"Kojima Is on Vacation and Still an Employee, Says Konami"

[kane_magus]

"Konami has responded to a detailed report which revealed that Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has left the company. The publisher suggests that he is still [an] employee and on a lengthy vacation, following the protracted development of Metal Gear Solid V."

Well, if that's true, and Kojima actually hasn't abandoned the sinking Konami shitp yet, then... all I can say is: poor Hideo Kojima. Seriously, dude, get out. Get out while you still can.

(EDIT) My guess is that he's got paid vacation to burn, and he's using it all up before he rides off into the sunset. (/EDIT)

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing they're being extremely literal to make themselves look better than "the company that dumped kojima". I think it's exactly what you say - that he's using up his earned vacation time, but I suspect he doesn't exactly have an option to return to work after it's used up.

After all, a company doesn't go through great pains to remove all reference to an employee (kojima) from the works he's involved with simply because he's on vacation, if you see what I'm getting at there.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's certainly not like they're going to need Kojima to work on all those mobile phone games and pachinko machines, after all.

For what it's worth, at this point, I think Kojima > Konami anyway. They lose more by him leaving than he'd gain by staying. He could leave and make the next Metal Gear or Snatcher or Policenauts or, hell, even Silent Hill (since he'd been involved in Silent Hills before Konami idiotically pulled the plug on it) games, in all but name of course, sort of like how Koji Igarashi is doing Bloodstained now, which is essentially Castlevania in all but name. The only definite loser in such a scenario is Konami.

In any case, hopefully Kojima doesn't have some sort of asinine no-compete clause enforced on him by Konami. (But then, if Konami is no longer making big-budget console games and is only focusing on mobile shit and pachinko crap now anyway, I don't see how anything Kojima could do in the future would even be competing with Konami, unless he inexplicably gets into the mobile/pachinko business himself.)