So Hideo Kojima is not thinking in the short or medium term, but centuries ahead…
Over time, the perception of many games changes, and the same goes for the characters in those games. When Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released for PS2 in November 2001, we might have thought Raiden was a bit of a dork. A decade later, the first Metal Gear Solid on PS2 was hailed as a post-modern masterpiece. But the game’s creator is expanding that cycle a bit as he thinks about aliens and the future.
He talked about this during a fan Q&A hosted by Anan News. One of Kojima’s questions was: what kind of mindset does a successful game developer need? To this, the Japanese genius replied: “Make something you’re happy with. Or rather, you can’t make something you’re not happy with. First of all, the way art is judged changes over time.
Just as paintings are judged 100 or 200 years after the artist’s death, games and movies remain as objects to be passed down for generations after their creators have died. If I make something that I’m happy with, centuries from now, aliens might come along and say, ‘This is great. That’s what it means to leave something behind,” Kojima said.
It’s a very eccentric approach, but there’s something to what he’s saying: you’re not going to make it big if you don’t believe in it. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is about to turn ten years old (even though it was released half-finished), so we could come back to that. It’s one of Kojima’s most thought-provoking stories, although it could be tied to Quiet’s clothing, but that’s irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion (subjective to who likes it and who doesn’t).
Kojima still has to think about game publishers, not to mention the DMCA, which is not very positive about game preservation, which is not helped by the current state of the industry.
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