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Konami Reports 24.3% Increase in Profits for 2017




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danpmss



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 762
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 1:23 am Reply with quote
I guess "YuGiOh! Duel Links" really is going THAT well as people said it was.
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Engineering Nerd



Joined: 24 Apr 2008
Posts: 897
Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 1:27 am Reply with quote
Oh well, as much as we are having field days hoping on the Konami/hating bandwagon, yet they end up increasing the profits.

I know Konami’s main revenue is coming off Gambling machines, fitness, trading card games and smartphone games, but I still don’t get the moment Kojima leaves Konami, Konami’s stock actually shoot up quite a bit, does that mean giving much less focus (Konami is still producing some best-selling games, like the sporty ones, btw) on traditional games actually work for their favor?
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lumclaw



Joined: 09 Jun 2010
Posts: 47
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 3:00 am Reply with quote
Konami obviously handled things badly, to say the least. Yet they probably saw the writing on the wall. I shudder to imagine the budget and development time an undertaking like MGS6 would take if Kojima got his way.
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1544
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 7:24 am Reply with quote
1) Be a video game company

2) Stop making video games

3) Pachinko or something

4) ?????

5) PROFIT
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SquadmemberRitsu



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1391
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 8:14 am Reply with quote
Engineering Nerd wrote:
Oh well, as much as we are having field days hoping on the Konami/hating bandwagon, yet they end up increasing the profits.

Well there is a tiny plus. Metal Gear Survive is, by all accounts, an abject failure. So you can't really say that casting Kojima aside helped them. One of their biggest franchises is dead weight now, and it's all their fault.

Sure they've still got Yu-Gi-Oh, Pachinko and ProEvo Soccer. But if a low risk, low budget game like Survive couldn't do anything then I don't know how valuable that IP is to them.

I figured that by now Konami would have made some terrible non canon sequel which totally messes with the timeline and still manages to sell off the name. But looking at those sales, I doubt it's gonna happen any time soon.
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YamiWheeler



Joined: 11 Mar 2015
Posts: 97
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 11:17 am Reply with quote
Amazing how much money idiots are willing to spend on virtual cards and currency which will have no resale value.
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Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
Posts: 643
Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 11:19 am Reply with quote
I support Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer games, they are really amazing and but licenses issues still prevents PES from being more competitive from EA's FIFA, whom the companies has their own FIFA licenses.

I prefer FIFA for its carrer mode and PES for its tournmanet. I also heard that PES licensing contracts with UEFA Champions Leagues will expire soon, which is somewhat sad to be it will be departed today.
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jdnation



Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1993
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 3:54 pm Reply with quote
Engineering Nerd wrote:
I know Konami’s main revenue is coming off Gambling machines, fitness, trading card games and smartphone games, but I still don’t get the moment Kojima leaves Konami, Konami’s stock actually shoot up quite a bit, does that mean giving much less focus (Konami is still producing some best-selling games, like the sporty ones, btw) on traditional games actually work for their favor?


It's not really that hard to comprehend.

It's about opportunity costs. The same money that would be spent on development of one big console title like MGS, could instead be spent on several mobile titles with micro-transactions that will pull in more revenue per $ spent at a faster turnaround rate, with less risk.

By getting rid of the more long-term costlier approaches like the kind of games Kojima makes, they bet they can profit better and faster by less riskier, less well developed titles, spread out, either all making bank, or 9 out of 10 failing, but the 1 that makes it makes more than enough for the other 9.

It's understandable, but also frustrating from an artistic/quality standpoint.

Imagine is a Big Hollywood Studio looked at the numbers and sees -

Low budget films like Resident Evil and its sequels and cheap horror films pulling in large profits for less expense.

Vs.

Big slavish well received films award winning epics from Christipher Nolan, George MIller, Denis Villeneuve etc. that, even if they make a big profit, percentage wise don't compare to the cheaper budget productions.

Then this Hollywood Studio decided to cancel all big event films, fire Nolan, Miller, Villeneuve, and everybody else who doesn't wish to play along and keep churning out Resident Evil and Transformers and Truth or Dare.

That's essentially what Konami did.

And maybe long-term this might bite Konami and hypothetical movie-studio in the ass as people lose interest and they've got nothing to spin around on.

For example Nintendo is making lots of money from the Fire Emblem gatcha. Dare we say it's likely been more profitable for them than actual Fire Emblem games on DS/3DS.

But Nintendo isn't an idiot, and nintendo knows that the appeal of the mobile FE is precisely driven and upheld by the console FE titles where new stories and characters are introduced which are then established and sold on the mobile titles. One feeds the other. And if one market fails, the other is there to pivot to.

