If you haven't been keeping track of all the drama happening between legendary game developer Hideo Kojima and software publisher Konami, it's a long and winding story filled with lots of anguish and hurt, sorrow and cancelled games. Well, EA's COO, Peter Moore believes that Konami and Kojima should just “kiss and make up”.
Speaking in an interview with Gamespot, Moore talked about plenty of topics and one of them happened to be about Konami and Kojma. According to Moore...
I've always liked Kojima-san. I got on with him during my days at Microsoft. I just think... what's going on there... I just think both of them should kiss and make upFrom my experience, and I've spent a lot of time working in Japan, I think that Konami and Kojima will figure it out. Those kinds of business relationships [in Japan] are typically for life, and Kojima is such an important part in what has gone on there.
After an exposè was done on Konami's behind-the-scenes business relationships with some of their employees, revealing how they demoted some of their developers and designers down to janitors or publicly humiliated those who didn't clock in and clock out quickly enough during lunch breaks, it became apparent that Kojima and Konami are unlikely to get along at this point.
Some have argued that Konami's harsh treatment of their employees is par the course in Japan, and it isn't unlike what Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono once told gaming press a few years back after he had some heart conditions and Capcom was only concerned with him getting back to work.
In the case of Konami and Kojima, it's been rumored that the reason the company is so surly with Kojima at the moment is because he went over budget with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and delayed the game's release by quite an extent, costing the company $80 million in operating costs.
Moore believes that there needs to be a grounded understanding between developer and publisher when it comes to budgets and release dates. However, I'll always come back to Miyamoto's quote about only getting one chance to make a good first impression with a game, and how delaying the game will always result in a better product as opposed to rushing the game to release... like what happened with Battlefield 4.
Moore, however, states that Konami and Kojima are just in a rocky stage of the marriage, jokingly saying...
Clearly, Kojima and Konami are at a rocky stage in their marriage, […] but you could take what is said about [Kojima Productions], about a game not adhering to budgets, about a game not being ready, and you could apply that to a lot of people.
Based on the bad blood between the two and how Konami has been trying to efface Kojima from the legacy he helped build at Konami, I wouldn't be surprised if Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain really is Kojima's swan song from the company. The big question isn't what Kojima could do next, but what Konami will do without him?
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