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Tonight, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain won for best Action game and best Soundtrack. When the award was presented on stage for best Action title, Kiefer Sutherland went up to accept the reward on behalf of Hideo Kojima. Why wasn't Hideo Kojima in attendance? He usually is.During the presentation, Geoff Keighley explained why Hideo Kojima was not in attendance to accept the award. The reason is simple: Konami sucks.
"As you noticed Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight and I want to tell you a little bit about that," explained Keighley. "Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight’s awards ceremony to accept any awards.”
"He’s still under an employment contract and it’s disappointing, and it’s inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates."
"He’s still under an employment contract and it’s disappointing, and it’s inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates."
Kudos to Keighley for calling Konami out on this. Regardless of your opinion on The Game Awards, a move like this by Konami is downright disgusting. The backlash on social media has been quite strong as a result, with a huge resurgence of the phrase, "Fuck Konami."
Konami, I can understand that Kojima wants to expose something for knowing something, and a gag order is needed to protect your business. But your new business plan on abandoning an entire industry, firing staff, and sweeping all of it under a rug is beyond disgusting. It paints you as an over-the-top supervillain evil corporation. Has it not occurred to you that Japanese fans will tell their families not to play your brand of pachinko machines? Surely you didn't assume enraging the entire video gaming community would not have consequences on your pachinko and mobile gaming customers? And what makes you think mobile gamers are not familiar with your horribly negative actions? I don't even know if Pro Evolution Soccer/Winning Eleven will be sustainable with so much negative press and social media outrages you've ironically nurtured. I don't understand your business at all.
It's one thing to leave the games industry and focus on a more sustainable business. That's fine. It's another to infuriate your previous customer base and staff before leaving said industry. Like I said, I don't understand your business at all. Good luck with your pachinko and pachislot machines. Just leave us and your former staff who are not on vacation alone. Stop driving us insane with denials and acts of war. Just leave like you planned. No more lies, no more stringing along. You can keep your Metal Gear Rising 2, and you can keep your Metal Gear 1 and 2 remakes with David Hayter's voiceover. David Hayter's awesome, but I'll support his other work. Not something tainted by a company who cares so little about the customer base that I'm a part of.