
The Konami exodus - slantyyz
http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/The-Konami-exodus?page=1
======
sillysaurus3
One thing we're overlooking is that even if these actions are illegal,
employees are rarely in a position to do anything about it. The power
asymmetry is vast. Most employees don't have savings, especially in the game
industry, and they'd regret spending any of it on courts. Could the courts
even do much?

Having newspapers write an article about it is probably one of the more
effective ways of dealing with this.

~~~
bildung
Well, this is what unions are for. In the countries I know, union membership
gets you legal costs insurance for work related cases (for exactly these power
dynamics). And economies of scale usually mean that unions have pretty good
employment law attorneys.

Granted, I have no idea how it works in Japan.

~~~
izacus
Union can't force a company to rehire you when you're "untouchable". In a lot
of these environments corporations like Konami have enough power to
essentially make you unemployable. Not having a positive reference (or even
having an unofficial black mark against you) from them can easily be end of
your career in the field. Especially if you slandered (or, god forbid, sued!)
your previous employer.

~~~
bildung
As said, I have now clue about things in Japan, but in Germany, a court can
definitely order the company to rehire you if the reason for firing was
unlawful. In smaller companies coming back to that job usually isn't fun (as
your boss usually was directly involved in the case), thus in these cases you
usually get compensation of about a year's worth of wages.

Bigger companies are usually pretty professional about these things.
(Completely different domain, but just look at Apple and Samsung being in
court while Samsung still being a supplier for Apple.)

~~~
thanksgiving
I don't know about Germany but in the US, we apparently have a do not hire
list that goes across company lines for even positions like bank tellers?
There was no visible public outrage against any company that refused to hire
former Wells Fargo employees for example

~~~
yourapostasy
> ...we apparently have a do not hire list that goes across company lines for
> even positions like bank tellers? There was no visible public outrage
> against any company that refused to hire former Wells Fargo employees for
> example

For bank tellers, I believe this is tracked via the federal agency FINRA,
through AWC submittals. For the Wells Fargo employees, you likely are thinking
of the brokers who were ordered by Wells Fargo management to fraudulently open
accounts. Allegedly, many of these brokers then found out later after they
were terminated from Wells Fargo that the bank marked their termination on a
U5 form in a manner that all but ejects them from the financial services
industry, forever [1]. In both of these cases, they are via mandatory
regulatory notifications, and not like the Japanese cases discussed here where
it sounds more informal.

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/business/dealbook/wells-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/business/dealbook/wells-
fargo-faces-scrutiny-for-black-marks-on-ex-employee-files.html)

~~~
walshemj
Finance is different get caught doing naughty things and you can be banned for
life in the same way a Dr can be struck off

~~~
sedachv
The most famous financial criminal of the 1980s United States, Michael Milkin,
is now a wealthy philanthropist living large in Los Angeles. The disincentive
for large-scale financial crime in the United States is just not there.

~~~
walshemj
I think he was before the finance industry put this in place

------
paulmd
You know what one of the absolute defenses against libel is?

The truth.

Konami treated Kojima like shit, Kojima left and took most of the talent with
him. What Konami has left is a pretty cool engine and a hot IP, no creatives.
MGS fans know it and don't respect Konami's next project even a little.
Zombie-survival alternate universe, really?

In contrast I don't even know what Kojima's next thing is, it'll probably be
pretty cool though. Kojima is good at over the top absurd and awesome.

Also, it's a fucking travesty that Fox Engine won't be used for anything
important ever again, because for an open-world engine it runs like a dream.
Too bad the online multiplayer is a non-stop cheatfest.

~~~
elmigranto
> Zombie-survival alternate universe, really?

But spirits of enemies killed in combat, levitating psychics, phisically
impossible robots and horseriders literally made of fire are okay with you?

~~~
intoverflow2
Zombies are not OK with the guy who was the main creative force behind the
entire series so you can try and argue the rest of the series is just as
ridiculous but if Kojima says they have no place in it then they have no place
in it.

This isn't a series like Assassins Creed, Final Fantasy or even Star Wars
where countless people have had their hands on the lore this is a single
creatives vison.

~~~
tnecniv
I mean, MGS5 effectively had zombies...

I get the point though. I'm also bummed out by the exodus. I love MGS and I
want to see what he can do on that engine given enough time. MGS5 was great
but felt like Konami told him to cut it short and GTFO.

