Hideo Kojima, the famed Metal Gear creator, recently took to Twitter to set straight a record that didn’t need to be set straight. For context, recently on PlayStation Blog, Jay Boor, Head of Publishing at Kojima Productions, revealed Death Stranding Director’s Cut.
As the name implies and the above trailer shows, the new edition packs more content than before. Not so coincidently, a week prior, also on the PlayStation Blog, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut was revealed, with additional content that expanded the scope of the original game.
If you’re sensing a pattern here, you’re not crazy, and in fact, you’re noticing something deliberate. In the future, I wouldn’t be surprised to see The Last of Us Part II Director’s Cut, and if not that game, another one. The point is, PlayStation is leaning into the Director’s Cut branding and creating an association between it and extended content in the same way that many streaming services are now using “+” after their name to differentiate what they are offering—Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+ to name a few.
Another example of this is the usage of the word “Pro” on Apple products that translates to more capable or more premium—MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and now iPhone 12 Pro. For consumers and marketing purposes, this creates an easy distinction between various but similarly named products, like iPad and iPad Pro, and does not imply a “professional only” product.
With Director’s Cut attached to the title, the same is true in film and gaming—marketing meant to convey (and consumers take it to mean) that compared to the original title, there’s more to be found here. Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, depending on if you believe he willingly left or was shown the door at Konami, Hideo Kojima has taken issue with the new naming. What’s more bewildering is how he’s expressing it; publicly on Twitter.
It’s worth pointing out after his departure from Konami, it was PlayStation that stepped in and funded Kojima Productions, and therefore Death Stranding, making the public statement unprofessional at best. It’s also unlikely that Kojima didn’t know about this new branding—he very well may not have liked it, hence his tweet, but he certainly knew about it. As much as Kojima is a visionary, and he is, when it comes to the creation of multi-million dollar projects—be it film, games, or products—the reality is that it’s the culmination of input from countless people that makes the final product what it is. So unless you’re a solo creator with total control over your creation, you don’t always get what you want, no matter how famous you are. So, to “bite the hand that feeds” is, at the expense of repeating myself, bizarre, unprofessional, and childish.
Think of it another way: in his tweets, Kojima is claiming that by calling this version the Director’s Cut, it implies that the original version was:
released reluctantly because the director did not have the right to edit it, or because the running time had to be shortened.
This is something that no one has ever claimed. Frankly, I’m not sure what Kojima’s end game here is, other than to stir up the pot and create a scenario where he’s both victim and hero, but I keep circling back to “childish.”
The absurdity that Sony would imply their funded and exclusive PlayStation game was originally released hastily and “reluctantly” aside (because why would they drag down their own game?), these are discussions and decisions that happen internally. If anything, at a successful company, debate and decent are rewarded and championed. That is to say, you cannot be surrounded by yes men, and it’s good to have differing opinions and perspectives during inception and, in fact, production. But that also means when a decision is made, everyone falls in line and does their part to ensure the chosen direction is as successful as possible.
There’s a reason why first-party game after first-party game on PlayStation continues to be successful—they allow developers to create the worlds they want, and in turn, developers allow and trust that the teams at PlayStation know a thing or two about marketing.
Outside of ranting and throwing shade at the company that’s supported him indirectly for 30 years and very directly for the past 5 years, besides coming off as a diva, I’m not sure what Kojima hoped to achieve through his tweets. With a Twitter bio that reads, “Game Creator: 70% of my body is made of movies,” maybe it’s time for Kojima to try his shot at Hollywood. I hear some films carry a marketing budget that exceeds that of production. I’m sure the marketing teams there will definitely care what the first-time filmmaker has to say.
See, doing salty isn’t hard, but it sure is unprofessional.
When I think about this entire piece and why I wrote it, it’s less about Kojima and his comments and more about the status of the world. We live in a time when, as individuals, we enjoy infinite freedom and have access to platforms that can amplify our voice to millions around the world in an instant (in the case of Hideo Kojima, 3+ million followers on just Twitter). Did the words “Director’s Cut” truly irk Kojima so much that of all things he could be doing with his time and reach, he felt the need to publically put into question his friends and colleagues at PlayStation? It all seems rather odd/petty/trivial, if not sad. As Thanos said,
Your politics bore me.