Hideo Kojima Interview Nr. 2: Ceci n’est pas une pipe (Welt Online)

Originally published in German on www.welt.de, June 12th '08
by Thomas Lindemann

Translation:

Welt Online: Your games are always quite progressive and guide through a complex storyline that often surprises the player. But what are video games at all? Are you telling stories like novels or movies?

Hideo Kojima: If I was sad as a child, naturally, I talked with friends. However, what shaped my experience even more, were movies and novels. Their characters gave me courage. So I always intended to give the user of my games something consistent as well. The telling and the creation of the world and the characters is most important for me.

Welt Online: Are video games art at all?

Hideo Kojima: Not really. Video games are something completely different from movies and novels because everything depends on the player as well. Novels reflect the ideas of the author, a game adds the freedom of the player. An artist can paint something and then say: this is no pipe. In a game however, a flower always has to be a flower to make the game world usable. A game developer has to comply with this.

Welt Online: This sounds a little too modest. Your games are considered outstanding and have many fans. There has to be something you are doing very well.

Hideo Kojima: A good game developer is similar to a good cook or sommelier. He surprises the users, offers them things they can be happy about. He toys with their tastes. Only in this sense can a video game be art.

Welt Online: In one part of your "Metal Gear Solid" series, a friendly character is suddenly possessed and controlled by evil, at one point. Violence does not help there, the player has to think of something else. How did you know that the allegedly dull game fans would accept that?

Hideo Kojima: At that time, it was 1998, the principle of games always was: There is only you and the hostile outside world. You could shoot at everything that moves. I disliked this style. I wanted that the players have to to think even in an action game, for instance, if the enemy is really an enemy.

Welt Online: Did one really have to think at that moment?

Hideo Kojima: In this scene you are referring to, Meryl, the hero's loyal companion, is suddenly used by the evil Psycho Mantis. Shortly before, she has said to the character controlled by the player, Snake: Shoot me, if I'll ever stand in your way. I wanted to ask the players: What are you going to do, if it really happens? I wanted them to think about their ethics.

Welt Online: The year 2008 is extremely successful for games, yours should once again be a millon seller. Why is there a breakthrough just now?

Hideo Kojima: The new consoles Xbox 360 and PS3 were released, it just took a while for the game developers to adapt to these new technologies. Now is the time. We are influenced by the technology. But we are also ready now, to instill it with our ideas. The gaming industry just made a leap, this is the year of its bloom.

Welt Online: The other big successes this year all came from North America. What is the specifically Japanese aspect in your games?

Hideo Kojima: When I turned on the TV as a child, there were drama-series, quiz-shows and movies from the USA, Europe or other parts of Asia. The same applied to novels. I grew up in a mixed culture. In my games, there are no Japanese characters. Neither are there in the novels I write for myself since my childhood. On the other hand, I am Japanese, never lived anywhere else and have been brought up typically Japanese. The Japanese essence in my work is this weird sense for an intercultural mixture.

Welt Online: Snake, the main character of your game, has committed acts of violence and now has to pay for it. Were you tired of the common insensitive gunslinger?

Hideo Kojima: Old Snake, who I created for this new game, also resembles myself. I am getting older as well. In my games, there is always a theme. The essential question of the saga is: What can we pass on to the next generation? The first part, for example, is about genes. This time it is about things one can not precisely label but has to pass on. For example, values of education. Whoever plays Snake only sees his back. He is supposed to think about what is behind Snake. He only has one year left to live, has to go on a mission, has to save the world, yet what it all means, the player has to guess for him.

Welt Online: This is the last part of your "Metal Gear Solid" series. Would you make a game completely without violence once, too?

Hideo Kojima: For me, the games I make are no violent games, even though many are likely to consider it a shooter. I only wanted to transfer the player into another world and generate a strong tension with it. That is why Snake has to be in war. But in actuality my game is supposed to be a hide and seek. If you are discovered you could be killed. I included it because hiding is boring otherwise. I will continue to look for ways to generate tension in the future. Not necessarily with violence. But it works well. Therefore it is so popular in video games.

Source: Welt Online - "Ein Spiele-Designer ist wie ein guter Koch"

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Spiegel Online Interview: Hideo Kojima talks about pacifism, movies and GTA

UPDATE: I've translated another interview of the same quality and will post it soon. Kojima talks about art in his games and why a game developer is like a good cook, among other things. Visit again this week and don't miss it!

Originally published in German on www.spiegel.de, June 13th '08. Questions by Christian Stöcker.

Translation:

Spiegel Online: Are you a pacifist, Mr. Kojima?

Hideo Kojima: That is a difficult question. I think, I'm neither one nor the other. I do think that war solved a few problems but when I look at history, I also think that it completely failed to solve others. My personal opinion is that war should not be used as a method to solve problems. Therefore I always have anti-war messages in my games. The scary thing with war is: You start one to achieve a certain goal, but then the war develops a life of its own.