~~~
paulmd
To echo my point above, Fox Engine runs like a dream and looks fantastic. It's
one of my few go-to examples of a one-off/scratch-built custom engine working
out really well for a game, along with Witcher 3/RED Engine 3 (which also
looks/runs great but is definitely slower).

It's a real shame that Konami is probably going to euthanize it after a few
quickie moneygrabs from the handful of interns they have left from Kojima's
team.

A lot of open-world engines have pretty severe stutter problems (examples:
Fallout 4, GTA:V, etc), and Fox Engine's performance is fantastic. With MGSV I
get 60 fps locked with 1440p and 1.4x DSR at max settings on a GTX 1080. And
it actually does look really good too - a chopper extraction with a sunrise
over the desert will startle me every now and then with how great it looks.

I have a few complaints but they're fairly minor.

* Some weird bayer-mask alpha blending effects (example of a similar problem in Witcher 3: [http://i.imgur.com/8neiqOg.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/8neiqOg.jpg) ), which are solved by running at 1.4x DSR, which is easily doable with this engine

* 60 fps locked physics - c'mon, really?

* Clipping planes cause bullets to abruptly stop working at 250m range, which MGSV tries to hide with map design by breaking line-of-sight, but it's noticeable in some desert/plains areas with longer sightlines

* Online play has rampant cheating. Gotta design in security from Day 1 if you're going to do it... and FOB combat was obviously hacked in by a couple interns way after the fact as a money-grab.

~~~
fareesh
Worth noting that the Fox engine somehow manages to pull of great performance
on very terrible configurations too.

~~~
paulmd
Yup. I could actually boot it on a Atom/Baytrail-M Celeron N2808 with
integrated graphics although I was just using the menus and performance was
still pretty rough even at minimum settings.

It's certainly not up to the graphical quality of Witcher 3, but it's not bad
either, and performance is very good for the quality (especially given that
open-world engines are tougher to do well).

With FreeSync or Gsync or Mobile GSync it would be very playable on an APU or
a low-end discrete laptop graphics chip. Can't wait for consoles to start
driving FreeSync adoption in the HDTV market as well.

------
Illniyar
That seems very counterproductive to me, who will want to go work in Konami
once this behavior is known? This will probably severely hamper their ability
to recruit, especially recruit experienced people.

Am I missing something? Perhaps it's more common in Japan's video game
industry to work in the same place for life?

~~~
hkmurakami
Actually the video game industry is one of the more labor liquid industries in
Japan. Teams leave, producers with track records go solo, key guys get
poached, etc.

Definitely more liquid than manufacturing, finance, insurance, IT consulting,
publishing, aerospace, shosha, semiconductors, etc.

~~~
wapz
Do you have examples of key guys getting poached in the Japanese market? From
my experience here most people tend to stay a long time or move on their own
will (not as often as US IMO though)

~~~
hkmurakami
The Tactics Orge team from Quest getting poached by Square back around 1995.

------
kazinator
That's crazy. Ok, "you can't put on your resume you worked here or we will
take you to court."

The judge will only want to know one thing: is it _true_ whether or not that
person worked for Konami.

Is there no paper trail to substantiate that? Contracts?

Did they have no signed contracts, and get paid in cash?

