Topic: What's the deal with Konami anyway?/Theories thread.

[Ratty]

You know I popped in Tiny Toons for the NES earlier and a question that we've all asked ourselves at one point or another came to me again.
What happened?
How did the company that could stand toe-to-toe with Capcom and other A-list publishers/developers at it's height turn into what we see today?

Pictured: A licensed NES game not by Capcom that doesn't suck.

As I'm sure many of you saw or at least heard about back in March Jim Sterling of Kotaku and the Escapist made a video highlighting some of the, to put it mildly, insane business and marketing decisions Konami has made in recent years. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5524-Konami and I've seen others allude to these same incidents elsewhere recently, so what do you think it is? Is it a symptom of the times, where Japanese developers can't financially keep up with western ones? Or are several people in a boardroom somewhere just daffy? Whatever the case, and whatever you think of MercurySteam's efforts, I think we can all agree that Konami apparently seeing itself as no longer fit to produce Castlevania in-house is a little sad.

[Neobelmont]

They went downhill when all the commercials I see from them are yu-gi-oh tcg commercials. What happened to contra,suikoden,gradius, and other game , hell what about a new yie air kung-fu?

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I think the board of directors has been replaced with an AI who has played Portal a few too many times and thinks GLaDOS is an ideal role model for running a business.

Either that or someone showed them a stockpile of REALLY GOOD and competitively priced crack.

[X]

I personally believe that they fell victim to the very same thing that inflicts all other corporations; Profit. A business may start out simple with lots of ideas and a direction. But when you throw finance into the mix, Greed and lack of honesty sets in and right now they are then walking the razor's edge between success and failure.
                                                                                 \ _______________/
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                                                                                    Italy anyone? 

[TheouAegis]

Kinda like SNK. They had their arcade cabinets. Then they decided to move into the home console business. They created some of the greatest video game franchises in the history of gaming and literally went head-to-head with Capcom (who was also an arcade cabinet designer). I always felt the downfall of SNK was their effort to not simply wade into the home console industry as Capcom did, but dive head-first in. SNK nearly sunk itself with the NeoGeo home console, whereas Capcom continued to focus on making arcade games and porting them to consoles and then eventually making console games without devoting themselves to producing and marketing a console. SNK eventually went under, was revived by Playmore, and spends much of its time rehashing the old series. Why SNK didn't go the route of Sega and just drop the consoles (granted, Sega took a while to give up that venture) and become another Capcom competitor is beyond me. While I consider SNK's games to be some of the best ever made, the company for me is one of the biggest disappointments in gaming history.

At least Konami still makes games. I'll give them that much.

[VladCT]

FYI SNK blames piracy instead of their failure in the home console business for their bankruptcy, as evidenced by the storyline of Neo Geo Battle Coliseum (the antagonist's organization is called "WAREZ", a term in piracy). Dunno if I should call that arrogance or stupidity. :-/
Oh, and if you looked at Goodman's design in NGBC it's implied that they weren't too fond of Eolith, the company that they really should be thanking for their revival. Sure, they made some questionable decisions, but hey, without Eolith there'd be no SNK Playmore. Not to mention Eolith actually went down under while SNKP lived on.

[shelverton.]

Is it a symptom of the times

That's a great subtitle for the next Castlevania game, if it borrows too much from other popular titles. I give you: Castlevania: Symptom of the Times!

[Ahasverus]

IDK, Konami just had an investor meeting.... They had the most profitable year ever.
Gaming division was down 70% though, to be honest, and this bums me, I think Konami will give up its gaming division and will sell their franchises, with Kojima games being the new publisher for some of them.

[Neobelmont]

IDK, Konami just had an investor meeting.... They had the most profitable year ever.
Gaming division was down 70% though, to be honest, and this bums me, I think Konami will give up its gaming division and will sell their franchises, with Kojima games being the new publisher for some of them.

Correct me if I am wrong but don't they have fitness centers in japan?

Edit the big K is also going to court

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Konami-Autumn-Games-Accused-Fraud-Totaling-14-Million-42868.html

[Ahasverus]

Correct me if I am wrong but don't they have fitness centers in japan?

You are right. Their profits came from their fitness, mobile, casino and pachinko divisions.

[Neobelmont]

You are right. Their profits came from their fitness, mobile, casino and pachinko divisions.

Hmm.. So it seems that the special k is concretrating on things other than games. Beats the peeing game that sega is making.

[Ratty]

You are right. Their profits came from their fitness, mobile, casino and pachinko divisions.

If everything you say is true it would make sense for one or more people high up in Konami to want to just sabotage the video game division entirely so they could sell it.

[JR]

I remember seeing the Jimquisition video on this (I remember posting it on here shortly after it came out), and that thing was spot-on with how badly Konami seems to be screwing up lately. I was baffled to learn that they're still profitable, but I never knew their games division was suffering massive losses. That makes total sense.

I completely share your sentiment that Konami is a far cry from their time in the 80's/90's. They seemed to be one of the first names that came to mind as a publisher back then, but now they refuse to promote nearly all of their games.

(I do have to hand it to them though, they have the best selection of games on Xbox Game Room, for what it's worth).

[JR]

Ugh, now they've partnered with Zynga.

[Ratty]

Ugh, now they've partnered with Zynga.

Only a matter of time till we see "VaniaVille!"