Designer Research Project

Samuel Ibeka

ComD 1112

Designer Research Paper

Hideo Kojima

Hideo Kojima(Born on August 24,1963, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese video game designer, director, producer, and writer. He is the youngest of three children and was exposed to films at an early age. Growing up as a kid, he had to deal with loneliness. Mainly because of his father passing away when he was 13 years old. As a result, He had to take care of himself all through his school years. This kind of seclusion would eventually play a major role in his life, being restless whenever he is by himself, and choosing to interact with others to break the discomfort(Aberdeen, 1). I selected him for this topic because one of his professions is Game Design and it’s a profession that I might consider as well. What I intend on doing throughout this assignment is to discuss Kojima’s life, his accomplishments, and why it’s appealing to me and my subject area, and finally the success that he was able to achieve.

Hideo Kojima is considered to be the Konami Digital Entertainment, Operating office and studio head of Kojima headquarters. He’s known as one of the top game designers of the industry. Especially for his performance on games like “Metal Gear Solid”, and a recent installment called “Death Stranding.” He was also featured in the newest game that was released called “Cyberpunk 2077”, he was shown as a NPC(A Non-Playable Character). At a young age he grew up enthralled by movies but games and films was not a career choice yet. In fact, he was an Economics major at first and would eventually develop an interest in games when he encountered the video game called “Super Mario Bros”(IGN,1) That was enough to get him started on becoming a game designer. Back to when he was studying economics, he was writing short films to numerous outlets in Japan. None however would accept his films. Most of the magazines were only looking for a short amount of pages written(100 pages) while Kojima wrote 400 pages worth of stories(Aberdeen, 1). Despite his fond interest in filmmaking, and the fact that his friends believed he would become a filmmaker, he decided to pursue video games instead. Kojima was always passionate about video games, even though at that time, being a game developer wasn’t really a good source of income. But he achieved his dream anyway.

Kojima joined Konami’s MSX division as designer and planner. Next, Kojima worked on a project called Antarctic Adventure, which was the sequel to Penguin Adventure. Improving upon the action, the multiple endings, and the RPG elements. This would eventually lead him to work on Metal Gear as senior associate, and a popular game known in the gaming industry. In 1987, Metal Gear released his next game Snatcher, a graphic adventure that was critically acclaimed for storytelling, mature content, and cinematic cutscenes(Aberdeen, 1). Metal Gear would receive another installment called Metal Gear: Solid Snake, where the gameplay improved tremendously. The game would also touch upon the aspects of warfare and mature themes. This solidified Kojima as a talented storyteller in the gaming industry. Thanks to the success of Metal Gear Solid in 1998, Kojima received celebrity status in the gaming corporation. Which resulted in more sequels for the Metal Gear series. Fast track to modern times, Hideo Kojima partnered with Sony Interactive Entertainment to reform Kojima productions as an independent studio. Kojima has made a massive impact on the gaming industry. The cinematic quality of his games and how it equals that of actual films, the terrific voice acting, and the motion capture to give the game a realistic feeling. The best part is that he still has more projects that he plans to work on and there’s no telling what’s in store for his next installment(Aberdeen, 1). 

What I find so appealing about his accomplishment is that he really has come a long way to get to where he is now. It had to have paid off, to receive all those accolades and achieve celebrity status. I don’t know if I want to achieve that level of success, but I wouldn’t lie and say attaining those rewards is worthwhile. His accomplishments relate to my subject area because I intend on something similar to Kojima and that’s either game design or something else. That I’m not entirely sure yet, I’m still pondering my options on what career path to choose. One thing that I found similar to Kojima and myself is that we both were introduced to video games at a young age. Video games is the career that I probably would choose so that could be another similarity and would want to achieve a certain level of success of my own.

As I stated before, Hideo Kojima became a very successful game developer. From the outstanding Metal Gear series to the current Death Stranding installment, it is truly mind-boggling as to how he was able to maintain a great deal of success. I know that there are people out in the world that admire his work, the games that he creates and would want to follow in his footsteps or simply just take a few of his methods and add into their own.

Aberdeen, Sam. “The Life of Hideo Kojima: A Hideo Kojima Biography.” The Nexus. https://nexushub.co.za/nexus/the-life-of-hideo-kojima-biography.html#:~:text=Hideo%20Kojima%20was%20was%20born,Kojima%20was%20exposed%20tofilms.&text=He%20eventually%20teamed%20up%20with,films%20with%20an%208mm%20camera. 15 October, 2019

IGN. “IGN: Hideo Kojima Biography.” IGN, Entertainment, Stars, People, Biography. web.archive.org/web/20071116080116/https://stars.ign.com/objects/963/963391_biography.html