Victory Game Center

Konami Sucks - http://kotaku.com/konami-sucks-1702695162

Patrick Klepek throws a tantrum over P.T. getting pulled from the PSN store. But was it a serious loss? I don't think so. There's enough YouTube playthroughs of it online to satisfy anyone who would have wanted to play it, and for everyone that did play it, so much the better for having been there when it was a thing. Life is like that sometimes. Sometimes a lot. But instead of writing a farewell article to P.T., which would have been a labor of love, he wrote a "Konami sucks" article instead. I hope it's already obvious to you how twisted that is.

Despite this nonsense, I can't help but think about Star Wars: Galaxies. I don't know how many rage articles were written back then about how horrible SOE was for what they did to that game, but I do know this. Many people have written odes to the game, in loving memory of what was lost, and such was their "communicating fire", that even I myself now feel the loss. Even though I was never there. And now I can't help but be on the lookout, hoping to recognize any successor that may come.

By the way, that jump scare that Klepek mentions in his article? I don't even remember it. This on the other hand...
This was by far the greatest moment in the demo.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/7/8564283 ... f-all-time

Nick Robinson wrote: The weird irony is that, had P.T. simply remained available, the number of people who are interested in playing it likely would've stayed roughly same as the number of people who have it already. But that's not what happened; instead, Konami introduced scarcity to the equation, and instantly made P.T. one of the coolest, most fascinating games in the history of our medium.

Oh dear.

Konami's got a gift. Simply by manipulating a variable external to the game itself, they can transform their games in the eyes of Polygon writers. Look what happened with Ground Zeroes. They managed to make it one of Polygon's more despised games in the history of our medium, because they made it feel too much like a "cash grab", i.e. by placing an unacceptable price sticker on it.

You read about trade show demos all the time, but how many of them are ever released? Hardly any. The only reason P.T. was released outside of Gamescom was for the community to collaboratively solve its final puzzle.

http://kotaku.com/nobody-actually-knows ... 1621044581

Hideo Kojima wrote: That's precisely what I wanted. I wanted people to get together and cooperate. There are cryptic messages in different languages. I wanted people to come together over the Internet to cooperate and solve it.

And it was solved pretty much immediately, which I'm sure must have been disappointing since Kojima "personally expected this to take at least a week to be solved." And so that was the end of that experiment. An interesting one, sure, but not as interesting as the mystery behind The Phantom Pain and Moby Dick Studios.

But if people are upset because they don't understand that they don't own P.T., and never did, what fault is that of Konami's? Here is an enlightening post on the subject: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... tcount=152

Clear wrote: The alternative being what exactly?

That any supplier of digital goods is beholden to support distribution of said item and all costs incurred for that ad infinitum? Making digital distribution a far more onerous proposition than any sort of publishing in any field... not likely.

Furthermore what happens when the item is a promotional piece with no revenue value, and hence represents a pure cost to the owner with no benefit?

Or how about when the item contains a specific IP or likeness the license for which has a finite span, should they be required renew/re-license indefinitely at the vendors discretion or face potential legal liability?

Its not a simple issue.

Some have even gone so far as to accuse Konami of not caring about videogames. But they all reveal themselves so plainly via the way in which they wring their hands with pleasure over the downfall of others. Jim Sterling calls it the ugly schadenfreude of an ugly man. Let's not commend this ugliness, or ever find ourselves participating in it.

The most common argument against Konami is the claim that P.T. is a "piece of gaming history". Most often yelled loudest by people so void of any appreciation for gaming history that they couldn't even tell you what happened just this last year.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... ostcount=1

HGH wrote: "We will pursue mobile games aggressively," says Konami's new CEO Hayakawa in an interview with Nikkei Trendy Net.

"Our main platform will be mobiles. Following the pay-as-you-play model of games like Power pro and Winning Eleven with additional content, our games must move from selling things like "items" to selling things like "features."

"We saw with these games that even people who buy physical games are motivated to buy extra content. The success of Power pro especially has motivated us to actively push more of our popular series onto mobile than ever before."

"Gaming has spread to a number of platforms, but at the end of the day, the platform that is always closest to us, is mobile. Mobile is where the future of gaming lies."

"We hope that our overseas games such as MGSV and Winning Eleven continue to do well, but we are always thinking about how to push our franchises onto mobile there too."

"With multiplatform games, there's really no point in dividing the market into categories anymore. Mobiles will take on the new role of linking the general public to the gaming world."

http://jin115.com/archives/52080348.html

"Mobile is where the future of gaming lies." I wouldn't have thought so a few years ago, but then mobile VR became a thing, and now I'm not too sure. Too bad it's unlikely to be the direction Konami will go. But it's not as if it's an impossibility. Just look at P.T.. That's a VR game if ever I saw one. And if Konami is going to be as aggressively focused on mobile as they say they are, it's only a matter of time before they realize the potential here.

Then again, mobile VR has its own set of issues. Maybe it would have been more accurate to have said that mobile will fund the future of gaming.

http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2015/05/kon ... obile.html

Konami, as a company, underwent a major structural reorganization in March this year. The aim of this reform has been to guarantee that, in the quickly-changing digital entertainment industry where new game designs and platforms constantly alter the market environment, we can accurately observe new customer demands and market trends, and apply our long-established technology and knowhow quickly and effectively with a range of targeted responses.

Konami will continue to embrace the challenge of creating entertainment content via different platforms; across not only mobile platforms, but for home consoles, arcade units, and cards, to meet the changing needs of the times.

Report: Konami Is Treating Its Staff Like Prisoners - http://kotaku.com/report-konami-is-trea ... 1721700073

Brian Ashcraft wrote: According to a report on Nikkei, the corporate culture at Konami—home of Metal Gear, Silent Hill and Pro Evolution Soccer—hasn’t only soured over the past few years, but has become almost terrifyingly Orwellian.

Game companies can be pretty brutal places to work, and this report makes Konami sound like one of the most extreme. It's amazing to consider that despite these conditions, they were still able to produce the high quality games that they did. I'm mostly referring to Metal Gear Rising, Ground Zeroes, and The Phantom Pain.

Konami profits up by 159%, as mobile games gain traction - http://gamasutra.com/view/news/250656/K ... action.php

Chris Kerr wrote: Konami's foothold in the mobile market was a key factor in its success, with mobile titles such as Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu, which has surpassed 13 million downloads, PES Club Manager, Disney Tsum-Tsum, and Star Wars: Force Collection all enjoying "steady sales."

Looking ahead, the publisher explained it's working hard towards the "inclusion of a sustained operation game mode that utilizes the operational expertise of mobile games", adding that console titles Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 and Metal Gear Solid V have also generated "great expectations."