Well Konami, you certainly did it your way, no doubt about that, and like the song goes, it looks like you're now facing the final curtain. The fact that you're propping up the corpse of the Metal Gear franchise Weekend at Bernie's style, (and yes, without Kojima and without a successor that had his blessing Metal Gear is dead) just goes to show you're a company with no direction. Bunch of chickens with your heads cut off.
I've been on this ride since, about 1987, some of my earliest memories involve Konami games. I'd know the track "Vampire Killer" anywhere, in any remix or rendition, same with the Stage 1 Contra music. I remember my cousin showing off and beating the last level of Life Force like nothing. I've spent countless hours in Symphony of the Night, and on the later Dracula X Chronicles, me and one of my best friends back in the day used to trade secrets about that game. I've played the hell out of Suikoden II, so many times, that I've pretty much memorized how to recruit all 108 characters. Being the broke ass high school student I was, I rented out Silent Hill 2 the day it came out. I actually bought Zone of the Enders because it looked cool, not just because of the MGS2 demo (although that was a very nice bonus), and I've lost track of how many times I've listened to the ZoE and ZoE2 OSTs. I've unlocked all the planes in the AF Delta Strike. Shit, Konami's games have been with me from childhood into college.
But what happened?
Konami left behind the franchises fans loved, and may of the ones it did continue with, it continued with questionable quality. We haven't seen a Suikoden since V on the PS2, haven't seen a Contra is just as long. Gradius? How many gamers today recognize that name? Vandal Hearts? Final Fantasy Tactics has been getting new releases up to 2007.
In the '90s and '00s, Konami was making a little bit of everything. They had staples, Castlevania and Contra going. In the Suikoden series, they had an RPG that rivaled SquareSoft's Final Fantasy, maybe not in fame, but certainly in game quality. They even had an arcade style flight sim in Air Force Delta Strike. That's on top of having Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid. But as we started getting into the 7th-gen with the Xbox 360 and PS3, we started seeing less and less from Konami, regardless of how loudly fans shouted at them. Instead they bumbled around making products that no one really asked for. We got Castlevania Lords of Shadow, which was good, but it wasn't what people were asking for. They continued on with Silent Hill, but they had outsourced development to mixed reviews. Certainly nothing that achived the scores Silent Hill 3 did, let alone the mind-fuck survival horror masterpiece that was Silent Hill 2.
During that era of the mid '90s to the early '00s, Konami was making gems, and taking everything to the next level. Silent Hill 2 is one of the greatest games of the genre. MGS3 raised the bar and set the standard for the stealth-action genre once again. Zone of the Enders gave us a mecha game that playing it felt like watching a mecha anime AND having fluid and responsive controls. That Konami logo was reason enough to buy a game. You saw it and you knew you were in for an awesome gaming experience. But after they they seem to have lost their way. But rather than listen to fans and giving them what they want, they chased after the mobile fairy. While that's smart for Japan, focusing on that and making mobile your flagship platform isn't the best way to keep your seat in the larger Western gaming market. Mobile isn't as big in the West as it is in Japan, and now the Western market has grown much larger than the Japanese market. A few things that had gone over the executives at Konami (well maybe all of them except Kojima).
Now Konami by far isn't the only company that's stumbled in the 7th generation. Square-Enix seems to have stuck it's head up it's ass with Final Fantasy XIII, and decided to keep it there long enough to make two sequels that no one wanted. Capcom has been pissing people off in a variety of ways. Namco tried to get on the Call of Duty train with Ace Combat Assault Horizon only for it to horrible backfire in failing both to win over the modern shooter crowd, and producing the most hated entry in the series by fans. But while those companies only ended up looking stupid and enraging fans, they didn't pulled the straight up shyster moves that not only made them look dirty and grimy but made games outright hate them. Not simply being angry at them, but out right hating them.
And that's a problem, see anger can fade, but outright hatred takes a lot longer.
