907239424
https://twitter.com/iiotenki/status/628071123603714048

Wow no wonder Kojima's twitter was pretty much overtaken/radio silent during that shake-up announcement of Kojima productions sinking.

 

[Hasemo]

The article is for member only... boooooo

Seems like a free account is enough to read it.

 

[Opto]

Across 4 platforms, there should be a healthy profit but goddamn 80 million.

 

[Boke1879]

All I'll say is this. Konami approved whatever the budget was for MGSV. They are part of the issue as well.

With the way they've been treating other producers I feel they were going to part ways with Kojima anyway and this provides a very convenient reason to do so.

 

[stryke]

$80MM+ and that's just development? Sheesh. Witcher 3 was less than half that.

Then you may as well argue every dev should move to Poland.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

80 million- they would need to sell something like 3 million copies at full price just to break even.

Jesus, what the fuck were they thinking?!?

That the game would be made in a timely manner

 

[duckroll]

It's worth noting that the article is also framed around Konami being the "Kozuki Empire". It concludes with the observation that patriarch Kagemasa Kozuki founded the company and remains the chairman of the company, while his son Takuya Kozuki is president. Other members on the board of directors related the family are Kimihiko Higashio, Kozuki's nephew, and Fumiaki Tanaka, Kozuki's son-in-law. In total, four out of the seven internal directors are family members. Not unusual in Japan, and honestly Asia at large, but that's probably a contributing factor to management and transparency issues.

 

[Broank]

Wasn't MGS4 around 80 million?

I'm sure Konami had an internal date for Phantom pain to come out but I'm glad Kojima never publicly said a date. He must have known the game wouldn't meet their deadline

That stuff tends to get inflated a lot of times, I mean Destiny reportedly cost 500 million but I highly doubt that. From what I remember a Konami person said MGS4 was nowhere near that and I heard stuff about it being in the 40m range.

Although 80m seems about right for the amount of time they worked on MGS5 along with the years working on Fox engine and everything.

 

[Persona7]

I wonder how much they are spending on marketing.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Some of the sources are flimsy.

They are always going to be flimsy because nobody discloses budgets. But I would say that while $80m is expensive, it's not a shocking, fire and brimstone number given what KojiPro was trying to achieve. The tweets paint a picture that Konami is willing to burn down the console house to go to what they perceive as a far safer mobile environment - that it's cheaper to kill their IP than pursue a mixed platform strategy.

 

[ranmafan]

Thomas James
@iiotenki

Employees deemed useless have been known to do assemblyline work, security guard detail, cleanup at fitness clubs.

OK reading this gives me vibes of the old NOVA eikaiwa school situation back in 2007, which I never would wish on anyone. Seriously that is crazy the more we hear about whats going on at Konami.

 

[KingBroly]

I don't know if I believe MGS5 being delayed is what forced Kojima out. Considering Ground Zeroes came out just over a year ago, I have to think they made some money to tide Konami over.

It just sounds like Konami's higher ups went ape shit over gambling, and started forcing others out to cut production costs.

 

[Thorgal]

Granted, it is still a big pile of money, but 80 mil spend on MGS doesn't seem to me totally outrageous ,

in fact For a AAA title an 80 mil budget sounds pretty normal to me.

 

[KHlover]

$80MM+ and that's just development? Sheesh. Witcher 3 was less than half that.

Witcher 3 was also developed in Poland where wages are much lower than in Japan.

 

[rpmurphy]

Another important quote
A story broke earlier this year about it

Momotaro Densetsu ≠ Momotaro Dentetsu
Two different series.

 

[Pepsiman]

Hi, I'm @iiotenki on Twitter!

Just wanted to pop in and thank OP for citing my stuff; I'm used to people to lifting my work without credit more than I should be these days. duckroll got the very last bit that I hadn't covered already, so I'll consider my own summarizing job to be done here since I was mostly focusing on the areas that general audience people would care most about.

