Topic: New article about the Konami situation

[Nagumo]

http://kotaku.com/report-konami-is-t...ers-1721700073

This article sums it up pretty well:

Kojima Productions, the studio behind the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V (and long famous as a brand of its own), is now simply known as “Number 8 Production Department.” The computers in this section, Nikkei says (and as we reported earlier this year), are allegedly not connected to the internet and are only able to send internal messages.

 Nikkei reports that employees leaving the company offices during their lunch break are having their absences monitored with time cards. Those who stay out too long are having their names announced throughout the company.
 That there are cameras in the office corridors that aren’t there for security, but rather to monitor the movements of Konami’s own employees.

That most Konami employees do not have their own permanent company email addresses. Staff who must deal with people outside the company, such as sales and PR do; however, everyone else routinely has their address randomised and changed every few months. (Note: Konami employee emails are typically a few letters followed by a string of numbers, but this random email changing has been going on at Konami for years. A while back, one Konami employee told me this was done to prevent headhunting. Over the years, I have seen developers with company email addresses, but this might have changed recently.)

That Konami game developers who aren’t seen as useful are reassigned to jobs as security guards, cleaning staff at the company’s fitness clubs or roles at a pachi-slot machine factory. This includes not just junior staff, but producers who have worked on well-known game titles. In 2013, Asahi News, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, ran an interview with a former Konami staffer who allegedly went from game development to working in Konami’s pachi-slot factory, causing him to experience severe depression.

That one former employee, upon announcing on Facebook that they were leaving Konami and had got a new job elsewhere, had their post monitored. Nikkei says remaining Konami staff who “liked” the post were all reshuffled within the company.

Kotaku is following up with Konami for comment.

Also this anecdote from someone at NeoGaf:

'Being delegated to security/cleanup.' Someone who works for a third party in Japan who I stay in touch with last year said "One guy who made all the classic music" at Konami was transferred to security. He says fortunately this guy "embraced" his role and ended up being head of security in that department and was able to make the best if it. But that is the exception because my source confirmed what the Nikkei article said in that, when you get moved to a non game related area that obviously means mgmt wants you out as it's hard to fire people due to HR quirks in Japan.

I privately asked him if he could identify exactly which composer it was, He couldn't confirm exactly who exactly it was but he knew it was true because it was info from a AAA director he works directly with who still has connections within KCEJ. He said this occurred during the "DraColle gold rush" (poker game) and since then "literally all of their old school devs are relegated to that division."

The reason this came up in conversation was because it was around the time Iga left last year and everyone was talking about how it was becoming apparent that Konami doesn't value their talent anymore.

Just think, a lot of the guys who worked on stuff like Gradius, Contra and Castlevania are now being forced to sit behind security desks and check the locks on the doors.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Damn. That was a really frustrating read. 
This story deserves to be spread.

[Kingshango]

Well there's the answer to why Konami doesn't make games in house anymore, all of their dev's are too busy cleaning toilets.

[Claimh Solais]

Ugh. That made me a bit sick to read. Konami used to be my favorite company but as this year's gone on I'm starting to hate them more and more.

I wanna say MGSV is gonna be the last Konami game I ever buy, but it's probably gonna be the last console game they're even gonna make anyway, what with their developers scrubbing toilets and being security guards.

[X]

Welp! That's that then. Here's then new Konami we can expect in the future.

[chainsawmidget]

So, the guys that used to make good games are now unclogging toilets and the people that ARE making the games are giving us stuff that should have been flushed. 

[theplottwist]

I say this:

Let's open up an account in Jorge's name. Then we start to put money in it. When we have a whole lot of money, we buy Castlevania from Konami before they collapse (either by going full pachinko, or bankrupcy).

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I say this:

Let's open up an account in Jorge's name. Then we start to put money in it. When we have a whole lot of money, we buy Castlevania from Konami before they collapse (either by going full pachinko, or bankrupcy).

That's beautiful.

Let's hope JDF agrees. I can't imagine we thefans could hold on to the license, but we could at least sell it to someone who gives a flying fuck about making good games.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I'm actually down for this.  We can put it under my LLC.

[BLOOD MONKEY]

Considering this is Kotaku, I really don't beleive this. But I'm with plot on his plot...

[Claimh Solais]

Considering this is Kotaku, I really don't beleive this. But I'm with plot on his plot...

If it were bogus at all, I don't think so many other websites would be publishing articles about it. And there are literally none calling it out as being bogus from what I've found.

[Aceearly1993]

Totally disappointed about the Honami stuff with madness

[JR]

Well...at least it's easier to not buy their games now, from both a quality and an ethical standpoint.

Feel horrible for the dev who became depressed after being sent to the pachi-slot factory.

Didn't notice that Brian Ashcraft wrote the article. Wow. So he CAN write something interesting, relevant, and not creepy! Great job, Kotaku!

[Inccubus]

This is disgusting behavior.
I'd say that Konami will never get any more money from me except they don"t seem to be making anything I'd ever spend money on anyway.
They should sell the game rights to other publishers that will actually do something good with them.
They can keep the pachislot rights, no one outside Japan much cares anyway.

[Gunlord]

It's almost Orwellian.