~~~
kbenson
My guess is that there's an overly broad NDA involved, and some enterprising
Konami lawyer figured out it can apply to divulging that you were employed
there at all.

~~~
labster
You can bypass the NDA by doing: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → Ⓑ Ⓐ Start

------
otachack
I wish the ex employees of Konami luck. This blacklist behavior will only help
in further developing the independent game scene in Japan. We've seen great
games in the past from Japan such as Cave Story, La Mulana, Downwell, and also
Kickstarter-ish campaigns for spiritual sequels to classic genres. Kojima's
name itself carries a ton of industry weight and I'm sure he and his team
won't find trouble finding funds and talent for their endeavors as hinted by
teasers of his new IP.

It's unfortunate that a slew of IPs will go down with Konami, but they haven't
been looking great in awhile and this is just a conclusion of the signs in the
past. Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Suikoden, ZoE, even those weird late 90s PS1
games like Broken Helix will always be remembered by me.

------
digitalzombie
> Ex-Kons are not allowed to put their Konami experience on their public
> resumes.

I had a start up that tried to do this a year or so later, after I left the
company on bad term mind you. The lead basically tried to bully me. I just up
and left on the same day that he tried that.

I read this and look around where I'm at, palm trees and beach. Oh right I'm
in California.

I tried several emails to explain to the lawyer. He made bunch of bs excuses.

So I immediately googled for a cease and desist letter and send it to the
buddy.

He basically asked me if I know who he is.

I don't care if your Donald Trump. If Trump couldn't pass the muslim ban good
luck with you trying to ~~force~~ coerce me to remove this experience from my
linkedin.

After that I never hear from the lawyer again or his company again.

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
You did the right thing by leaving the experience on your resume! It's your
experience, not theirs.

Also by standing up to these bullies in the tech industry who think having
lots of brains and very little compassion for others is somehow a divine
quality. Trump-like ego-maniacs everywhere I turn in this industry it makes me
so sick. Kojima did good by going out on his own and not letting the empty
threats of a has-been corporation like Konami shake him from his vision as a
legendary creator.

------
zitterbewegung
I think this will backfire and just make Death Stranding and Kohjima more
popular. As a developer Konami is really struggling and I wouldn't be suprised
that it closed down soon or got consolidated .

~~~
grawlinson
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the assumption that Konami shuttered
all their console games to focus on pachinko machines because the profit
margins are just too delicious to pass up.

~~~
sythe2o0
They're developing another game with the engine used for MGSV, but you could
account that to just trying to recoup costs involved in making that engine.
Otherwise I don't know of other console or pc game projects of theirs.

~~~
thirdsun
As far as I know there's another MGS spin off they are working on and they
continue developing and releasing their annual Pro Evolution Soccer. With the
latter my guess is they want a piece of the money-making pie that is Ultimate
Team and works so well for EA Sports' FIFA series.

------
Kiro
Is this a cultural thing? I know a lot of Japanese people and I get the
feeling that some things that are completely outrageous in the Western world
are not frowned upon in Japan. I can't imagine even the most shady company
doing the stuff mentioned under "Persona non grata" in my country without
causing a complete shitstorm.

~~~
blazespin
Yes, very cultural. What's not being mentioned, because it's taken for granted
is that the CEO to employee salary ratio in Japan is like 16 versus 300 for
us. Loyalty to your company is very important, in return the company is pretty
loyal to you.

~~~
emodendroket
That's really far less true than it used to be; Japanese companies want to
have it both ways, where employees remain as loyal to them as before but they
don't return the favor.

------
jpatokal
One other thing worth mentioning is that gaming companies work famously
punishing hours, Japanese companies work famously punishing hours, so
unsurprisingly Japanese gaming companies work _really_ punishing hours... and
Konami is infamous even by those standards!

[https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp...](https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2015/8/3/9089247/konami-
nikkei-report-workplace-culture-metal-gear-solid)

------
maruhan2
It doesn't matter if it's legal or not. If someone is gonna apply to another
game company and the company sees konami in the resume, they could call up
konami and ask about them. Then, Konami will give a bad review. That alone is
a risk employees do not want to take

~~~
zamalek
> Konami will give a bad review.

In some countries this is illegal - the worst you can say about a person is
"no comment."

~~~
teraflop
Which would those be, out of curiosity? I know it's a widespread urban legend
in the US that employers can't give negative references, but I've never heard
of a country where it's actually true.

~~~
wccrawford
You _can_ give them, but it's so worrisome to HR that they usually just
outright forbid it. It isn't worth the legal hassle if someone tries to sue
them over it, no matter how 'right' they are.

We're talking about an ex-employee here. It's not like giving negative
feedback will really help the company. It can only hurt them.

Fortunately, lack of good information strongly implies negative information
that is being withheld, so it's all fine.

~~~
zamalek
Yeah, you don't want to hire a dud.

In my case, my manager was particularly fearful about losing me. When I told
him that I was entertaining other gigs he plainly told me that "I will black
mark you across the industry if you leave." I was young, naive and scared, so
I took it seriously (luckily things have improved vastly since). I now know
that I would not put him on my CV; instead the myriads of other employees who
have interacted with me. This is why those laws are in-place: preventing
hostage situations.

