Hideo Kojima reveals that his independent studio, Kojima Productions, was only able to lease its offices because one of the building’s owners was a big fan of Metal Gear. According to Kojima, this was one of the unexpected financial difficulties he encountered getting Kojima Productions off the ground.
The famous Japanese game director is best known for creating Konami’s legendary Metal Gear series. However, Kojima split from Konami in 2015 for reasons neither party has ever explicitly stated, and no one on the outside knows for sure what caused the reported falling out between the studio and director. However, some have speculated that Konami’s new focus on mobile gaming, Kojima’s habit of going over budget, and the latter’s disinterest in the business side of game development all played a role.
Hideo Kojima recently sat down for a lengthy interview with The Guardian’s Simon Parkin. Their discussion covered various topics, including Kojima’s sudden departure from Konami and the struggles of building a new game studio from the ground up. The veteran game developer describes how he went from being a Konami Vice President to a nobody as far as landlords and financial institutions were concerned. “Then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t get a credit card,” said Kojima, describing the period after his split from Metal Gear’s publisher.
Banks were unwilling to lend Kojima any startup capital, and the newly independent Kojima Productions’ first attempt to lease studio space was turned down. According to Kojima, his decades of experience as a world-renowned game developer didn’t count for anything now that he was no longer attached to a major publisher. “That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, I really am indie,” Kojima said. Kojima Productions could only rent the space thanks to the intervention of one of the building’s owners, who happened to be a fan of Kojima’s work.
The Guardian interview also covered various other topics, revealing that Hideo Kojima watches YouTube videos of the early Metal Gear games. He expressed a degree of embarrassment at seeing people play his earlier work, comparing it to someone reading his diary in public. However, Kojima also said that his feelings were starting to change after seeing a new generation enjoying his 30-year-old games.
Kojima also talked about how his parents living through World War 2 inspired him to create the Metal Gear series as games that focused on the human cost of war. Meanwhile, Kojima’s inspiration for Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding was his former job as a part-time postal worker and his respect for people in that line of work. Any parallels between the game and the 2020 COVID lockdowns were coincidental, though the interviewer couldn’t help but comment on Hideo Kojima’s talent for prophecy.
Source: The Guardian