Geoff Keighley practically put The Game Awards 2016 on a pause for a while as he delivers a tear-jerking honorary speech for Hideo Kojima before he handed over the award for Video Game Industry Icon. Keighley reveals how Kojima dealt with the pressure on Metal Gear Solid V's development and the incident were Konami forbade him to attend the 2015 Game Awards ceremony. The speech has definitely crushed everyone's hearts. It even started a 'Kojima!' chant afterwards.
A bit of a backtrack, some may recall that back in 2015 when news has surfaced on the internet regarding alleged poor working conditions at Konami when Metal Gear Solid 5 was in development. The allegations are said to be the reason why the game has pushed its release more than once, ultimately leading to delays. It was a scornful story, for one, those who do not prove to be 'useful' were forced to become security guards or cleaners. Cameras were also all over the place mimicking a Big Brother type of employee monitoring.
Despite all the negative working conditions, Keighley proudly stated during his speech that Kojima was still humbly working to finish up the game despite being 'locked in a separate room'. As the camera focused towards Kojima, you can feel that all those scenes flashed back into him and that you could detect his eyes begin to produce tears, but were held back. Considering that Kojima was isolated in a separate room for the final six months of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's development, I would think Keighley has done 'justice' by pausing the awards for a while to focus the moment towards the video game industry icon.
Game Awards creator and host for 2016 also added that Kojima was not allowed to talk to other members of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's team to work on the game. They had to channel it via someone else. And this has made the game development even more difficult to accomplish, but ultimately, the game was done and launched. It even had overwhelming positive reviews from everybody across the gaming industry.
It wasn't just Keighly who backed up Kojima during The 2016 Game Awards. Another friend, Guillermo del Toro, tweeted the 'F' word to Konami while posting stuff about the ceremony. Keighly also expressed that last year's failure to award Kojima has kept him going this year and finally handed over the award the industry icon really deserved.
Kojima's coping mechanism despite the 'mistreatment'
Even if you've just heard about this story today, if you analyze the Kojima moment during The Game Awards 2016, the way he held back his tears when Keighley delivered his speech would make you think that Hideo Kojima is a very patient person After all that treatment from his previous company, he still managed to humbly leave and make his own studio, Kojima Productions kicking off their first game, Death Stranding.
I would say that this would be the perfect channel to pour out the frustrations and disappointments he probably has held back for years with Konami. Having a lot of patience and being very creative at the same time makes Kojima a rare person. Usually creative people leveling with Kojima's tend to be very impatient, that makes the gaming industry icon one-of-a-kind. I've cleared up some time today to write about this and express my respect to one the people I look up to, not just in terms of making video games, but in terms of creativity and patience in general. Congratulations, Kojima-san.