------
erikb
This is why you should take care of your stars well, even if they make weird
requests. Konami will probably win the battle, but lose the war for the
customer's hearts. In the end just everybody involved loses. If Konami instead
supported Kojima, maybe even invest in his company, both could have made loads
of money together.

~~~
swang
they only make 2 video games now. the metal gear knockoff and PES. and even
though pachinko machines are the butt of people's jokes about konami, they
actually don't make as much for konami due to declining revenue (degenerate
gamblers)...

~~~
Fej
And their massive lineup of rhythm games.

------
afinlayson
Funny gamers are blacklisting Konami, for putting out an unfinished game like
MGS5, firing Kojima and trying to ruin his legacy with Metal Gear Survivor....

~~~
jakebasile
I can never forgive them for what they did to Kojima. That man is a treasure
and helped create some of my most formative games. I'd say I won't buy any
more of their games but they don't seem interested in making any.

~~~
intoverflow2
It's awful his IP (Not just MGS but ZOE, Snatcher and Policenauts) will be
locked up in a company with zero respect for it.

But the man is so prolific and Kojima Productions is clearly serious business,
it'll probably mean his next projects have the potential to be his best yet.

------
spamlord
Hopefully this is included in Jim Sterling's next 'Fuck Konami News' segment,
because fuck Konami.

------
drawkbox
This could just be my experience but one thing I have learned working in games
is that Asian companies can be really authoritarian to their employees. I have
experienced this with Japan, South Korea and China. Game companies are very
secretive and authoritarian with their workers to begin with but culturally it
seems more acceptable in teams I worked with in Asia.

A team I worked with in South Korea regularly slept at the office because the
Korean lead was there slave driving the crunch. South Korea in itself is hard
to even launch a game there because they demand percentages and you must have
internal teams/representatives, similar with China. China team, the employees
were always in a fear state of making the boss angry or doing the wrong thing.
I noticed that it led to releases just to meet dates even if the work was
incomplete just so the boss would not get mad. Working with them the devs told
me they regularly ship when not complete just to satisfy dates and it led to
many issues especially at hand off points because they knew it wasn't fully
functioning.

I think overall companies in games think they can get away with this
ownership/authoritarian type attitude anyways, but it might be easier in Asian
cultures where there is a more authoritarian lean.

------
dceddia
> In 2014, Konami workers who liked a Facebook post by an ex-Kon saying he
> started working for a different company were shuffled to different
> positions.

I know it's generally a bad idea to badmouth employers, past or present, on
Facebook or other social media... but punishing employees for merely "liking"
a post is more excessive than I've heard before. Maybe it's a cultural
difference, but it seems very Big Brother of them nonetheless.

------
lazugod
Are these actions legal in Japan?

~~~
wapz
I work for a Japanese company. Even if something is illegal in Japan it still
happens. One particular thing is unpaid overtime. Most employees are hourly
and they can be "forced" to work overtime for 50+ hours/week (all the time)
without overtime pay. If they bring it up they will get "relocated" or just
get harassed the entire time they're there until they quit. If they bring it
to the government work agency (hello work) the company will deny the hours and
say it was all voluntary. I have been told this personally by hello work.
Also, I only have experience in one Japanese company so surely this does not
occur at _all_ companies.

~~~
wst_
I am sure there are companies like this. Yet, I also see a wind of change. I
see Japanese who leave on time. Strangely enough, I also see foreigners who
stay late. Above mentioned voluntarism, though, is very difficult to explain
even by Japanese themselves. Many of them stay long and couldn't tell you why.
It's not that simple. It is entire culture, ethos of group member (not
necessary an employee), who works hard for the sake of a group.

------
kakarot
Konami put out a lot of classics in the 90's that I enjoyed, but after Hideo
Kojima's departure there is just no reason to support them as a company. I'm
pretty sure they were the reason Project M was canceled, but we'll never
really know. They won't be seeing any more of my money.