First was the creeping news of what would be the ugly divorce between Kojima and Konami. Now Konami might have valid reasons for wanting Kojima out of his position. There were claims that MGS4 and MGS5 cost more than they were bringing in. But on the same token Konami kept on putting him on Metal Gear, even canning his side projects like Zone of the Enders 3, which he stated he had really wanted to make, to keep him on Metal Gear. It was clear both Konami and Kojima were getting tired of each other and that happens. But rather than just keeping it under the table and professional, Konami blew it all up into an episode of The Steve Wilkos Show. Konami started looking at the petty wife who wants to screw over her husband out of as much as possible, or the angry husband who goes scorched earth, and destroy's property like intentionally crashing a prized classic car, just so the wife can't get it. It got grimy to the point of Konami setting it's lawyers loose to ban Kojima from attending an event and accepting an award for MGS5.
As if that wasn't bad enough on more than one occasion Konami would punish developers. Reports started coming out that Konami would watch it's employees "Big Brother" style with cameras everywhere and would publicly shame and embarrass employees and move developers out of development and into working the pachinko-slot factories, working janitorial duties or pulling security guard duty.
And how do they do that? With a new Metal Gear...
You don't fucking get it do you Konami? It's not about the games anymore with you. Gamers hate you not your games (well yes a lot of recent Konami games are hated, but that's not the point), Former fans are angry, and they're sitting on a lot of rage. They don't give a damn, they want to see you fall. These people will refuse to buy your products out of spite. The only way you can win them back is by firings of executives and putting the proverbial heads out on a pike outside. If I saw company president Takuya Kozuki commit career seppuku, quit the company and leave the industry, that would be enough to win me back personally, but I can't speak for the other angry people. Kozuki, you done fucked up, quit trying to act all gangster with your company like you some kind of Yakuza oyabun.
Yes Konami, you did it your way. To hell with the gaming fans that got you to where you were. To hell with the development teams that brought in those gaming fans. You did it your way. Where has that gotten you? Near universal hatred in the industry that you helped to build. An industry where your name meant something.
See because if you were sincere and gave a damn, you'd leave Metal Gear alone for awhile. This is just bullshit pandering. People are still salty to all hell over the divorce with Kojima and you can't get more associated with Kojima than with Metal Gear. See if you cared, you'd understand that Metal Gear is stepping on a landmine right now. If you cared, you'd notice that people want to see Silent Hill again, if you cared, you'd have taken the opportunity to make a Silent Hill spin-off instead of Metal Gear. If you actually cared, you'd have a project related to one of your long lost franchies that fans have been calling for their return. Hell use the Metal Gear Rising engine to make a hack-and-slash Vandal Hearts (bet you forgot that name), or even a Suikoden action spin-off following Flik and Viktor on their travels after Suikoden 2.
Coming from a guy who earliest memories were Castlevania and Contra on the NES. Coming from a guy who sunk hours on end into Symphony of the Night and Suikoden II. Coming from a guy who bought MGS2, 3, and 4 day one. Coming from a guy who bought ZoE, ZoE2, and the OSTs to the games. Coming from a guy who played every Ace Combat game, and enjoyed Air Force Delta Strike enough to unlock all the planes. Coming from a guy who went and picked up Dracula X Chronicles day one. Seeing the announcement for Metal Gear Survive, I felt nothing...
Felt absolutely nothing.
Not elation at a new Metal Gear. Not rage at this piss poor, insulting, attempt to win us all back. Just nothing. The same kind of nothing when you see an ex that you had gotten over and put behind you, on a corner prostituting or doing drugs in an alley and you look at them for a moment, and someone asks "Someone you know" and you reply back with "used to."
"You a fan of Konami?"
"Used to be."
Think about that for a moment. not even a "man fuck Konami!" just a "used to be" lacking in emotion. See I ain't even mad anymore, you're practically dead to me now. You're dead, done and moved on from.
Not elation at a new Metal Gear. Not rage at this piss poor, insulting, attempt to win us all back. Just nothing. The same kind of nothing when you see an ex that you had gotten over and put behind you, on a corner prostituting or doing drugs in an alley and you look at them for a moment, and someone asks "Someone you know" and you reply back with "used to."
"You a fan of Konami?"
"Used to be."
Think about that for a moment. not even a "man fuck Konami!" just a "used to be" lacking in emotion. See I ain't even mad anymore, you're practically dead to me now. You're dead, done and moved on from.
Could I ever be a fan again? Maybe, give us a new Suikoden. Give us a new Gradius, even in the form of a 3D arcade space sim/shooter. Give us something we've been demanding for some time, and maybe, just maybe...
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