"New Article About Konami Suggests Grim Situation at Company"

"An article in Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei paints a grim picture of the situation at Konami, suggesting employee morale is at an all-time low."

Well, gee, I wonder why. *eye roll*

"Issues apparently started back in 2010 following the success of mobile game Dragon Collection - it was then the company started to see low-cost high-profit titles as a desirable area for focus, especially when contrasted with expensive console games."

Yeah, exactly.

"Konami recently announced it was planning to focus on mobile games in future, though this has apparently been somewhat misreported. The company has previously reiterated its commitment to creating new titles in the Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hills franchises going forward, while entries in the yearly Pro Evolution Soccer series aren't likely to disappear overnight."

And yet, for some unknown reason, they killed Silent Hills. And, honestly, I haven't played a Metal Gear game since MGS4 several years ago. I know the series still has fans, to be sure, but Hideo Kojima himself has been saying since Metal Gear Solid 2 that he was done with making Metal Gear games, but he keeps on getting pulled back in. Then again, I shudder to think of what the quality of the MGS series would be like these days without his involvement. And I give less than zero shits about Pro-whatever Soccer. Also, I notice that there's no mention whatsoever of anything Castlevania-related there (even the alternate continuity Lords of Shadow series). (EDIT) Oh, wait, here is the bullshit that they have planned for Castlevania and Silent Hill. Go fucking figure. (/EDIT)

Oh, and Konami apparently treats its employees like shit, on top of all of that.

So yeah, I'll just say it again:

Requiescat in pace, Konami. You are dead to me now.

It's always sad to see a once awesome game developer/publisher fall and fail so hard like this.

Disliking works of art because you dislike the artist...

(EDIT 4 - 9/23/2020) Also relevant: this. (/EDIT 4)

(EDIT 5 - 3/24/2022) And this. (/EDIT 5)

Yesterday, I was reading some recent tweets by Dan Shive, the creator of El Goonish Shive, concerning the new King's Quest game. At first, he was simply praising the game (starting around here), but later on, he began to rant (starting around here) about the fact that people were apparently telling him on Twitter not to support the new King's Quest game because of something about The Odd Gentlemen (who developed the new KQ game) and their previous involvement with Hiveswap, the game based on the hugely popular webcomic series, Homestuck. (Let me tell you about Homestuck.) Apparently, there are vague rumors that they misappropriated money from the Hiveswap Kickstarter (which, sadly [or perhaps luckily], I didn't back, because I didn't know about Homestuck at all until well after that had ended) to help fund the King's Quest game. I don't know if that's true or not. If it is, then The Odd Gentlemen are indeed scumbags. However, that is (mostly) irrelevant to the point I am about to make here.

See, I agree with Mr. Shive, for the most part. I think it's kind of dumb to hate on a work of art, be it a video game or a book or music or whatever, merely because you dislike something that the artist said or did (within reason). Hell, I've even said the same sort of thing myself already, years back when I was ranting about Doug TenNapel and his asinine views on the Quran burnings, in which I also mentioned Orson Scott Card and his homophobia[1], among other things as well. Hell, I still play some EA games, such as The Sims 3, even though I hate EA with a fiery passion otherwise (and despite the fact that there are things specifically concerning The Sims 3 itself that make me hate EA with a fiery passion).

However, as Mr. Shive himself also says, I can understand why one might not want to actively give money to an artist (or a game dev, in this case) since that money would actively go to support that artist in their future endeavors, which might include things that one might not want to be involved with. That's completely fair. If you believe the allegations concerning The Odd Gentlemen and want to avoid supporting them by not buying the new KQ game, then more power to you. Hell, even though I still play some EA games, like The Sims 3, I haven't bought any other EA games at all since probably (EDIT a year or so later) Dragon Age IIThe Sims 4. Yeah, I finally caved and bought TS4 on Origin, when it was on a relatively dirt cheap sale overall. >_> (/EDIT)