------
mcguire
" _In April this year, a Kojima Productions executive applied for the company
to join ITS Kenpo, a health insurance society for companies in the gaming and
internet service industry. Joining such insurance organizations is crucial to
employee welfare, but the application was not even accepted. When the
executive asked why, he was told by ITS Kenpo that all applications are
screened by the board chairman before being reviewed by the board, and it
could not show this application to the chairman._ "

I'm sorry, "could not show this application to the chairman"?

~~~
Asooka
It's explained in the article. The chairman is also a chair in Konami. You
literally cannot show him the application without ruining your career.

------
Pxtl
I can't wait for Konami to go bankrupt so that somebody will finally do
something with the great stuff they made. How on earth is there not a modern
4-player Contra game?

------
throwaway47861
Damn, and I thought I was a vengeful person.

Goes to show you once more how many people on positions of power have the
emotional intelligence of a bully teenager but they can't be touched.

------
hkmurakami
Well konami wanted to diversify out of the video game business (for example
they run a large chain of sports gyms) so hey they're getting some help in
that regard.

------
cavanasm
This reminds me of some of the drama surrounding Keiji Inafune (creator of
Megaman) leaving Capcom. Not nearly the level of company push back /
employment issues, but there was lots of blame slinging on both ends. Then the
appearance that Capcom cancelled an in development Megaman game that Inafune
reportedly wasn't very involved in just to spite him (which I'm still sad
about).

------
matthewmcg
So instead of an "up or out" culture they have an "up, up, down, down, left,
right, left, right" culture?

------
demarq
How I'd love to make some app that would help protect IP workers some way :(
This is more of a policy issue, unfortunately.

~~~
legulere
Why does it have to be an app? The obvious way to go for protecting workers is
unionisation.

~~~
emodendroket
The idea of replacing a union with an app approaches self-parody.

~~~
demarq
just going to quote my self here.

> This is more of a policy issue, unfortunately.

------
GuB-42
The Konami exodus, when people are leaving up, up, down, down, left, right,
left and right.

------
salesguy222
I love how the society we currently live in places so much confidence in the
statement that "corporations = efficient, rational market actors"...

and yet here we are, slaves to whims of a few thousand people globally who
control 35 trillion dollars in assets.

This virtually guarantees that if you want to make a liveable income, you
either need to work for or sell to a truly psychotic group of individuals who
control an arbitrarly large portion of wealth thanks to a host of monetary and
legal policies.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Are there any other ways to effectively organize an economy?

This subthread doesn't seem too promising, but I'd genuinely like to know.

~~~
andy_ppp
I actually like the idea that the workforce own businesses instead of Capital
owning them. There is no reason not to have cooperatives run everything,
however often successful co-ops tend to float because the workforce can see a
big payoff. Greed doesn't need to define the reason why businesses are created
though.

Maybe instead of pay defining where you are within an organisation it's how
much vote you get in the business. And obviously you can engage in peer to
peer performance review system like Valve. To be honest I'd only ask one
question; How much do you want to work with X again? 0 - 10.

~~~
tajen
All of this is possible in the current economy – Many companies are founded by
employees. However, I'm personally comvinced they are not efficient, neither
in decision-making nor in usage of the workforce. So what happens to them, and
why aren't they the most common form of employment? Maybe some don't keep
their form of cooperative decision-making, maybe others never make it big on
the market, maybe creators of such companies don't intend to become AirBnb or
Amazon and prefer a lifestyle business – all in all, traditional companies
still dominate them.

~~~
Asooka
I think it's because being a cooperative is not a stable state. You can go
cooperative->traditional, but it's much harder to transition from
traditional->cooperative.

Ultimately, a hierarchical society is instinctively easy to grasp, while a
more fluid mostly-equal one is not. People still instinctively understand
hierarchies better than full-on democracy.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
> People still instinctively understand hierarchies better

instinctively? Citation needed. If anything, humans are wired to interact in
small and non-hierarchical groups.

------
naaaaak
Companies that do this are screwing themselves hard in the long-term. No one
of value will want a job there.

------
nnq
_Mostly offtopic, but:_ Is it just me, or based on both politics, social
dynamics and economic indicators, Japan is economically speaking a _house of
cards waiting to fucking fall apart in a huuuuge crysis?!_ I mean, I guess
that aged population coupled with pro-peace/buddshit-style mindsets in some
younger ones stabilized things a bit... but for how long?

(Don't tell me US is the same: the transparency with which they wash their
dirty laundry in international public waters, and the fact that they have many
layers of "social backups" are just two reasons to believe otherwise.)

~~~
toyg
The Japanese would rather kill themselves than defaulting on their debts.
Until that holds true, and assuming they don't get attacked militarily, the
country will continue to be what it is.

~~~
emodendroket
Most of the holders of Japanese government debt are Japanese citizens, so
repudiating the debt is not likely to be a popular move.

