The big news coming out of Gamescom this morning seems to be the reveal of Metal Gear Survive, the first Kojima-less Metal Gear title after the very public split between the famed creator and his overseers at Konami. A quick look at the trailer leaves no question as to why the reaction so far seems to range between “lol Konami”, and “something something franchise killer”. We all know that Kojima was known for introducing some ridiculous scenarios into his games, but I would imagine that even he would laugh at the concept of taking the survivors of the attack on Mother Base and inexplicably sucking them into an inter-dimensional portal, placing them in a post apocalyptic wasteland where they’re forced to fight hordes of zombies. Yes, that’s the premise.
Currently sitting at nearly 30,000 dislikes on IGN’s YouTube page in less than 12 hours, it’s safe to say that after thoroughly killing any goodwill the company had with their fans courtesy of crowd pleasing moves like cancelling Silent Hills, removing the PT demo from the PlayStation Store, preventing Kojima from accepting an award he earned for his work, and turning some of their beloved franchises into pachinko machines rather than produce new games, this latest reveal isn’t going to win back anybody. Almost approaching parody levels of absurdity, it’s hard to imagine how anyone would have green lit a game in a franchise as big as this and take it in such a wildly different direction. But when we stop and think about how not only Konami, but the entertainment industry as a whole handles the concept of audience demand, should we really be surprised?
Oh, what could have been…
Watching this trailer for the first time, it felt like a checklist of what an out of touch executive would do when conceptualizing a game. Let’s see, zombies are still popular, right? Mad Max and Fallout are big! Why not place it in a barren, desolate space? Let’s have a group of no-nonsense soldiers take them down like it’s no big deal while we’re at it. But most importantly, new IP’s are way too risky. I know! Let’s slap Metal Gear Solid on the title and watch it fly off the shelves! We can even reuse assets to save some money while recouping cash on the money sink that was MGS V!
I mean, what could go wrong?
The worst part is that the people in charge will never look in the mirror and realize that they’re the reason for these failures, and we see it time and time again across the entertainment spectrum. Nintendo is going through a similar issue with Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a game that plays just fine on its own. But thanks to their own tone def assertion that making it a Metroid game would build enthusiasm is likely going to ensure that the promising multiplayer title will be dead on arrival. Why? Because the company decided to take a franchise that hasn’t seen a new game since the widely panned Other M in 2010, one that they’ve teased sequels to for years thanks to the rumored Metroid Dread, only to never deliver. What we’re left with is a light hearted spin-off that has next to nothing in common with its main games. While drastically different side games aren’t a bad thing on their own, how can you dangle a carrot in front of your fan base for so long, then be surprised at the backlash when you bait-and-switch them?
As many gamers will tell you, Nintendo has a history of making head scratching decisions such as this, ranging from self fulfilling prophecies like forcing fans to scratch and claw for “risky” games like Fatal Frame, only to run next to no advertisement for them, to the Villager amiibo being among a set of high demand figures that they didn’t deem popular enough to take away shelf space from Mario and Link, creating a huge scalper market for the figurines. This is despite the fact that Animal Crossing: New Leaf is currently sitting at number six on the list of best selling 3DS games of all time, (and might have been higher if they didn’t include each version of Pokemon as one total). You know what sold nearly six million fewer copies? Zelda. I’m no CEO, but this is *THEIR* data! To Nintendo’s credit, they finally restocked it exclusively at Toys R Us in the States about a year later, with a whole line of Animal Crossing figures and cards showing that they finally acknowledged what was right in front of them. The only way they could realistically claim that they didn’t anticipate demand is if they don’t read their own financial reports like the rest of us.
You got any of them Villagers?
This lack of foresight and these reactionary decisions aren’t isolated to the gaming industry either. I’m sure we don’t need to be reminded of how the Suicide Squad film was allegedly re-shot to include more humor after the success of Deadpool. An ironic prospect when you remember that Fox’s project had its own set of challenges when its creators had to fight for the film to be true to the source material with an R rated action flick, reportedly due to studios refusing to believe that a violent, vulgar superhero could sell tickets. Even Marvel, as great as they have been in recent years, isn’t immune to this disconnect. When Sony’s email leak revealed that CEO Ike Perlmutter was seemingly supplying “proof” that female led superhero movies are traditionally failures, he cites Catwoman and Electra, apparently placing the blame on them featuring female leads while ignoring that these were both critically panned. On the flip side, based on the advertisements, the Ghostbusters reboot sold itself almost entirely on the fact that it was led by an all female team, as opposed to the merits of the film itself. Turns out, that wasn’t enough.
I’m sure this had more to do with Electra‘s failure than Jennifer Garner’s vagina.
The examples are seemingly endless, from Capcom’s storied history to Lego Dimensions and the recent reveal that Supergirl will be exclusive to reissues of last year’s starter pack, leaving early adopters in the dust. But will these companies learn their lesson? Probably not. It’s much easier to fail when your job security doesn’t rely on making good decisions, especially when you can pass the blame down to your subordinates. In Konami’s case, I’m sure they see Metal Gear Survive as their saving grace. The game that will prove that they don’t need Kojima to carry on with their biggest franchise. It has everything that’s popular mashed together, and the tens of thousands of dislikes will be attributed to being from “haters” and “trolls” who will buy the game anyway. And naturally, when none of this happens and Survive ends up flopping, the obvious takeaway will be that fans have lost interest in the Metal Gear franchise. Not that their decision makers have no idea what their doing and are out of touch.
Oh well, there’s always pachinko!