Kojima addicted to Left 4 Dead

Kojima The creator of Gamezine's Game of 2008 is obsessed with one of our faves.

Kojima, the brainchild behind Metal Gear Solid, hones in on the virtues of the Western video games market and how its a better place to develop games than in Japan. Along the way he also comments that he's currently addicted to Left 4 Dead, which we gave a huge 9/10.

In a Famitsu Magazine interview, Kojima argues;

"The US and European marketplace are far better balanced. There are games everyone can play -- maybe calling 'kids' games' would be inappropriate -- but there's also a deep base of core titles made with movie-industry people that explore the depths of hi-def. I'm addicted to Left 4 Dead right now, but people say to me that that game would never work in Japan."

Kojima's a little pessimistic about the Japanese video games market, laughing as he says;

"Maybe I should quit being Japanese. And speaking of which, there were hardly any Japanese games nominated in Spike TV's Video Game Awards this year. It's sad to see that Japan's games failed to even register in America last year."

When asked why Japanese developers struggle to keep up with the overseas competition, Kojima is just as damning;

"Because they're Japanese. Japan makes all their own books and movies and music. You can't export entertainment made by Japanese people in the Japanese language, so it's all made with the sort of budgets that guarantee profit within the Japanese marketplace only.

"Meanwhile, the English-speaking world is a global one. The scariest scenario I see is people overseas taking the ideas from Japanese games, running the Hollywood business merchandising machine on them, and taking all the revenue. If that happens, then there won't be any new Japanese creators."

Furthermore, the man who has continuinly changed the rules of gaming, comments that the hi-defination era of consoles hasn't really been taken advantage of in Japan;

"Game design up to now has been about making rules," he notes. "It was like a card game; there were lots of things that weren't possible and had to be cut. With hi-def, the more real it gets, the less instruction you need to give, so preoccupying yourself with making rules seems silly. Western developers have realized this, but Japanese ones are still preoccupied with making these rules."

The good news is that Kojima is working on a bunch of new projects that'll whip both the East and West into shape;

"There is a title I'm designing that I think we'll be able to announce relatively soon, and there's also a rather challenging project I'm working on to compete against the overseas industry. So as far as unannounced projects, I've started work on one and three others are in progress."

We can't wait.