Why I'm still buying Phantom Pain

Very important little note: So I don't know how much I'll be blogging from here for a while. My laptop, the source of 90% of my computer/internet work, is likely as good as gone. I'm currently using a borrowed windows 8 tablet with a hybrid keyboard type function. This means a big disadvantage to typing, mouse controls, and to a small extent even worse internet use. I also cannot do hardly anything that I used to externally, like carry over custom photos, or use my review cards. So... I'll likely stay away from doing a lot of blogging. I've never had a consistent track of sending out articles, but now you know that they will generally diminish a bit.

That all being said I love that my PS4 is in great working condition, because Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain is coming out. YAY! Oh wait, but um... Konami really sucks right now. Like really badly. They're destroying games, degrading and horribly mistreating one of their best people, treat their workers bad, and are in the process of making some of the most hilarious self-parodying uses of their own property I've ever seen by turning Silent Hills and Castlevania into arcade slot machines. If that sounds absolutely insane, the commercials will blow your mind. Seriously, go look it up sometime, its just hilarious. Naturally people want nothing to do with Konami other than trash talk them, but yet they hold one of the biggest games left in the year. This leads many to saying that it should be boycott. Personally... I think that's both silly, and to a degree something they kind of anticipate. Let me explain myself though...

Its not personal, its gaming

See things clearly

First off I feel like it should be appropriate to cover the basics of this subject matter. Look I don't entirely disapprove of boycotts. We're all human, and we all have our disagreements, our idealisms, and when it touches our market we have a way to fight it. However boycotts the way I was tought came from a far more important area: Civil disobedience & civil rights. It was used to pressure laws, law enforcement, and store folks as a way to earn freedom. This... this is talking about a video game series famous for hiding in cardboard boxes, and a boss who is defeated by moving your controller ports. The game in question, is advertising itself in part with cyborg arms, erotic sniper lady, and a wolf with an eye-patch. This ain't exactly major stuff to force yourself into idealism. I'm not exactly trying to trivialize an incredible series here, or gaming as a whole, but this stuff is more about entertainment than anything else. Quite a few gamers commonly ask to take politics out of gaming, yet it seems some of the same ones are sitting there telling you what you can and can't support based on work ethics of some company thosuands of miles away from most of those who'd read this.

Look if its something really serious, I get it. If its something that speaks so against you, so against who you are and who you represent, that you can't possibly fathom the idea of sending money of any kind in they direction, fine. Don't. Its not my business or place to tell you what to do with your money and view points. However I would kindly ask you to stop and truly think about the area you're doing this within. That would be gaming in this case. Games. Fun and games kind of games. The games where you get a pet wolf with a freakin' eye-patch! Games that incite joy, creativity, escapism, and story telling. Its made to help you enjoy life away from your own stress, not to be turned down because the internet told you somebody else is having a tough time. You don't owe these guys money because you care about their tabloid life, you choose to give them your money because in some way they produced a product you enjoyed. Its also less about supporting "an idiot" and more about supporting the work behind a product. They make a good product, you buy the good product. Isn't that how its supposed to work?

Personally, the meter I use to tell whether or not a game is "worth it" is all in the gameplay and game itself. If I ever have doubts about the people or motives behind the game I ask these big questions: Is this going to be something that stops me from having fun? Is this going to hurt the game industry in any way by setting a bad example? Is this something that has enough effort and enjoyment in it for the price? In case you didn't notice, they're almost all practices that conflict with the game itself where I draw the line. Sometimes game culture as well. When Titan Souls had a guy go stupid all over his twitter account and mock a small critic of the style, I said "Game wasn't really that interesting, but now I know I'll never touch it". I wouldn't want more people with that mindset making fools of themselves whenever a good critic says something honest. When Dice decides its going to be routine to make high grinds in its games, or EA publishes another online only game that never needed to be online only, I stay away from it because I know they've destroyed a chunk of whatever potential fun they have and I didn't want to reward that. Meanwhile what about the Oddworld lead who hypocritically claims capitalism is the devil while promoting his own games for the market? I applaud the incredible art design of his game, and stand by the fact that stranger's wrath is an amazing game to play on your Vita. I absolutely love his creative worlds, his games writing, and I will celebrate the fact that work like his can exist. I completely disagree with his political sides, and see he can be quite immature, but I don't really care if he goes to bed worshiping hitler, it doesn't bother my feelings on his games (even when they have political messages behind them). They're great games, made well, and made fun. I actually have a lot of nitpicks as to why they aren't all fit for my style of gaming, but oh well, I'd still buy his work if priced right.

This is Kojima's game

and don't you forget it!

So... uh, problem with this boycott's logic. So you guys despise the fact that Konami is going out of their way to discredit, and completely trash on, all of Kojima and his studio's last big game. So what do you purpose? Ignore Kojima and just ignore the game because of Konami. Nice job, you just totally contradicted one of your reasons to boycott by simply noticing the Konami name. If you boycott this game, what does Kojima and pals get from it? How did you help them all out? How did you heroically dash in and save the oppressed employees of Konami? You gave them.... passive-aggressive vengeance? That's the best idea I can come up with. If that's not actually what they wanted though, then you didn't even do that.

