It seems to me like Kojima is focused on making the games he would personally like to play, and that the commercial numbers are no longer his metric of choice. I highly doubt he needs the money.
Total number of players and total number of copies sold tell two different things (albeit, with considerable overlap). Sure, there is a lot of nuance behind both of those numbers - but in the balance between the revenue and the art that has defined the AAA industry for the last few decades, the revenue side has increasingly gained weight while the artistic concern has lost much its influence.
Kojima has always been an artist first and a businessman only in support of that art. He’s a storyteller. Reaching back to old-saw tools like stealth does not necessarily mean he’s run out of ideas, it may just be the right tool for the world he’s trying to build.
He can afford to care about ART over Business since he's earned it. Most game designers without the same influence or legacy can't but try anyway and fail by losing jobs etc. You have to Earn the right in any field or medium to only care about the Art or Asethics or make vanity projects. Hollywood has forgotten that fact by hiring DEI to make activist vanity projects without any built in audience or goodwill.
As I said, there must be a balance between the business and the art. There has been imbalance ever since the first outside investors noticed how much revenue the game industry generates, and it’s getting progressively worse.
That’s why so many of the best games now are AA and Indy - almost all of the AAA studios have shifted all the drive to their bean counters while treating the talent as little more than run-of-the-mill labor. They have the money, but are hemorrhaging quality in their products - often the flagship titles that made those studios so profitable in the first place. There’s a very short shelf life on that approach, and it comes with a massive loss in fanbase.
It’s not just Kojima: The artists that can (usually the best and most experienced ones, and a lot of them) are choosing to go elsewhere; those who can’t, yet (the new ones), will go as soon as they are able. They became game developers because they love video games, creating artwork, or both; money is not the priority for them but a necessary evil in order to create the best games they can - reverse those priorities and they will eventually leave. So will the audience. AAA studios are no longer the only or even best option for any of them.
Hollywood making DEI-focused films is just as much an abandonment of the artistic side of the industry, but for a shifting political agenda rather than a short-term financial one. Like so many of the AAA studios, the major motion picture studios love building shitty, cookie-cutter new entries under proven title vehicles and simply assume the audience will still be there. They’ll eventually have to realize that, like the artists, the audience doesn’t just get a vote but a veto.
Another Radical, "Elite" Lib Lefty who's games aren't games at all.
These "auteurs" wish they were part of the Hollywood ecosystem, so they play filmmaker on our turf...
And the ideology of the "Elites" he wishes to be part of IS part of HIS rhetoric (and this is vital:)
Kojima sacrifices ALL SEMBLANCE OF COMMON SENSE OR NARRATIVE for the ideology he panders to. The game makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. He doesn't even try.
And yet? There's his success, as clear as day... because people don't know what they're purchasing.
And as long as he has that blind, reckless support, we'll continue to get slop, like his, in gaming.
It seems to me like Kojima is focused on making the games he would personally like to play, and that the commercial numbers are no longer his metric of choice. I highly doubt he needs the money.
Total number of players and total number of copies sold tell two different things (albeit, with considerable overlap). Sure, there is a lot of nuance behind both of those numbers - but in the balance between the revenue and the art that has defined the AAA industry for the last few decades, the revenue side has increasingly gained weight while the artistic concern has lost much its influence.
Kojima has always been an artist first and a businessman only in support of that art. He’s a storyteller. Reaching back to old-saw tools like stealth does not necessarily mean he’s run out of ideas, it may just be the right tool for the world he’s trying to build.
He can afford to care about ART over Business since he's earned it. Most game designers without the same influence or legacy can't but try anyway and fail by losing jobs etc. You have to Earn the right in any field or medium to only care about the Art or Asethics or make vanity projects. Hollywood has forgotten that fact by hiring DEI to make activist vanity projects without any built in audience or goodwill.
As I said, there must be a balance between the business and the art. There has been imbalance ever since the first outside investors noticed how much revenue the game industry generates, and it’s getting progressively worse.
That’s why so many of the best games now are AA and Indy - almost all of the AAA studios have shifted all the drive to their bean counters while treating the talent as little more than run-of-the-mill labor. They have the money, but are hemorrhaging quality in their products - often the flagship titles that made those studios so profitable in the first place. There’s a very short shelf life on that approach, and it comes with a massive loss in fanbase.
It’s not just Kojima: The artists that can (usually the best and most experienced ones, and a lot of them) are choosing to go elsewhere; those who can’t, yet (the new ones), will go as soon as they are able. They became game developers because they love video games, creating artwork, or both; money is not the priority for them but a necessary evil in order to create the best games they can - reverse those priorities and they will eventually leave. So will the audience. AAA studios are no longer the only or even best option for any of them.
Hollywood making DEI-focused films is just as much an abandonment of the artistic side of the industry, but for a shifting political agenda rather than a short-term financial one. Like so many of the AAA studios, the major motion picture studios love building shitty, cookie-cutter new entries under proven title vehicles and simply assume the audience will still be there. They’ll eventually have to realize that, like the artists, the audience doesn’t just get a vote but a veto.
Valid argument.
Thanks for reading.
I don’t think it’s art.
You’re entitled to your perspective.
I disagree.
Another Radical, "Elite" Lib Lefty who's games aren't games at all.
These "auteurs" wish they were part of the Hollywood ecosystem, so they play filmmaker on our turf...
And the ideology of the "Elites" he wishes to be part of IS part of HIS rhetoric (and this is vital:)
Kojima sacrifices ALL SEMBLANCE OF COMMON SENSE OR NARRATIVE for the ideology he panders to. The game makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. He doesn't even try.
And yet? There's his success, as clear as day... because people don't know what they're purchasing.
And as long as he has that blind, reckless support, we'll continue to get slop, like his, in gaming.