Kojima agrees - Western devs are king

J

Johnny Awesome

Veteran
The Metal Gear Solid creator says West is "more passionate and energetic", blasting narrow focus of Japanese developers - plus, Rockstar alliance revealed!

18:12 "I'm personally not really interested in the Japanese videogame industry right now." Those were the damning words of globally acclaimed games developer Hideo Kojima, voicing a growing opinion in certain quarters of the industry that Japanese games development is in a state of decline.

Speaking to CVG during E3 2004 in Los Angeles last week, he said: "There aren't really that many interesting [Japanese] games right now, not like there are looking at the Western games industry," supporting our suggestion to him that Japan was no longer the games development superpower it once was.

In a damning indictment of the output and practices of his countrymen, Kojima-san said: "I'm not going to name any names but I don't really enjoy talking to Japanese videogame creators that much. They don't have fun stuff to say anyway."

Kojima-san's own Metal Gear Solid series has always enjoyed greater popularity in the West, not by accident one suspects and one reason perhaps why he has maintained his status, while other Japanese developers have struggled to adapt to an evolving market where the biggest games in the increasingly powerful West are no longer Mario and Sonic, but Grand Theft Auto and first-person shooters.

Explaining his feeling that the games industry should be viewed as a global entity by the development community, and not carved up by territory, Kojima said: "I don't think we should really look at it like different markets, like different industries. It's like one global videogames industry and it just happens to be that it's more happening in the US and Europe right now.

"So I like to present to these areas where it's more active for what I'm creating, and these places that accept and like my games, so I'll do my best with my games so that people in these areas, like the US and Europe, enjoy my games."

While it appears there may be some small degree of resentment on the part of Hideo Kojima that his titles haven't enjoyed the same soaring success in his home country as in the West, he is certainly not alone in his views on the perceived insular, stilted state of Japanese games development; Sega's Toshiro Nagoshi echoed these thoughts when we spoke with him at this year's show (check back soon for that interview in full).

When asked what he thought was required for the Japanese industry to evolve, Kojima explained: "I think it is evolving but I don't see the heat, the passion there - it's more like a business now. I guess that people of my generation and Mr Miyamoto, who is not of the same generation you know, but videogames creators who have been around since the beginning of the industry have had to create everything from scratch.

"There was really no established job position called 'videogames designer' [in the beginning], but now the younger videogames designers, when they joined the industry, videogame designing was already established. I guess in that sense the aura that they exude is really a totally different dimension from ours I think."

But this mood of disillusionment was quickly dispelled as Kojima's revealed a new-found friendship with Rockstar President Dan Hauser: "I actually talked to Dan Hauser from Rockstar Games a couple of days ago and we had a great chat," Kojima said.

"Western videogame creators like him seem to be more passionate and energetic so I hang out with him." This relationship was seemingly cemented by the arrival of a package from Rockstar during our interview, which contained a "San Andreas" t-shirt for Kojima-san. Metal Gear Auto? Maybe not.

Check back tomorrow for the full transcript of our interview with Hideo Kojima, where the development legend gives his thoughts on Nintendo DS and talks on Metal Gear Solid 3 at length.

Johnny Minkley

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...y.php?id=105094
 
Kojima and Rockstar....? :oops: Oh god... I'm not sure if that's a bad thing, but it certainly feels like it right now until we know more.....
 
Wow what an enormous troll, you can just sense all the japanofiles sitting around petrified staring at their monitor ...
 
Well what he said echos things I've heard from developers out of japan at E3 last year and the trends I've noticed over the past few years. Developers outside of japan have been coming into thier own of late.
 
Sure, things had to level out some day ... but how does that make anyone a "King"? Nothing good will come from the trollishness of the topic or the ill-motivation, that is driving this subject :?

lynx -dump "http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php?id=105121" | egrep "( King| king)" | wc -w
0

Presence of the word "king" in the article = zero

Oh and there is the correct URL too, that Mr Awesome was not able to provide properly.
 
Is he talking about europe and the usa / canada ? Becasue if he is they can easily be king by amount of devs in those areas and user base ?

Though I do find myself playing more and more american games as of late .
 
