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Nikkei's Konami/Kojima article officially translated into English
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
It's presumably the entire project's budget. It will probably still be profitable, but not nearly as profitable as they want for having investing 10 billion yen, especially when they're comparing it to their social game margins or even to having invested that money for seven years in the stock market.
It's about opportunity cost. Now, there's an argument that says this was an upfront investment that could have paid off notably over time through lower budgets on future iterations along with sales base expansion, but it's not something Konami appears to be interested in.
Isn't the scale of MGSV something that Kojima would have set?
1. Destiny didn't cost 500 million
2. Konami isn't Activison who releases Call of Duty every year that literally prints billions of USD
Love Deterrence
Member
Lmaooooooooooooooo 😂😂😂😂😂😂 Man I'm telling you
BumblebeeCody
Member
No Access to StackOverflow!? Commitu Sudoku desu!
Yes?
Relaxed Muscle
Member
RaD is a much smaller team.
I think BioShock Infinite was 'remade' several times and there've been different Elizabeth models, levels and so on.
MGSV though.. it still has elements from the first trailer inside and I don't know what could have bloated the budget: Sutherland? The sheer scope of the game? The engine + assets costs?
I'd love to hear some behind the scenes stories.
And yeah, I agree that the way they treat their employees - be it legal or not in Japan - is crazy.
Thaumaturgic Tomato
Member
Would be awesome if Kojima sneaked in a million "F Konami" type easter eggs. From embarrassing pics of Kozuki to insulting audio/video files. Stuff that a few playtesters won't find but millions of retail players would find over months.
Just a dream. I hate these soul-sucking companies from the bottom of my heart.
Just a dream. I hate these soul-sucking companies from the bottom of my heart.
double jump
you haven't lived until a random little kid ask you "how do you make love".
maybe it's the culture keeping them loyal but if they are treating the devs that bad they should jump ship. If the working conditions are that harsh then I cant imagine them making up for that when it comes to wages. Probably got contracts in place as well.
What happens if an employee breaks contract anyway?
What happens if an employee breaks contract anyway?
FoxEngine/MGSV have been in development for over six years.
They had to spend a very long time learning how to create large scale open world games from a technological, design, and production pipeline perspective.
Progress was probably quite slow in the early stages and then I imagine it took a long time to get to the point where the production pipeline was relatively optimal even once they had a sense of what they were doing.
A good example would be comparing the rate at which Ubisoft gets out the first entry/first reboot in one of their series (often 4-6 years) and then the rate at which the sequels come (1-2 years). However, Ubisoft has economies of scale that don't exist at Konami, where they can flood staff onto different high end projects if a game is stalling.
FlashbladeGAF
Member
Probably still cheaper than The Last Guardian or FFXV
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Wouldn't be surprised if he wants to make an even bigger project next time, with next gen only consoles. Or maybe something smaller like other japanese devs are doing with "it's quite similar to that thing i'm famous for...but"
NoctisVsStar
Member
How is Kojima able to direct though? morse code?
Quiet Mounds and Iron Axel Floppy confirmed!
Honestly, I'd be shocked if TLG was even half the budget of MGS5. One of the reasons why Ueda kinda got away with the development of the game was it had a very small staff compared to just about any major console release. They spent too much time trying to make it work on the PS3, but I doubt there's much more to it than that.
FFXV, though? Squenix seems to be scheduling their big games around it at this point.
Codec. His frequency is 140.85.
gundamkyoukai
Member
No way , those game hardly had people working on them during that time.
When you have so many staff members to pay you need to bring out games much faster or put them on something else.
Yoshida confirmed in an interview that the budget for TLG isn't anywhere near huge or ridiculous.
Imo he is one of the few major devs for whom that isn't necessary.
Imo he is one of the few major devs for whom that isn't necessary.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
"Hey, this overbudgeted game is not as expensive as this other overbudgeted game that spent several years in development hell"
Sorry – I didn't read far enough into the thread to see your other posts. I appreciate what you're saying.
