The Truth Behind Konami And Kojima's Split

Hideo Kojima and Konami go way, way back. Kojima joined the company in 1986, after Super Mario Bros. inspired him to devote his life to making video games. Instead of Konami's Famicom team, however, Kojima was put to work making games for the MSX, a home PC that was popular in Japan. His first game as a designer, a plot-heavy platformer called Lost Warld, was cancelled early in production, and Kojima took over an action title called Metal Gear from a co-worker.

You probably know what happened next. In order to account for the MSX's shortcomings — only a couple of enemies could appear on screen at a time, for example — Kojima focused the action on stealth, not combat, inventing a whole genre in the process. Metal Gear was a success, and Kojima made a sequel, in addition to the narrative adventure games Snatcher and Policenauts.

In 1998, Kojima released Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation. It changed everything. Metal Gear Solid's cinematic storytelling and unique, stealth-based gameplay led many critics to crown it the best video game of all time. Kojima became an international superstar, and Metal Gear became Konami's flagship franchise. Many successful sequels followed.

To truly understand why Kojima and Konami broke up, you have to go back to 2010, when Konami launched one of its biggest successes. It's called Dragon Collection, and it changed everything.

While Konami had built its name on hardcore arcade and console titles like Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, Frogger, and Contra, Dragon Collection was a casual card-collecting game that ran on social networks (and, soon thereafter, mobile phones). Its controls were basic — early smartphones couldn't handle much input — and while Dragon Collection had some RPG-like elements, its card-based mechanics were simple enough that almost anyone could pick it up pretty easily.

And they did. Before long, millions of people in Japan were playing Dragon Collection. It wasn't just a hit: it was a sensation, and many copycats followed. Even better, at least from Konami's point of view? Dragon Collection was cheap to make, and it brought in a ton of cash. Konami's executives realized that they didn't need to make lavish AAA games to turn a profit. For better or for worse, inexpensive mobile titles would work just fine.

Hideo Kojima has always been inspired by blockbuster films — Metal Gear was influenced by The Great Escape, for example — and as a designer, he often treats himself like a Hollywood director. As such, his name is all over the Metal Gear games. Why shouldn't it be? Kojima is one of the few game developers who's a household name, and his involvement in a title is a big marketing point. It's in everyone's best interest to put his personal branding front and center.

That's how people knew that something was afoot. On March 16, 2015, the same day that Konami's restructuring took effect, Konami removed Kojima's name from everything it controlled. He was scrubbed from the Metal Gear Solid 5 website and all related marketing materials. His US-based studio, Kojima Productions Los Angeles, was renamed Konami Los Angeles Studio.

People caught on quickly, and started to wonder if Kojima and Konami were done. A few days later, the two issued a joint statement confirming that Kojima was still working on MGS5, but did not discuss what would happen after the game's release.There was a good reason for that: as far as Kojima's future at Konami was concerned, he didn't have one.

In yet another show of disrespect, Konami made it very clear that it planned to continue the Metal Gear franchise without Kojima at the helm. From a business perspective, that's understandable. It's a big series. Kojima created the Metal Gear franchise and directed all of its major installments, though. His personal style is all over the thing. It's not really Metal Gear without him.

Regardless, at the exact same time that Konami was erasing Kojima's name from its website, taking his executive title, and robbing him of his job, a post on Konami's careers website claimed that a brand new Metal Gear game was already in the works. Given the news (as well as Kojima's previous claims that Metal Gear Solid 5 would be his last), it seemed obvious that Kojima wasn't involved. To be fair, Konami owns Metal Gear, and it can do what it wants with it. Announcing a new Metal Gear while they're in the process of firing its creator, the man who gave it its signature voice, though? That's ice cold.

That "new" game ended up being Metal Gear Survive, by the way. It flopped. Hard.

On the other hand, maybe — just maybe — this feud isn't entirely Konami's fault. Some evidence indicates that Kojima shoulders some of the blame, too.

In an interview, Metal Gear Solid composer Rika Muranaka revealed that Kojima isn't all that easy to work with. He'd often pay Muranaka to write songs, only to reject them once she delivered a finished product. According to Muranaka, that was par for the course. As Muranaka tells the story, Kojima refused to cut corners during game development, and spent lots of money adding extra features to Metal Gear Solid 5, delaying the game. Because Kojima worked on a salary, the ever-increasing budget and numerous delays didn't affect him, but they did affect Konami's bottom line. Ultimately, that tension ruined their relationship.

That all adds up. Kojima has admitted that he's not interested in the business side of game development, and given his perfectionist streak, it wouldn't be shocking if he went over-budget. Kojima is a master designer, but he's not a great businessman — and it ended up costing him.

Setting aside whose fault the entire Kojima fiasco was, it's clear that Konami disrespected and mistreated the game designer. However, while Kojima might've been Konami's highest-profile victim, he wasn't its only one. In its rush to capitalize on the mobile gold rush, Konami transformed its workplace into a dystopian nightmare and started treating its employees "like prisoners" in order to maximize profits.

According to a report from the Japanese newspaper Nikkei (helpfully summarized in English by Kotaku), Konami publicly shames workers who take long lunch breaks. It monitors its employees' social media feeds and punishes people who "like" things that could be construed as anti-Konami. Nobody has a permanent email address in order to keep recruiters at bay, security cameras monitor employees instead of intruders, and developers — including high-profile producers — are reassigned to menial jobs if Konami decides that they're not "useful."

Even if only part of that report is true, it paints a pretty dire picture of what life is like at Konami, and it's easy to imagine a company like that treating its biggest star like dirt. Maybe it's a good thing that Kojima left Konami. It doesn't sound like a great place to work.

Throughout this whole ordeal, Hideo Kojima stayed out of the public eye, letting the media tell the story. In 2016, however, Kojima made a rare dig at his former employer. While visiting the Tokyo Game Show to promote his first post-Konami game, someone asked Kojima about Metal Gear Survive, which builds on Metal Gear Solid 5's foundation and introduces zombies to the franchise.

Kojima's response wasn't diplomatic. "It's totally unrelated to me," Kojima said, before going on to trash Metal Gear Survive's entire premise. "Metal [Gear] is espionage with political fiction," Kojima said. "So, because of that, there's no reason that zombies would show up." Naturally, Konami wasn't pleased. Konami executives couldn't fire Kojima — they'd already done that — but they did chastise him publicly in a letter that accused Kojima of "unfairly sullying the reputation of our company."

Reports also indicated that Konami wasn't paying Kojima money that he was due, that it was warning other companies not to hire former Kojima Productions staffers, and that it was making it hard for the new Kojima Productions studio to get its members health insurance. In other words, don't cross Konami. It doesn't play around.

Here's the hard truth: Konami might've been right — not about publicly humiliating Hideo Kojima and locking him in a closet, unceremoniously firing him, or trying to make Metal Gear without him, of course. That's all vile. However, Konami's shift from expensive console games to small, cheap mobile titles has paid off. Big time.

Fans were never behind Metal Gear Survive, and it performed accordingly at the marketplace. Konami's mobile games, though? Those keep bringing in the cash. In September 2017, two and a half years or so after pivoting towards mobile, Konami reported that revenue was up 28.7%. Profits rose a staggering 40.6% year-on-year. That growth wasn't driven by console titles. It was the result of mobile games like Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links and mobile spin-offs of Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer franchise.

For people who enjoy series like Castlevania, Contra, and Metal Gear, that's a bitter pill to swallow. For Kojima's dedicated fans, it's hard to see the company doing so well. Still, corporations aren't in the business of making people happy. They're here to earn money — and for better or worse, Konami has proved to be very, very good at that.