I also found it interesting that he said "Western" devs, since so many people complained that I used that nomenclature not long ago
Click to expand...
Actually he didn't. :p
He referred to Western industry (which from geographic perspective of Japan is pretty much the entire rest of the world :p), and to one Western videogame creator - as a person.
When me and a few others dissed you for your terminology you were "classifying" all of us by location of studio we work in.
 
We must look at the source of the complaint. "Newer devs are not as passionate". That is definitely a problem. Difficult for your product to be good if you have no passion...

Indeed the "more a business, less passion" issue may explain a lot of the "same, tired" content that we have been seeing recently(not naming names). I'm an import gamer, and there are LOTS of new, upcoming titles that I'm not interested in(including titles by Konami!).

(PS: Except I'm still more interested in J-origin content. Currently lusting for Banpresto's new SRW.)

If the "less passion" affliction is a result of antique management style, development models, etc, there is still hope. I *guess* Capcom's new Clover studio is an attempt to introduce new dev environment/management practices to solve this deadly problem(Still a guess though). Square-Enix and MonolithSoft choosing new directors to lead flagship titles(FF12 and Xeno2) are also a step in the right direction.

If however, its the new devs themselves who have no passion, then its a goner. :(
 
He is mainly unhappy how young devs in Japan does not seem to be interested in game design as a passion unlike older devs like Miyamoto, Naka, Kojima or Mikami.

anyway, Kojima has always been a west fan.
 
The whole interview..::



15:07 Without question one of the most influential figures in the world of interactive entertainment, Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima is nevertheless a remarkably down to earth, humble man, who seem almost embarrassed by praise levelled at his wildly successful titles.
That these games are among the most important and influential of all time is now broadly accepted, something which compelled respected US publication NewsWeek to vote Koijima-san among the ten people most likely to influence American culture, on the back of the release of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty for PlayStation 2.

With Metal Gear Solid 3, Kojima-san is again attempting to raise the bar and push the boundaries of the gaming experience, the focus of Snake Eater being on man versus the environment, with players required to survive the jungle or perish.

Sat in a mercifully quiet meeting room above Konami's stand at E3 last week, CVG was able to spend half an hour in the company of Hideo Kojima, covering a range of topics from his thoughts on PSP and DS, to the portrayal of global conflict in the MGS series and his great desire to eat reptiles. Without further ado, here's the full transcript.

E3 has now become synonymous with a big Metal Gear presentation and each time, ever since Metal Gear Solid 2, you've had to raise the bar and every new trailer it raises the bar and it's more amazing. Is that something you relish, the opportunity to really raise expectations before the game is out?

Kojima: If that's how you perceive it's great, it's an honour. I try to create, put together, something that the fans will enjoy. That's really my intention.

Have you been able to gauge the reaction of people to Metal Gear 3 during the show so far?

Kojima: Yeah, I get to see their reactions, but with the crotch-grabbing [from the trailer] I thought people would be laughing more, but I haven't seen much of that! I failed in that aspect [laughs].

Do you think people haven't understood what you were trying to do there?

Kojima-san: You remember is MGS 2 when the President actually grabs the crotch of Raiden when Raiden comes in to rescue the President? He does that because he looks like a girl in a way I guess - he does it just to see that he's a guy. So I'm doing a self-parody there.

So it doesn't have anything to do with the story of MGS3?

Kojima-san: Actually, there is story significance there.

On the PlayStation booth Metal Gear Acid is on show on PSP, which is a turn-based strategy game as opposed to a more traditional stealth-action experience. Why did you choose to go in that direction?

Kojima: Metal Gear Solid the series is about stealth-action, and it requires very delicate, very fine button controls, button input. If you make a little mistake with the button input, you might be spotted by the enemy. A handheld system is just not suitable for that kind of fine input, and when I discussed it with the team, we reached the conclusion of coming up with a game that has the Metal Gear Solid look, the feel, the flavour, but something that's not action-based because of the buttons and controls. That's why we've come up with something with more strategic elements.

Can you give us any insight as to where Metal Gear Acid fits in with the Metal Gear Solid universe?

Kojima: It's more like a side-story thing, but the thing is in Metal Gear Acid you'll probably see all the characters from Metal Gear Solids 1, 2 and 3.