In this case it's definitely Konami's behaviour, rather than their justification. How they handled the situation is just deplorable – surely even by Japan's employment standards, which are very different to the West's.
Didn't they say 80 million was only the development cost – that is, not including pre-production, post-production, or marketing costs? Which are probably huge, too. The entire project's budget might be three times the 10 billion yen figure.
You can find Shuhei's frequency on the back of Kojima's employee badge
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
Fuck Konami
Pretty fucking amazing how much shit is happening inside Konami and, to be honest, I'm glad it's happening.
What do you expect them to treat him like? Give him a +$80,400,000 budget so he makes them a game however he wants to?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
You should still wanna work on games. It's still quite interesting.
Not giving him the money to waste is a great idea. Treating him and the rest of their employees as criminals, not so much.
I don't think fault has to be mutually exclusive here. Kojima screwed up, and Konami's still screwing up.
It'd be too late anyway, this shit is a one way trip.
If I'm not mistaken, a massive chunk of the top management are his family members, so it's unlikely that they would course correct unless he requests it.
Development generally includes pre-production and post-production, but not marketing.
Marketing could get very expensive, but will presumably be tied at a run rate to what they expect to sell.
I don't expect the ROI on this game to be great. Their mobile efforts are much more profitable per dollar spent, and it's a big part of why they've switched to being a mobile developer.
Agreed, although Konami are also his management. They should know when to curtail him and direct him if he's burning through too much cash.
It's not as black and white as that, obviously, but I think the onus is slightly more weighted towards Konami to be good managers and project managers.
True.
My prediction is that the the ROI will be better than any of us expect, though. I'm getting a vibe that all five release platforms might sell very well, considering how much promotion (and hype) the game is gaining through word-of-mouth, advertising, and professional channels. I hope it does, frankly, to show Konami this shit is still worth investing in.
artsi
Member
Yeah that would be cool, I'm pretty fed up with the corporate ICT world, I'd like to be in a more creative environment even if the job was the same type.
It's just sad that Konami has taken such a fall from the glory days.
Kojima looks so happy working here among his lego buildings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiXFr0hMbYM
Serpens007
Member
It's not like we've had several trailers, long gameplay demos, lots of kojima stations, lots of merchandising including parterships with brands and stuff... right?
I'm sure that a good amount of money of that $80m is already been restored thanks to GZ, not to mention the GwG and PS+ deals.
And even if the game is still too expensive for Konami, in no way justifies the terrible way of handling this whole situation. Fuck Konami.
Exactly, and nobody deserves to be treated like that. All I was criticizing is people calling him the "could have been savior" of Konami when it's pretty clear he's not it, at least not financially.
I'm pretty sure Kojima will be happy not to work on Metal Gear anymore, but I guess when Konami goes under he can buy the IP cheap. Just to save it from Konami selling it to Activision or something. lol
UrbanDandy
Member
As much as I would love to see it, I bet Konami would have it edited heavily, so all we'll see is just interviews.
Also, I'm kind of confused. I thought Kagemasa's son, Takuya was holding the reigns of the company.
That guy's big YouTube video exposé said the reigns were still very much in the hands of Kagemasa sr.
Konami fucked it up along the way and they are willingly set on continuing to fuck things up. I expect them to have the decency to let him and his team finish the product in a humane and productive manner. Restricting Kojima in this way is not only disgusting, but it's extremely sub-optimal when you are at the finishing stages of shipping a game.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
I may have mentioned this before, but I honestly worry less for folks like Kojima we know the name of and more for those on their staffs that we don't know the names of.
I'm growing fond of this connection of mine.
I'm growing fond of this connection of mine.
It's fucking disgusting, agreed.
Japanmanx3
Member
Studying and detestable....
Yes, as a programmer I would die without looking things up and finding existent code on the net.