Spiegel Online: In the last "Metal Gear Solid" game "Snake Eater" there is a scene in which you as the player character have to walk past all the people you have killed in the game up to that point, they groan and cry. Is this an attempt to educate your audience?

Hideo Kojima: I wouldn't call it education. I wanted it so that the users have to face what they did in the game. What the player character did to survive. It's not so much about war as it is about violence in general. The decisions you made, the casualties you accepted. All the humans in that scene have exactly the wounds the player inflicted upon them, gunshot or stabbing wounds. It is supposed to make the players think. If you want to call it educational - maybe it is, but it wasn't the original intention.

Spiegel Online: The "Metal Gear" games, including the new Metal Gear Solid 4 (MGS4), are in so far unique as they deal with war and violence, yet it is possible to get to the end without killing anyone. However, this is exceedingly difficult - why?

Hideo Kojima: I always include it to bring to mind the avoidance of war and violence. The harder it is, the bigger is the satisfaction if you make it: playing without killing. The hurdle is very high, yet if you jump over it, it is an experience that the player may remember for a long time. That it was a huge accomplishment to avoid violence. This is the message I want to communicate. However, you also get better equipment, bigger rewards, a better rating in the game itself, if you make it without killing.

Spiegel Online: The "Metal Gear" series is now running on various console generations for 21 years. The story is long and very complex - can you manage to summarize it in five sentences?

Hideo Kojima: (laughs, long pause) Things you consider as impossible - around the world and in the game itself - are still possible. In regards to the game's creator as much as to the player. If a player completes a "Metal Gear", he is supposed to question his ideas of what is impossible. The joy, the smiling faces of people who accomplished the impossible - that is what "Metal Gear" is about.

Spiegel Online: So the core idea is on the meta-level? The complex, somewhat convoluted plots, the many characters like Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, Solidus Snake and all the others, how they are related and who is whose clone - it is not all that pivotal?

Hideo Kojima: Below this core idea, to make the impossible possible, there are still other concepts. To surpass one's parents, for example. A central topic is what you hand on to the following generation, to pass on the stick. Life and death and how death creates new life is another topic... but that's not the core of the "Metal Gear" world. (laughs) Sorry, by now I needed 50 sentences.

Spiegel Online: Suppose, you had to explain to someone, who is not interested in video games at all, what you do in a "Metal Gear" game, what actually happens on the screen - what would you say?

Hideo Kojima: It's a game of hide-and-seek.

Spiegel Online: 2008 is an important year for the games industry - not least because of the extreme success of "Grand Theft Auto IV" (GTA IV) by Rockstar Games and the already famous 500 million dollar that were made in sales in its first week. What does this mean for the rest of the industry? Do you surpass the movies now?

Hideo Kojima: In the past, individual games already did yield more than movies. However, GTA of course as a key role this year. Rockstar achieved something big, they gained a lot of feedback from outside the industry as well. There will be other titles that are designed for a similar impact, as a blockbuster.

Spiegel Online: So this is primarily about a commercial effect?

Hideo Kojima: Digital entertainment will grow. Today, there are far more users for it than the "gamers" of the past. Video games use the most current technology, they need technology to grow further. However, if a title like GTA IV unfolds such an economical effect, there will be a second wave in which the people rather pay attention to the contents themselves, not to how often the title was sold. Games are now respected economically, but I would wish for them to be respected culturally - at least as a subculture.

Spiegel Online: "Metal Gear" games are barely subcultural - they resemble manga comics or Japanese anime movies with their highly dramatic plots, that always lead to something huge, to gigantic robots, super weapons, epic battles and so on. Do you think one can also use the medium of the video game for smaller, more private, more personal stories without the megalomania?

Hideo Kojima: The reason why MGS games became so big, as you say, is that they are designed for a global audience. Like Hollywood movies, blockbusters. Always universal in a genre is only action, gambling or sex. Those are immediately understood all over the world. We use action and that is why our games become bigger and bigger - Hollywood big. It is however possible to make smaller, more personal games if you, for example, limit the target region, the gender or the age of the audience. MGS is a Hollywood blockbuster, like GTA. But maybe it is time for something like independent movies, with a smaller target audience, like movies for an arthouse movie theater.

Spiegel Online: Is this your future as well? You already emphasized that it is really your last "Metal Gear" game this time...

Hideo Kojima: It definitely intrigues me. A game, for example, that is based on the life of a small Japanese employee, who works hard in the company and afterwards is oppressed by his wife at home. However, this would probably only work for a Japanese audience. The critics in the USA and Europe would probably say: "This is a great game, very Japanese, very touching" - but it wouldn't become a super-blockbuster. Both kind of games should exist, to enrich the industry.

End of the interview

Source: Spiegel Online - "Action, Glücksspiel und Sex werden überall verstanden"

Having read something about his wife, on which Rose and Raiden's conversations in MGS2 are based on, the game about the Japanese employee could very well be autobiographic. I was especially surprised by his summary of MGS' story, I believed that the core idea was something different. But who am I to argue with him.

What do you think about the interview? If you liked it please leave a comment or digg it! Much appreciated.