Speaking at the “Il Cinema in Piazza” Film Festival in Italy (translated by Genki), the Death Stranding and Metal Gear director said that at least with digital games, users have the data on their systems, something that isn’t the case with cloud gaming.
“Since production is ending in 2028, this is about video games, but I grew up with physical media, so I find it really sad,” he said. “Currently, I’ve been buying up a lot of Blu-rays, such as various movies, and CDs too.
“The situation is different for games [than movies], as they are downloaded to the hard drive, that means the game data remains on your own hardware. However, if things shift to streaming in the future, that won’t be the case anymore.”
Can’t wait for Death Stranding 3 to feature a character called “Sad Discman”
hence why I’ll never own a playstation device again.
You could release DRM free copies that users can copy to any form of media they like. If you are using DRM and complaining about this I have no respect for you.
So you’d rather live in a world without Metal Gear Solid, Zone of the Enders, or Death Stranding?
There’s no way Konami or Sony are going to let that fly. Should Kojima have died on the DRM hill on principal instead releasing his art to the world the way he did?
Should Kojima have died on the DRM hill
Yes, because it would be based. Release on PC only and tell them to go fuck themselves.
I mean, yeah
Are you saying Konami and Sony are the reason his games are good?
I don’t disagree with you but I also have to assume there are contracts / stipulations in place that prevent a publisher from doing this after sony/microslop/Nintendo agree to sell digital / physical copies if your game.
The same Koijima thar was doing a game for Stadia?
He pitched it, it was approved, he started working on it.
Then he received pressure to make it multiplayer (presumably to add microtransactions). He refused, so the game was canceled.
Yes, that Kojima. The same Kojima who never sold you a microtransaction, weapon skin, season pass, or even a paid DLC. The same Kojima who never compromised his artistic vision for a payday, the same Kojima who never bowed to studio pressure to make his game “more accessible” or “more marketable”. The very same Kojima who had to be forcefully removed from his own studio before he’d allow Konami to have a say in his creative process; yes, him. That’s the Kojima you’re referring to.
The same Kojima who did not make a Stadia game.
Well because the game got cancelled by Google after the closure of the platform. After Microsoft decided to resume thst game and now he is building it with them
At the end of the day discs are not the important part consumer protection and the right of first sale in the digital space just need to be created to fix this mess. I also wonder if the Tariff tomfullery was a factor as they couldn’t have any consistency of cost and profit like before.
the right of first sale in the digital space just need to be created to fix this mess
That sounds nice at first, but if you think about it, the logical conclusion is that: rather than an artist making a sale per person who wants to experience their work, they would make sales proportional to the maximum number of simultaneous viewers. With digital ownership, it would be trivial to instantly transfer ownership, so the moment someone is done playing a game or watching a movie, they’ll sell it instantly to someone else.
The only content that could benefit in such an economy is low production value slop that seeks to go instantly viral and issue licenses while there’s still demand. Then by the time it dies down they’re on to their next slop hit. That and live-service titles that try to keep people holding their licenses. Short single-player experiences, and games from small creators who rely on passive income from a few new people finding their game over time would sell a few copies at first, and then the licenses out there would just always undercut the purchase of any new license.
Also the exchanges would make a bunch of money by taking a cut of each sale. Which is arguably better than just Sony or Valve taking their cut.
I don’t like it either, but we can’t act like right of first sale for digital licenses would solve all problems and not create any new ones.
The shorter version I’ve used to describe this concern is: Imagine game resale could happen through a script kiddy’s Python program. Rather than individuals arranging sales over chat, anticipate that most sales would be arranged by online sites that are copying the model of GameStop, and twice as scummy as CSGO skin gamblers.
You sell your copy of a game you bought for $50, down to $20. It’s bought instantly by an AI algorithm, and then relisted for $34.99. Then that one’s bought instantly to resell for $39.98.
Said the guy who released a horror game teaser then took it off the store…
Death stranding sits at about 10k votes to bring to gog.com but nah. Gotta have that DRM.
But nice try Kojima. You almost got me.
I’ll call bull on the game removal front. Pretty sure that was Konami being shitsticks when they had the falling out.
You are spot on the GoG front though. If he really cared about ownership he would of put it on the storefront and not hid behind the DRM.
Fair enough. Apparently that was 12 years ago already. Damn, where did the years go?
But yeah Kojima is just doing cheap lip service here. He never cared about game preservation at all. Sorry for the people here that worship him like a god but he never chose game preservation when he actually did have full reign.
It’s a teaser for a game that never came out, I’m pretty sure he had complications with studios. What’s the point of keeping a short demo of a game that was canceled?
P.T. was the announcement teaser that Kojima was to be directing Silent Hills with del Toro but then Konami cancelled it as the company exited the video game industry and Kojima left to found their own studio.
Why blame Kojima for something Konami did without their involvement at all and long after they’d left the company?
Kojima is a they?
Everyone is a they. It’s been a singular third person pronoun since the 1300s.
The demo is really fucking good and consoles that still have it installed go for a high price. There is demand for it.
What‘s the point of keeping a good game, you ask? Are you serious?
Complete fucking bullshit. Konami literally did that and caused a break with Kojima because of it
He took it off the store? I thought it was the company, after he was fired.
It was, this guy is just inventing reasons to be mad at the wrong person.
God I wish his games were better.
I’ve tried to get into them many times, and usually I find the experience to be soooo lacking.
It’s sad cause when he does get it right, the game can be really good, but he focuses too much on things he thinks everyone wants, like very long cut scenes.
Kojima originally wanted to be a filmmaker. When he couldn’t break into the industry, he switched over to making video games.