I still have translation work to do tonight, so I probably won't be super talkative anywhere, but... yeah. Glad I could be of help! c:

 

[Callibretto]

All I'll say is this. Konami approved whatever the budget was for MGSV. They are part of the issue as well.

With the way they've been treating other producers I feel they were going to part ways with Kojima anyway and this provides a very convenient reason to do so.

The game got delayed and had I assume troubled development. Whatever Konami approved at the beginning is probably not what they wnd up spending. By the time the game end up being delayed, they had no options other than push it through the end instead of canning the project losing millions already invested in the game

 

[TheSeks]

80 million- they would need to sell something like 3 million copies at full price just to break even.

Jesus, what the fuck were they thinking?!?

Yeah, but the Witcher 3 wasn't intended to have a "middleware" engine a la Fox Engine to be able to be licensed to Japanese AND Western devs for sandbox development on 5(!) platforms. I'm not surprised that Fox Engine development ballooned costs a bit, but I'm honestly wondering where most of that budget went since the engine shouldn't be that expensive to develop.

 

[Blablurn]

Hi, I'm @iiotenki on Twitter!

Just wanted to pop in and thank OP for citing my stuff; I'm used to people to lifting my work without credit more than I should be these days. duckroll got the very last bit that I hadn't covered already, so I'll consider my own summarizing job to be done here since I was mostly focusing on the areas that general audience people would care most about.

I still have translation work to do tonight, so I probably won't be super talkative anywhere, but... yeah. Glad I could be of help! c:

Thanks for making those translations in the first place

 

[miku]

Seems like a free account is enough to read it.

I think it said you need a credit card or something to sign up for free account.

 

[tuxfool]

Hey Stevens i see you took a 60m45s lunch

If you want ridiculous see Canon installing alarms in the hallway to startle people that are walking too slowly.

http://gizmodo.com/5273192/canon-employees-are-forbidden-to-sit-down-walk-at-normal-pace

 

[Inuhanyou]

Kojima only uses top of the line poop gags. You get what you pay for.

In all seriousness though, it's no wonder he's on the street now. That's a ton of money to spend on a title like MGS.

That most likely includes the costs associated with development of fox engine as well as marketing.

FYI MGS4 just for the game itself was 70+.

In the end it seems like their mobile and slot machine successes created an environment where the core gaming pockets of Konami were resented more and more. The President has been on more than one occasion been claimed to have become extremely obsessed about transforming the company to the point of being intolerable.

They refused to let anyone work on projects that weren't mobile and forced out those who weren't cooperative. Its a simple story.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Yeah, but the Witcher 3 wasn't intended to have a "middleware" engine a la Fox Engine to be able to be licensed to Japanese AND Western devs for sandbox development on 5(!) platforms. I'm not surprised that Fox Engine development ballooned costs a bit, but I'm honestly wondering where most of that budget went since the engine shouldn't be that expensive to develop.

Actually, if the 70 million figure for MGS4 is true, costs didn't really balloon at all. Mocap, development for 3-5 years, and known actors = $$$

 

[kuroneko0509]

Momotaro Densetsu ≠ Momotaro Dentetsu
Two different series.

No... the series mentioned is Momotaro Dentetsu. pepsiman made a mistake earlier, so that kotaku article is related eventhough the series mentioned in previous post are wrong

 

[Boke1879]

The game got delayed and had I assume troubled development. Whatever Konami approved at the beginning is probably not what they wnd up spending. By the time the game end up being delayed, they had no options other than push it through the end instead of canning the project losing millions already invested in the game

As a gamer if the game needed to be delayed so be it. Too many games are rushed to meet a deadline.

Also reading more Konami punished employees for liking statuses on Facebook? WTF?!

 

[AniHawk]

Across 4 platforms, there should be a healthy profit but goddamn 80 million.

to break even, they probably need to sell about 3-4m units.

 

[Squire]

Actually, if the 70 million figure for MGS4 is true, costs didn't really balloon at all. Mocap, development for 3-5 years, and known actors = $$$

What known actors?

