Digital Media Concepts/Hideo Kojima

Hideo Kojima

Hideo Kojima
Born	August 24, 1963 (1963-08-24) Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Video game designer, writer, director, producer
Years active	1986–present
Notable work	Metal Gear series Snatcher

Hideo Kojima (born on Aug 24,1963) is most famous for his work with the Metal Gear series. His work and artistic style led to the creation of cinematic video games. He is the director and founder of Kojima Productions and former vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment. He is a video game designer, screen writer, director, and a producer. He is regarded highly in the video game industry.

Early Life

Kojima was born in Tokyo, Japan, and at an early age he had to deal with death. With his father passing away when he was three and that he often had to look after himself, led to these themes becoming prominent in his work later on. He was pressured from an early age to pursue that ensures a steady income, especially since with his father's death, his family's income has become tighter. At first he wanted to become an artist which was considered a decent job, however his uncle was an artist and was still struggling to earn money, and thus he started writing short stories. However, no newspapers were willing to publish his work as his stories were longer than what they were looking for. Thus began his focus on making films. But, while he was attending a university, he started to play video games in his free time which sparked his inspiration to want to instead pursue a career making video games. He was however discouraged by his peers as it was still a field full of uncertainty. His mother however remained supportive, which ultimately cemented his decision to go ahead and become a video game designer.

Career

In the beginning his ideas for video games were all rejected, but was eventually accepted. He thus joined Konami's MSX division as a developer and a planner. Initially his ideas were overlooked and he was put working on various games like Penguin Adventure. Eventually, he was put onto the Metal Gear project. He designed the gameplay to focus on stealth over direct confrontation with the enemy. When Metal Gear was released it was the first examples of stealth-action gameplay. Afterwards he was directed to make a sequel to Metal Gear. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake would go on to becoming a major hit. The game featured themes revolving nuclear disarmament and warfare, but it's most revolutionary aspect was the cinematic story-telling that was not found in other video games during that time. The game also featured complex stealth capabilities and improved graphics and AI. He was then tasked to make SD Snatcher which was a remake of the original Snatcher. The game would later abandon the random encounters found in the original for an innovative first-person turn-based system focused on targeting various body parts of enemies with limited ammo. This type o firing system however is seldom used only notably found in Bethesda's Fallout series.

Following the success of Metal Gear 2, Konami wanted to churn out more sequels for the Metal Gear series. This eventually led to the development of Metal Gear Solid. With this game, Hideo Kojima became an international video game star. Kojima would later develop a plethora of games including more sequels to Metal Gear Solid. He would oversee the development of several mobile spin offs of the Metal Gear franchise. He also expressed an interest in putting Snake into Nintendo's Super Smash Bros, in which he was personally contacted by Nintendo to make that a reality. Eventually, Kojima stated prior to 2009's E3 that Metal Gear Solid 4 would be his last Metal Gear game.

He then began work on a Silent Hills game based on the movie. During this time he would begin working with The Walking Dead's star Norman Reedus. However, after substantial work on the Silent Hills project, Konami cancelled it and Kojima was directed to develop another Metal Gear game. What came out of that is Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain. This game was heralded as having great gameplay and great graphics. Although, it didn't win Game of the Year, it would score 0.2 points lower than Witcher 3(which won Game of the Year). Afterwards however, Konami started to make an effort in removing Kojima's name from Metal Gear Solid V. The company also barred Kojima from attending an awards ceremony in which Metal Gear Solid V would win several awards. It was later revealed that Kojima had left Konami after 28 years.

In an interview with Kojima, it was revealed that Konami wanted to shift its focus on the mobile gaming industry claiming that "it was the future of gaming". Konami would end up shutting down big console game projects such as Metal Gear stating that although it would prove highly profitable it ended up having a higher-than-expected initial production cost. whereas, mobile game production was cheap and just as profitable. However Konami would also state that it won't completely abandon production on console games, it just wont make as many of them.

This falling out with Konami led to Kojima deciding to travel across Western Video game companies in search of "new technology". Eventually, Kojima revealed he has partnered with Sony to develop a new game. He would then reveal the game, Death Stranding, personally at 2016 E3. In an interview with Wired, Kojima revealed that a lot of his early childhood affected the development of this game. The following link is an interview where Kojima talks more about his new game Death Stranding.

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