Taste issue
As someone who loves Kojima games and has since MGS1, not wanting multiple hour-long cut scenes in an action game is a perfectly reasonable preference. Even diehard Kojima fans acknowledge he’s long-winded with his storytelling and his pacing is glacial; it’s practically part of his style at this point.
Yes that’s perfectly reasonable, hence a matter of taste.
I acknowledge all those things but I like them. I hope everyone is able to find games they love according to their own subjective tastes.
So it’s a taste issue.
Skill issue
More like a patience issue.
I just don’t have the time to invest in something that I don’t find fun for the sake of it getting fun later.
I 100% agree especially now my time is so limited and I have so many amazing experiences to choose from, but the thing is some of us are enthralled by these games from start to end.
There’s no one else around who actually makes games like this.
If you don’t like the long cinematics just skip them. Problem solved.
But I play games to enjoy the story, the art of game making is about telling a story in an interactive way.
To be fair it does work out sometimes. I found metal gear rising revengence to be an amazing game. So that’s what I do with his games, try them hoping to hit a home run. My original comment was about wishing it was more likely.
Oh, you think that solves the problem? Go play MGS4 or Death Stranding. Skip every cutscene, then come back and tell me what happened in the story.
I think skipping cutscenes solves the problem of not liking cutscenes, yes.
I do like Kojima’s cutscenes so I don’t skip them. They’re a part of the experience.
Have you tried the death stranding series? I just finished 2 yesterday. It was fantastic. In both, you can tailor your experience - skip cut scenes, drop difficulty to ‘story’ for frustrating fights, etc. But those games tell a story in a way only video games can. And all the little flourishes that emotionally connect you to your character, like rocking the controller to sooth the baby sealed in your chest pod, are so charming and affecting.
I haven’t bought a console in over a decade, but I was under the impression that most/all “physical” copies these days were little more then digital download codes on discs or in cases. How many actually hold the whole game, enough to qualify as “owning” it?
Most discs still contain the full game, most physical releases contain discs of the full game
Some physical releases are just an empty case with a code. Some Nintendo Switch cartridges are just license dongles for the game download.
You’ve never owned a game. You’ve only ever licensed a game. This is true for all software. Removing the physical medium of distribution just allows the copyright cartel the control it has always wanted over something you paid for. But they have been hoodwinking consumers over what “purchase” and “buy” and “own” mean. Technically speaking, any game company could send you a C&D and tell you to stop playing their game forever, your license is revoked, and if you ever played it again they could sue for damages. Doubtful they would, as I doubt it would be worth their time; but this does mean they have the right to just decide their work is no longer available and vanish all digital copies; and they could also make all physical discs stop working through system software updates.
Well, you see, Ju$tice is expensive and unreliable.
So the decision of using or not the Justice System for enforcing one’s rights isn’t purelly “am I likely to win”, it’s also about “is it worth it bringing it to Court”, which is especially important when the damages one is entitled to get are low (like the price of a game).
At which point “who controls the thing under dispute”, which is theoretically unimportant in a perfect Justice System, becomes the main deciding factor.
Maybe an example will make it clear:
- You have a game which the publisher wants to take away from you. They’re actually in their right to do so: you actually read through and accepted BEFORE PURCHASING (this is important in jurisdiction which aren’t legal jokes, unlike the US) a set of terms and conditions that gave them that right and it was clearly that this wasn’t a sale but a time limited licensing. However you have the actual installer for a single player game (in your computer, physical disk, whatever), totally free to install, no phone-home DRM authorization check - you control that copy. They have to actually take you to court to force you to delete that game from your system and destroy all copies. This is a $50 game. Are they really going to do it for a $50 game?!
- Similarly but reversed: you bought a physical disk with a game, it cost $50, it has phone-home DRM to install and to run. You didn’t agreed to anything before the purchase and you’re in a legal jurisdiction (such as Germany) which is not a joke so the implicit rights from a sale cannot be altered unilaterally post sale by a forced change of the contract terms of the sale (i.e. EULAs aren’t valid there). You’re in the right yet they block you from installing or running that game. To get back what you’re entitled to or compensation (all of $50) you have to take them to court. Are you really going to do it for a $50 game?!
Anyways, the point I’m making here is that well before a Court of Law actually goes through the whole thing and determines who is in the Right and orders a certain action in favor of and/or compensation for the injured side, de facto the outcome is often decided by the actual stakeholders deciding “is it worth it taking this to court?” and in a system where Justice has costs (the bigger the costs the more that’s the case) “who controls it” is pretty much the single biggest factor in that decision.
In simple terms, unless there is some kind of streamlined Judicial process for that kind of case (like there is around things like loans) bringing a case to court to force the side in control of something to act in a certain way with it is only worth it for large monetary amounts, and generally the price of a game is below that.
It just so happens that at the moment for console games having the installer for it in a physical medium in your control is having control of that copy but, as my example above illustrates, if the game does phone-home DRM authorization checks like some PC games go, it’s actually not really under your control even if you have it in physical media.
Exactly. The only reason physical media has seemed like “owning” is because the mechanism to actually enforce their license has not been feasible.
You know how often movies or shows flip off on streaming services? That’s the future of games if the laws don’t change
Sorry to kind of ignore your question, but I think it misses the point.
Even with only the partial game data on the disc, the disc still held the rights to the game. Therefore, the rights were transferrable. That is to say, you could still sell your disc and it would have value to the next owner.
When you are forced to buy the game directly from the PlayStation store, your game license is no longer transferable. You can’t sell your old games, and you can’t buy used games from someone else.
All of them contain the entire game. The only functional difference over the early days is that the game data isn’t read from disc while you play.
Not true for the majority of games, however there have been a few that have done this or something like this.
Been seeing this sentiment a lot in the wake of the news and want to stress, most games still come on disc these days. FF7 Rebirth, for example, is so big it comes on two.