Look, whenever I do one of these articles, I do it because I care. I like writing, I'm passionate about gaming, and I like sharing ideas and discussing things with people. I do this stuff to collect my thoughts, and hope that if anybody else out there cares enough, they'll enjoy reading them as well. The last thing I'd care about is if somebody said they wouldn't come near any blogs like mine just because they heard rumors that the founder of Blogger told a racial joke once. That has nothing to do with this blog existing here, and its purpose. Likewise somebody putting even MORE work, asking for big budgets, asking for more time and careful implementation, and working hard with a  team of people to create this final major piece of a long running famous franchise would want you to enjoy the game. The team has been working on this to entertain people, to give them emotional rides, to make them think about nuclear war, to show people the power of console games in a culture slipping into mobile hype, etc. You get none of the intended messages, none of the careful design, and none of the hard work that went into this by saying "screw Konami" and walking away. That all goes in vain, and Konami gets to walk away saying they were right to throw Kojima away because his games didn't sell. I have no idea if Kojima will be more traditionally rewarded by money via gamers, and I wouldn't be surprised if all our purchases did directly just give to Konami and their stupid slot machine future, but its not just about that. Its about art, emotions, and the fulfillment it has in society.

Konami knows its not playing to get fans with the internet at this point. They know people hate them over the news, they know people hate them about what their doing, and they have gone out of their way to silence interviews and youtube videos surrounding the matter. They do not care. They just really don't at this point. They're ditching games like MGS5 after MGS5, and they're running to fall back on cheap mobile cash-ins, and Japanese gambling machines. That's their plan, because MGS5 has cost them 80+ million dollars and its a franchise that is barely seeing the sales they want. They want to play it safe, abandon good art, and see if they really can ride the mobile bandwagon. Telling them they can't have their MGS5 money is just proving their very point. Its proving they don't see these games as profitable, and will continue their road to destroying beloved IPs in the form of lame gamble machine spin-offs. They already did it with freakin' silent hill, it can't get much worse than that. They've hit rock bottom before they even gave MGS5 a chance. Do you seriously think they'll sit there and give you a second look if you make their last stand in the console market, or with a credible big developer, a flop? No! They'll say "screw you" right back and march on with their silly plan because that's easier than actually putting effort into the products you stand by. That's not to say if the game sells well, it'll save everything, but that is to say you're going to be pulling the opposite effect of what you wanted. You're not punishing them but so much, instead you're just giving them a "told ya so!" to gloat about. Meanwhile the worst part is, other publishers will look on with more interest in their word than yours. They'll look and see where the money does go, not to people up-voting corporate jabs on youtube comments.

However you should still be careful with this one....

Look if I were just here to ride the hype train on MGS5 and tell you all to run out and buy it with no attention to this situation, I would let the trailer do the speaking for me and leave the article at that. However this situation does indeed factor into our decision to buy the game, because here's the thing: For who knows how long, the direct developers of the game have been basically locked into a dark room. That's exaggerated of course, but they've been miserable.

Basically if what we know is right, the team has been left isolated, without internet, and are working on borrowed contract time knowing completely well that they'll be unemployed as soon as the game goes gold (which may or may not have already happened by the time this article is published). That sounds like a miserable working condition, and as we all should know (save for companies like Konami apparently) happy workers do a much better job. With such a massively ambitious game as MGS5, I wont be too surprised if it releases in a rushed state. That's not to say it certainly will, or will release in an unplayable state. Like any other game in the AAA industry, its almost certainly going to have some bugs somebody will find, but I'm just not sure how or if the conditions will increase that chance. Meanwhile Metro: Last Light was also released with a small budget, and terrible working conditions (workers were freezing, blackouts, etc) and yet made an incredible FPS game that could have its polish flubs easily overlooked in favor of quality. So who knows with MGS5. Just be careful, and don't rush expecting perfection out of the box when the guys making the game have been going through hell to finish it. I may be waiting out a few days before I cash a pre-order (because yeah, you can do that. pre-orders don't have to be an instant and blind thing) and hear from fans of the series. I emphasize fans to, the press never covers the real details that matter when it comes to certain standards of polish. On a positive note, we do know how sneaky and clever the mastermind behind this franchise is, and that he seems to have already hid something in ground zeroes related to this. I wouldn't be too surprised if we found an awesome little easter egg trashing Konami inside the game.

Concluding...

I never actually got around to truly answering the title of this topic. Instead I merely spoke to an audience, but really it could all be summed up in personal fun and perspective on why the series is so awesome. I'm sure this is going to sound cheesy in the long run, but I really think the foxhound logo (which is really just a fox) has sat well with the Metal Gear Solid Franchise. The fox is a symbol of clever, cunning, stealthy, playful, and creative expression... and maybe a bit of craziness for good measure. Its the sort of thing that sits so well with a series that has innovated and stuck around a stealth action adventure so well that it has become a major icon to gaming. Naturally, it also suits the creators and director who've featured all sorts of tricks under the games. MGS2 and 3 specifically, alongside the likes of Dishonored, have a strange sandbox appeal to me. I always want to get into these worlds, explore, learn, and realize I have so many options and so much input that I can just play with everything for hours and hours on end... and then learn something brand new or remember something I've barely used. That combined with incredible, and cheesy, epic stories to a scale we rarely see, and its just all so amazing. It really is a a fox-like kind of game, perfectly nailing all traits and then some.

Naturally I look forward to this game. Konami and all their BS wont stand in the way of that, unless they've done something to screw with the game itself. MGS5 looks absolutely incredible. I hope that those unsure about this game, just because of Konami, will see the fun in it and just remember all the good this series has brought out so they can enjoy the very last real MGS there may ever be. If not... well then oh well. I'll still be grabbing it myself if all holds well. In spite of all the controversy, I wish for the best behind the conclusion to one of the best franchises out there, and one of my personal favorites.