Have you thought about doing a Metal Gear Solid game for DS?

Kojima: It would be nice to have a Metal Gear game for DS, but the thing is I personally think that the audience for DS will be like that of GBA - it'll be a much younger audience. And this Metal Gear's not really suitable for them.

What do you think of Nintendo DS? With Boktai on GBA you've proved your commitment to creating innovative handheld products, something which DS facilitates. Are you developing a game for it at the moment, or do you plan to develop for it?

Kojima: I'm not working on a DS game right now; it'll be nice to do one in the future. If I were to do something... If I come up with an idea that allows the player to do things that no other videogames creator would do with the two screens and the touch panel, then I'd come up with a game. I want to do something totally different. We went in the morning to take a look at the DS but there was a large queue and we couldn't see it [laughs]!

If the DS becomes really popular, I think kids will start losing their fingerprints [laughs]!

In the playable version of MGS 3 on the showfloor, there seems to be a lot of cutscenes and text in the game. One of the criticisms levelled at MGS 2 was that there was too much of this type of thing; is the content of the demo representative of the full version of MGS3, or is this predominantly a device used at the start to set the scene?

Kojima: We have to tell the story in the game. Yes there will be the text and the cutscenes but there won't be as much [as last time]. We're spending a lot of time creating this jungle and we want to give you the opportunity to really enjoy this jungle, so while you're actually in the jungle playing the game there won't be much of that stuff.

In the new Metal Gear Solid 3 footage we saw a female assassin character - what role does she play in the game?

Kojima: She's a female spy like in the 007 series who co-operates with Snake, but she's a spy and if Snake starts trusting her 100 percent - you never know, she could be doing things to him. There might be some romantic stuff between them, too.

There's a view that Japanese development in general is in decline in a way. We were speaking to Mr. Nagoshi from Sega [the head of Amusement Vision] yesterday and he was saying that many Japanese developers have trouble thinking outside of Japan now. Metal Gear is a game that has huge appeal in the West; what are your thoughts on the state of Japanese development?

Kojima: I'm personally not really interested in the Japanese videogame industry right now; there aren't really that many interesting games right now, not like looking at the Western games industry. But I don't think we should really look at it like different markets, like different industries. It's like one global videogames industry and it just happens to be that it's more happening in the US and Europe right now.

So I like to present to these areas where it's more active what I'm creating, and these places that accept and like my games so I'll do my best with my games so that people in these areas, like the US and Europe, enjoy my games.

And I'm not going to name any names but I don't really enjoy talking to Japanese videogame creators that much. They don't have fun stuff to say anyway. I actually talked to Dan Hauser from Rockstar Games a couple of days ago and we had a great chat, and Western videogame creators like him seem to be more passionate and energetic so I hang out with him.

So do you think the Japanese games industry is flat, isn't moving forward?

Kojima: I think it's evolving but I don't see the heat, the passion there - it's more like a business now. I guess that people of my generation and Mr Miyamoto, who is not of the same generation you know, but videogames creators who have been around since the beginning of the industry have had to create everything from scratch.

There was really no established job position called "videogames designer", but now the younger videogames designers, when they joined the industry, videogame designing was already established. I guess in that sense the aura that they exude is really a totally different dimension from ours I think.

You've said before that Metal Gear 3 is about a human being versus the elements, the environment. Why is this something you particularly wished to explore in a videogame, in particular the survival elements? What inspired you?

Kojima: I wanted to do something where this person infiltrates enemy ground solo and use his physical body - that's like his only weapon, his body and his will, his spirit or power. When he starts using very hi-tech gadgets you don't see that will, you don't really depend on your body anymore and there's the whole thing about "hard boiled-ness" that this guy goes in there and has the strength of will, and the only thing he can depend on is his physical strength. That's what we wanted to do with a theme of survival.

In MGS3 you have to hunt for your own food when you are hungry, and if you get ill or are wounded you have to treat yourself. Things like that I want people to feel - it's all part of being alive and trying to survive. This kind of power I want people to feel.

In terms of the survival element and hunting for food, can you talk a little about striking a balance between realism and fun? We understand you can hunt animals, but is water involved? Does Snake have to drink liquids to survive at any point?

