MellowYellow said:
Trygon said:
And Konami shut down game development
company-wide. You seem to think that TPP costing too much alone caused Konami to cut loose an entire wing of their company, and that doesn't make any sense, logical, business, or otherwise. Konami decided they wanted to take the company in a new direction, and they burned everyone involved in the old direction, carelessly. Kojima deserves no blame for doing what he's always done - Konami could have canned the original proposal (Bet some of the HudsonSoft IP would have enjoyed a chance to shine in MGS' place), they could have not announced a release date, they could have bit the bullet and delayed the game... Basically, they could have shown any indication that they had some respect for one of their best creators, who had given decades to them.
It's also worth noting that it's not just MGS fans that worship Kojima. Sony
put him on a tour of their WWS, guided by their 'independant' wunderkind.
Well the vibe I got was that they felt they could cancel TP with no loss to their Pachinko ambitions. By the sound of things, there hadn't been too much developed for it which makes it all the more unfortunate. But TPP absolutely had to come out, given what had alredy been invested. I have to wonder how much longer it would have taken to make the storyline complete.
My problem is, and while I find TPP superb in terms of graphics and mechanics, I would have thought the plot would have been done first. But that's... really rather light by MGS standards, only really cropping up by act 2 and leaving a good deal of wasted potential. I'm sure Kiefer Sutherland and James Horan weren't too thrilled about doing little beyond audio logs. Though, in fairness, some of those logs are rather interesting to listen to.
Sony getting Kojima aboard isn't too shocking. He's a brand name, and his brand does have a stronger resonance with Playstation than other platforms,
Regardless of what anyone thinks about the GTA games, they are quality, ambitious titles. The developers at Rockstar are some of the best video game developers in the world. They make big, expressive, and technically impressive games. They started to make their most recent game, without building a new engine from the ground up, in 2009. They finished the game in probably early 2013 or sometime in mid-late 2012. Remember, these men and women are
the premier, open-world, game developers. It's very likely that they have more experience with these kinds of games than any other game development studio on the face of the planet. So, even if TPP had a similar development cycle, it's very very hard to believe that even KojiPro would have no trouble pushing out a quality open-world game in the same amount of time.
They've never made such a game, and they had to build an engine from the ground up. They then had to attempt to create such a large game while still packing in the same layer of depth to the gameplay that Kojima is typically known for. Just go watch some of the videos of people doing absurd or creative things in TPP, and you'll see just how varied and deep the gameplay can be. I've played the game for well over a hundred hours, and there are things in it that I haven't even touched or thought to do. Development was probably so hectic that they even went through the trouble of setting up a cheap development studio on another continent just to push the multi-player out of the door-- something they couldn't even find the time to complete for the PC version. That multi-player happens to suck giant donkey balls, and is lacking in so many features it isn't even funny. I loved MGO2, but couldn't even stand to play the new one. I can literally type you up like 10+ paragraphs on why it was terrible. If it was handled by the actual KojiPro, it would have been a much better experience. A tight deadline forced them to shove it into the hands of a makeshift studio, which was shuttered close after release.
The only thing Kojima is at all guilty of is having the balls to stick to his vision, and try to complete the game he wanted to make. It may not have been his money, but he's had a relationship with Konami for at least half of his life. If, in that time, they were unaware of how he likes to develop games, then it's entirely on them. You do not push a Kojima game out the door. He takes the time and effort to make it as good as he knows how to. This is true of other Japanese developers. Do you think Nomura pushes his projects out to meet a deadline? No. Like Kojima he treats it like an art, and goes through the effort of crafting it with care and consideration. I like Fallout 4, but there's no denying that it's a bug riddled game, on an old engine, that could have used more talent and time. I love the Arkham games, but WB pushed the latest one out, and it was a steaming pile of garbage on PC, and more or less missed the point of the entire series. Everyone knows that the Assassin's Creed series has been nothing but damaged due to the strict deadline of making a regular yearly release (of course staggered).
You simply do not make huge, giant games in like three years anymore. You need time, effort, and talent. Unfortunately unless you are Rockstar with a team of over a 1000 people working on your game, it just isn't going to happen. Konami's gross lack of leadership and foresight is the problem. It's run by a man who just probably shrugged his shoulders, and figured that a new game would mean more money, and it would be done in a timely manner. Hideki Hayakawa literally knows dick about video games, on even the most basic level.
So... is it any surprise that the game was in development hell? You wouldn't expect a man that knows nothing about ice cream to run an ice cream company successfully. When leaders do not have a passion for the thing they are leading, you'll see a dip in quality. They don't understand the product, they don't care about the product, and all they are concerned about is meeting a few goals they believe will allow them to finish the project with a minimum of losses.