But again, at the same time, to say that someone shouldn't recommend or even like the new King's Quest game because of some tangentially related thing that The Odd Gentlemen may or may not have done regarding Hiveswap... well, I don't know. I think it's kind of dumb to hate King's Quest over this. For what it's worth, to go with what is probably the most extreme example of this, I think what I've seen of Hitler's paintings are actually pretty good. Yes, I totally went there. ¬_¬ Or, perhaps more timely... will I say that I would never go back and watch (and maybe even possibly enjoy) an episode of The Cosby Show or I Spy or Fat Albert or whatever, due to the current shitstorm surrounding Bill Cosby? If even a small portion of that shit is true, if he only drugged and raped even just one person, let alone dozens, then Cosby is a complete and total shitbag, sure... but I don't think that means that there's now suddenly nothing whatsoever of value that can be found in those older works of his, so no, I'm not sure that I will say that I'd never do that. Nor will I claim that I'd never go back and watch a Chris Benoit wrestling match. Yeah, I know I'm starting to stretch the meaning of the phrase "work of art" there, but still... Benoit was in some pretty good matches.

In any case, as long as whatever crazy, unethical, bullshit things done by the creators don't or didn't directly affect the nature of their works, then I'm not going to straight up avoid those works entirely just because of that. If, on the other hand, whatever asinine things they do are indeed directly affecting the works themselves, then that's where I start boycotting shit (and that's a big part of the reason I don't buy EA games anymore, specifically, and why I'm starting to abandon the game industry as a whole, generally). But I also totally get how this is definitely a YMMV situation.

(EDIT 2 - 4/19/2018)

To be honest, I find myself dithering on all of this, as the years have gone by since I originally wrote this post. For example, given all the shit that has come out surrounding Channel Awesome recently, I cannot in good conscience continue to watch or support that company by continuing to watch Nostalgia Critic videos as though nothing had happened, even if said shit may not directly affect the content of any given Nostalgia Critic video (though there have been some instances of scuzziness even there which are now put under a new light in retrospect, so... yeah). At this point in time, I am pretty certain that I will not be supporting any future endeavors of the Walker brothers or anyone still associated with them after this. And as for Justin "JewWario" Carmical, I didn't bother to watch any of the guy's stuff when he was alive or in the years after he died when he was being sanctified seemingly by almost everyone on the Internet, so I'm sure as shit not going to start now, not even out of morbid curiosity.

But again, I am only speaking for myself here. For anyone else who has watched Justin Carmical's or Doug Walker's stuff and found value in that, I'm not going to try to go all Moral Guardian here and say that you can't or shouldn't do that. I'm just saying that I am not going to be doing it, myself, at least for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, back to the original post, now.

(/EDIT 2 - 4/19/2018)

Disclaimer: I have not played the new King's Quest game yet, mainly because I refuse to play any episodic games until the whole series of episodes is available, but I most likely will play it at some point, regardless of any controversy that may be surrounding it. (Unless, perhaps, said controversy actually turns out to be true, but even then... I'm still taking the same "wait and see" approach as I was before, concerning the new KQ game.) (EDIT 3) I have indeed played a little ways into the first episode, since I wrote the above. It's... okay, I guess? Not enough so that I actually finished it (yet) obviously, but it's mostly inoffensive, I suppose. (/EDIT 3) I have read Homestuck, and I believe that it is indeed as awesome as most people say it is. I'm looking forward to Hiveswap. For that matter, EGS is also pretty cool, I think.

[1] - And I thought I'd made another post along the same lines as this one here and that other one specifically concerning Mr. Card and the new (at the time) Ender's Game movie as well, about how a lot of people apparently thought that Mr. Card's homophobia tainted the movie too much for them to enjoy it or want to go see it, but I couldn't find such a post. Maybe that post was made to Facebook or something instead of Livejournal, in which case screw it, I'm not hunting it up. *shrug* Or maybe I just started to write such a post but then deleted it without finishing it. There have been a ton of posts that I've almost made like that.