 

[duckroll]

I think it said you need a credit card or something to sign up for free account.

I don't think so. Free accounts just have a limit on how many articles they can access per week/month or something like that.

 

[Pepsiman]

I think it said you need a credit card or something to sign up for free account.

You don't. The registration system is a bit hairy, but there's a column you can click for an explicitly free account and then it's pretty straightforward from there. To actually read the article after registration, you have to click a button confirming you want to spend one of your 10 free article reads at the bottom of the page.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Another important quote
A story broke earlier this year about it

Well well weeeellll.

Nintendo actually knocking on Konami's door for Hudson's legacy after all?

...

Why that and not Bomberman though?!

 

[Reveirg]

Really? I work in dev and the only thing thats ever required of me is to deliver on time, on spec and be available if there are impediments. Thats it.

Same for me actually, and that's how it should always be! =D

But I've seen the opposite before.

 

[Regret Upon Approval]

As of April, 80 million.
Pulling some guesswork out my ass. The last push tends to be the crunch and surely will add a chunk to the total. And this is presumably no marketing costs so far?

I guess Konami decided high-stakes 100 mil investments that could go very sour was their breaking point for console development. Given their successes with their other ventures, I can't say that they are making a mistake with this refocusing.

 

[Modest Mauser]

People surprised at $80 million? Mocap, known actors, huge open world, new engine. It's still not even that much for a modern AAA game.

 

[mugurumakensei]

What known actors?

Kiefer Sutherland.

 

[TomShoe]

That stuff tends to get inflated a lot of times, I mean Destiny reportedly cost 500 million but I highly doubt that. From what I remember a Konami person said MGS4 was nowhere near that and I heard stuff about it being in the 40m range.

Although 80m seems about right for the amount of time they worked on MGS5 along with the years working on Fox engine and everything.

Destiny's budget is $500MM over 10 years. People just love bringing the number up without context to make a point.

 

[Nyoro SF]

https://twitter.com/iiotenki/status/628065976815190017

One employee feels turning point was when Konami launched Dragon Collection for mobile. Lots of money made with sub-$1 mil budget.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
That's one good way to get the scumbag stuff rolling.
That being said, this story explains a lot of why Konami has been so dysfunctional for the past years.

 

[ArtHands]

80 million- they would need to sell something like 3 million copies at full price just to break even.



Jesus, what the fuck were they thinking?!?

but 80million is a small price to many
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1085348

He's worth all the money, IMO.

Lol, Konami have the money. They are fools to throw him away for that. I'm sure he made them enough with his games to cover it and then some.

He's the Top Gear of game development. Throw money at him because the return investment will be huge. Shame on you, Konami.

But fuck all the money he actually brings in for Konami, though. Right?

 

[BocoDragon]

It still kinda sounds like "mobile happened", because in light of the easier money other companies were making in mobile, a delay of a big console vanity project would just make management feel stupid.

They were bound to tighten the purse strings...

 

[SolidSnakex]

Yeah, but the Witcher 3 wasn't intended to have a "middleware" engine a la Fox Engine to be able to be licensed to Japanese AND Western devs for sandbox development on 5(!) platforms. I'm not surprised that Fox Engine development ballooned costs a bit, but I'm honestly wondering where most of that budget went since the engine shouldn't be that expensive to develop.

This game has likely been in development since 2010 on some level since that's when Peace Walker was released. So that's a rather long development cycle. On top of that it's a massive open world game, and open world games tend to be really expensive to make because of all the assets you have to build. And considering how detail oriented Kojima is, that's going to be a lot of assets. Then you've got teams in both America and Japan building the game. Then they brought in Sutherland, who wouldn't be cheap. I don't think it's surprising that it cost so much.

 

[stryke]

They are always going to be flimsy because nobody discloses budgets. But I would say that while $80m is expensive, it's not a shocking, fire and brimstone number given what KojiPro was trying to achieve. The tweets paint a picture that Konami is willing to burn down the console house to go to what they perceive as a far safer mobile environment - that it's cheaper to kill their IP than pursue a mixed platform strategy.

