"Konami stops all AAA console production, except for PES – report"

[kane_magus]

"Konami is reportedly ceasing its AAA development efforts on all games except Pro Evolution Soccer.

"Following on from this morning’s report that Fox Engine director Julien Merceron has left Konami, a new report from the same French website says the publisher is not investing in AAA console games any more.

"The sole exception is the Pro Evolution Soccer series. That means no Metal Gear or Silent Hill to come, despite Konami’s earlier statements suggesting the former will continue."

No more Castlevania, either. No more Contra. No more of any of the games that once made Konami one of the top companies in the industry (and I don't consider Pro Evolution Whatever The Fuck to be one of those games). It's all about fucking mobile horseshit and goddamn pachinko machines now. Oh well... (EDIT) The thing is, though, it's not necessarily that Konami no longer wants to continue making console games, it's that they simply can't continue to make console games, because all of their half-way decent or better devs are leaving or have already left, due to them becoming incredibly shitty lately. But then, the reason that they're becoming incredibly shitty and the better devs are leaving is because, yes indeed, they no longer want to make big console games anymore. So... yeeeeeahh... like I said in the first place, it's because of mobile horseshit and pachinko, which they incorrectly believe to be the future of gaming. ¬_¬ In any case, Konami is now reaping what they have sown. (/EDIT)

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.

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I saw a better saying for companies going to shit like this in the PC Gamer forums.

"Rest in piss Konami."

No beating around the bush, and less typing!

I'd almost want to say we're seeing another video game crash happen all around us today. It's not taking the same form it did in the 80's but the 80's was caused more by the distribution chain (Retailers, etc) bowing out of the market by refusing to stock them. (Having been sold too much crap ass games nobody would buy even for a dollar, that they couldn't return to the original companies.)

This time around it's the devs themselves falling like flies, either by going bankrupt, bought up and liquidated by publishers, or leaving the market for something they feel will generate more money. (With no assurance that will ever happen, and likely won't save them simply because they do not understand the mobile market as much as they think they do.)

Once all the old and great devs are gone, it'll be a world of indies for a while until new groups rise from the ash - assuming they will. Going to be a lot more kickstarters from the broken remains of previous devs trying to raise cash in the near future.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

If this is indeed another industry crash-in-progress, and it could very well be, then it didn't come remotely soon enough for my tastes. I've been fed up with the video game industry for years now (obviously). Anything that will sweep away the current status quo and show whoever may come along afterward to pick up the pieces how utterly horseshit the way things have been done for the past decade or so by the current crop of big (and more than a few small) pubs/devs is okay in my book, shitty though it may be in the short term.

Protips for future video game devs in the aftermath of the inevitable crash (even if it isn't already happening right here and now): DRM sucks (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/drm), and used games are not your fucking enemy (and piracy is going to happen no matter what you do, so get over it), chopping up of your game into DLC, especially day one bullshit that's already on the disc, sucks (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/dlc) (expansion packs after the game has released are mostly okay, as long as you aren't pimping those out months before the main game itself is even out), not fucking properly bugtesting your games sucks (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/game%20bugs%20suck), and shoehorning online multiplayer (or online anything) into your games sucks (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/asinine%20anti-singleplayer%20trend) (especially if your game series had been entirely singleplayer beforehand). These things are, by and large, why the current video game industry is in the sewers. Don't do any of those things, and you'll be better off than today's crop of bullshit. I'm sure there's more bullshit that you shouldn't do that I've left out, but I think that covers the main bits, probably.

Oh, and don't become so big and powerful and money-hungry and braindead that you're buying up everyone else and then immediately and irrevocably ruining them beyond all recognition. (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/ea%20sucks) And don't do what these guys are doing now (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/rip%20crappy%20companies).