Kojima: There's no drinking water. I thought about it, but it was just going to be too complicated. And there's no going to the toilet either [everyone laughs]. But he can throw up as you've probably seen already.

Why the Cold War as the era for the game over any other period?

Kojima: As you probably know, MGS to me is like a 007 series where you have this one secret agent who infiltrates enemy ground and completes missions and escapes. But the thing is, when you have the game set in the near future like in the previous MGS titles, now the whole secret agent idea really doesn't work, and you have to get a Special Ops guy so it seems more realistic.

But I wanted to get that secret agent feel so that's why I took it back to the 1960s and the Cold War era when the US and the USSR were against each other in terms of sending spies and using double agents and triple agents and all that information warfare. It's just the best time for spies, the 1960s. You know, the message of Metal Gear Solid is ant-war, anti-nuclear weapons.

It wasn't a real war between the US and USSR; they weren't fighting each other. The people who were actually "fighting" the war were the spies, maybe not shooting each other but it was information warfare. By depicting this in the game I think that young people who really don't know about the Cold War will able to learn why things are like they are right now.

The Metal Gear series, on whichever platform it's appeared on, has always pushed the limits of the hardware. We just wondered what you thought about the next generation of hardware, what you feel the main advantages are in terms of development possibilities they will offer, in terms of game creation?

Kojima: I'm sure that the new consoles, whatever the next console is going to be for the Metal Gear Solid series... I'm sure they'll be very powerful, but if I were to create a game I really don't want to pursue like, you know, great graphics. Like Hollywood films like The Lord of the Rings where you see huge armies, or a movie where you see a meteor hitting the ocean and these tidal waves, like great graphics - that's not what I want to do, I like to tackle the thing from a totally different stance.

Is there anything in particular you think will be made easier by the next generation of hardware?

Kojima-san: I think no matter what they do it's not going to be easy because there'll be more things we'll have to do anyway. So I think what we have to do is select what we want to improve. They are many aspects of a game and I think we have to take certain things where we want to really increase the quality, and I think that that's what game design will be about.

Finally, the subtitle of MGS3 is 'Snake Eater' - have you ever eaten snake yourself?

Kojima-san: Never, but I'd like to try it. I'd also like to eat crocodile. There are actually freak restaurants in Japan where you can eat reptiles. I've been discussing it with my colleagues. We've just never been there, we've never had the chance!


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Kojima has always been a west fan.
Click to expand...
Very true. I remember, that the lesser success of MGS in Japan was blamed upon, that many japanese gamers felt, that MGS was too western or even worst: the game was at times even mistaken as a game of the west.
 
Hiedo Kojima has been controversial before. A couple of years ago he complained about the PS2's "durability" issue. (I think he had gone through like three of them in two years!!)

Fortunately, he has nasty habit of vocalizing public sentiment. :D
 
Heh, no threads from Johnny for a while and then this. We get it! You like Western developers and the Xbox! Sheesh. ;)

Anyways, I agree that Western/European game developers have been getting better at producing console games. Obviously they've dominated the PC gaming realm with consistent numbers of high-quality games, but up until the past few years they haven't made a big splash in the console realm. Obviously, this changed with companies like Rockstar and Ubisoft, among others.. and the launch of the PC-like Xbox. Some Japanese companies, like Nintendo, have even started employing Western teams to great effect. Metroid Prime and Eternal Darkness were both very good, and while MP was more or less a joint development.. Texas-based Retro Studios was the primary developer. Sony also has a plethora of solid studios cranking out games; companies like Naughty Dog.

Still, Japanese games continue to be very innovative and otherwise high-quality. It's just that now Western devs put more effort into capitalizing on the console market now, and with quality.. not just Midway/Acclaim-esque bulls**t.
 
Pepto-Bismol said:
Hiedo Kojima has been controversial before. A couple of years ago he complained about the PS2's "durability" issue. (I think he had gone through like three of them in two years!!)

Fortunately, he has nasty habit of vocalizing public sentiment. :D
Click to expand...

Uh..no..that was Shinji Mikami of Capcom. ;)
 
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