I'd be willing to believe a figure coming out of nikkei but some of the stuff on the wiki page is terrible. For example, the source behind MGS4 -

No legit source doesn't mean we take anything we get without due diligence.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

$80 million for a AAA production for MGS that's being released on PS3/360/PS4/Xone/PC years in development and 8 years since the last home console Meta Gear Solid release?

Sounds about right.

Shoot, the Tomb Raider reboot was $100 million.

 

[NEO0MJ]

you don't think the game will sell more than 3 million? please.

MGS4 sold around 6 million in the end, I can see this doing at least 9. I think part of the problem for Konami was like others said they'd rather spend that sort of money on developing cheap mobile and slot games that sell just as well and can be developed much faster.

People surprised at $80 million? Mocap, known actors, huge open world, new engine. It's still not even that much for a modern AAA game.

I wouldn't say it's not much for a AAA game. Even in the west not many hover above that, at least excluding marketing.

 

[MattyG]

https://twitter.com/iiotenki/status/628065111891050497



That's not an insane amount for a AAA console game in 2015. Though the only Japanese games reaching that are probably from Square Enix.

Yeah, MGS4 was around $60 million apparently, so $80 mil isn't exactly astronimical, especially considering the scope of the project.

Edit: Looks like that figure for MGS4 might be mistaken?

 

[Guymelef]

Hi, I'm @iiotenki on Twitter!

Just wanted to pop in and thank OP for citing my stuff; I'm used to people to lifting my work without credit more than I should be these days. duckroll got the very last bit that I hadn't covered already, so I'll consider my own summarizing job to be done here since I was mostly focusing on the areas that general audience people would care most about.

I still have translation work to do tonight, so I probably won't be super talkative anywhere, but... yeah. Glad I could be of help! c:

Thanks for your work!.

 

[Callibretto]

80 million- they would need to sell something like 3 million copies at full price just to break even.

Jesus, what the fuck were they thinking?!?

Huh, that didn't sound that bad actually. They also had ground zeroes sales, then Sony and NVidia must have paid something to get Ground Zero for ps+ and nvidia gpu. Special or limited edition sale where it cost higher than normal full price, and Metal Gear had a shit ton of merchandising and cross promotion with many other brands.

 

[OverdriveOtaku]

FYI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop

I knew FF7 was expensive to make, but 3rd highest of all time? Wow...

lol @ Destiny and Too Human being at 5th and 7th.

Deadpool at 11th? They didn't even sell the game that long after release because of licensing...

14th spot; 90 million spent on a dead Halo MMO? Yikes.


OT: This entire debacle really brings me down, most of it stemming from Konami's antics. I can somewhat understand a few of the business-minded decisions they're trying to make, but man, some of this stuff is real cold. I feel like we're never gonna get anything else like MGS V after it comes out at this point.

 

[Boke1879]

It still kinda sounds like "mobile happened", because in light of the easier money other companies were making in mobile, a delay of a big console vanity project would just make management feel stupid.

They were bound to tighten the purse strings...

That's all it is really. The mobile route is cheaper and more profitable. Just look at how they are pushing everyone out. Not to mention it just seems like a toxic environment to work in anyway.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

You know, I don't think there's ever going to be another MGS game on consoles/PC.

Or Castlevania... or Contra....

 

[dddooozzz9]

Hi, I'm @iiotenki on Twitter!

Just wanted to pop in and thank OP for citing my stuff; I'm used to people to lifting my work without credit more than I should be these days. duckroll got the very last bit that I hadn't covered already, so I'll consider my own summarizing job to be done here since I was mostly focusing on the areas that general audience people would care most about.

I still have translation work to do tonight, so I probably won't be super talkative anywhere, but... yeah. Glad I could be of help! c:

Thanks for your work.

 

[industrian]

good god konami was the inspiration for fifteen million merits.

When I saw the "cleanup at fitness clubs" part I immediately thought this.