Hideo Kojima – video gaming’s first auteur

90% of what is considered impossible is, in fact, possible. The other 10% will become possible with the passage of time & technology.

—Hideo Hojima

Hideo Kojima was born on August 24, 1963. He spent his childhood in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, and moved to Kansai with his family when he was a child. Because his parents work full-time, Hideo Kojima spent most of his childhood time after school by himself. To resolve loneliness, he will watch some movies, which is why he has an extraordinary passion for films since he was a child.

When Hideo Kojima was 13 years old, his father passed away. Hoping to escape from the grief, He started to madly contribute movie scripts to magazines, hoping to enter the film industry. But he gave up the film major and chose economics because of family pressure. Later Hideo Kojima recalled his college time and felt that it was a dark time in his life. He couldn’t abandon his movie dream, but he couldn’t devote himself to it either. He was addicted to his new love-video games and spent his college days in games. This interest changed his life.

It was a period of Japanese game development. Game planning does not require professional counterparts. After graduation, Hideo Kojima came to KONAMI, a company that made him famous in the future. Although Hideo Kojima just graduated, he went directly to the game planning department. But it was a marginal department. No one listened to his proposals from the beginning. 

Many people think that the first game he made was Metal Gear Solid, but the first game he participated in was actually Dreamland Adventure, which is a penguin parkour game. He did only half of it was then replaced by another game planner. 

The key to Kojima’s success lies in his willingness to ponder. At that time, the company’s main attack was Microsoft’s host MSX, but the performance of MSX was not very good, and it was hard to support gunfights and war-themed games that required more models and scenes.

Kojima wants to keep his idea of ​​making war and adapt to the MSX platform. He suddenly thought of games like hide-and-seek and police catching thief that accompanied his childhood. He came up with the idea of designing a war-themed game that uses lurking and spying as gameplay. The concept not only reduces the processor pressure but also retains the game features. Under this unprecedented concept, the sneaky spy war masterpiece Metal Gear that shocked the industry in the future was born.

Hideo Kojima didn’t just consider making games as his own work but as a work of art. He put the passion that he could not release in the movie, together with the respect and love for the game, into his work. He is also releasing his goodwill and sincerity for people who can respect games.

Citations

• “Hideo Kojima – video gaming’s first auteur – Screen Robot”. Screen Robot. July 2014. Archived on April 18, 2016. Retrieved Nov 4, 2020.

• “Interview with Hideo Kojima”. Gamers Today. Archived on November 3, 2005. Retrieved Nov 4, 2020.