Konami, however, not being forward thinking, and we know this precisely because we know the previous president of Konami wanted to go more into console and precisely told Kojima to build the FOX Engine as a multiplatform/company-wide multi-purpose engine, green lit an LA Studio, and to revive Silent Hill. And within a span of a year and a change of higher ups, decided to flip everything around at the last second.

So it remains to be seen if Konami will continue to thrive on mobile titles, and through cheap cash-grab mtx-fests like Survive continue to murder their own brands that were beloved precisely for being quality experiences that they could've capitalized on more if they were to keep people like Kojima in place to do what he does which was keep making good games from Metal Gear, Silent Hill and creating new brands that they could then turn around and put out as mobile/slot titles tied to a brand people trusted for quality.

But well... we'll see how that goes... But Konami is a big company with many other businesses so even if mobile and gambling disappears tomorrow, they'll still be around with plenty more to do.
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Posts: 2091
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 3:56 pm Reply with quote
Engineering Nerd wrote:
Oh well, as much as we are having field days hoping on the Konami/hating bandwagon, yet they end up increasing the profits.


Well, while I do hate them for what they did to Kojima, Silent Hill, etc., I hate them even more for the way they treated their own employees. That's why I consider them the most evil game company even over EA. EA abused its consumers, which is definitely bad, but abusing your own employees is quite worse in my book. I pray some karma kicks in eventually and the big wigs who made all these decisions lose their company while all the employees under them are able to secure new, better jobs elsewhere.
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wohdin



Joined: 10 Jun 2011
Posts: 352
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 5:04 pm Reply with quote
Konami really just needs to stop making Metal Gear games and tarnishing the IP's reputation. That's all I want. They could do fudge all else with every other IP they own.
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MrBonk



Joined: 23 Jan 2015
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2018 8:20 pm Reply with quote
lumclaw wrote:
Konami obviously handled things badly, to say the least. Yet they probably saw the writing on the wall. I shudder to imagine the budget and development time an undertaking like MGS6 would take if Kojima got his way.

Kojima torpedoed his own franchise anyway. I can only imagine the shitstorm of retcons and bs they would come up with next. And whatever back hand comment or wishy washy statement he'll use to justify whatever. They can't hurt Metal Gear more than Kojima already did through the years.

Disowned MGSurvive and Zombies not being "Metal Gear". Despite the fact it's just a spin off game, not Metal Gear Solid and was quoted as saying he had ideas for a MGRR:2 starring "Gray Fox fighting nanomachine powered zombies". (Also said how great MGRR was after cancelling his own team's version of it. But then, despite the fact that the story was all written and handled by Kojima Pro. Says "MGRR is not a MGS game and is a parallel continuation" because they went in a direction with the story he wouldn't have. I guess he can't remember all the times he said he wanted to stop directing and letting the younger staff create what they want.)

There's The Twin Snakes (Plastered "Produced by Hideo Kojima" in big letters on the front). Wouldn't do an HD version because it "wasn't canon" and "we didn't make it ourselves". Despite being directly responsible for key decisions that resulted in the game being the way it was. Cutscenes were made to match original, but then Kojima told them to change it and do it different.

Claimed Portable Ops was integral to the MGS timeline and that they couldn't finish MGS4's story before they finished working on MGSPO. Then disowned it, lightly retconned it and made a back handed script comment in PW (Too hard to come up with stuff to work around it huh?)

Then there's the shit storm of MGS5 and Big Boss's VA. And the entire 180 in design,gameplay/story balance to pander to current trends and pad the game out as much as possible with filler. (Which was very much evident in another form with Peace Walker.)


People universally gush over ZOE and how great egojima is, despite the fact that he isn't credited with either directing,designing or writing either game. Producer only. No more involvement than MGSPO,TTS,MGRR,etc.

Kojima gets more praise than he deserves.

Konami should absolutely keep trying to make Metal Gear games. (There are so many good non-canon Metal Gear games. It wasn't a problem before and it shouldn't be a problem now)

Survive was never meant to be a continuation or a mainline game, it was a spinoff trying to use MGSV game mechanics and engine as a base for something different. And butthurt egojima fanboys everywhere couldn't distinguish or have a rational thought on the matter. (Paid mechanics or character slot whining. Does no one remember having to pay for character slots in MGO2 in MGS4?? Or all the microtransactions to pay for maps already on the game disc and cosmetic items??)
They weren't trying to replace Kojima and continue the series cannonically, everyone acted as if they were though because fandumb.



Konami is absolutely shitty for how they treated employees and how things went from the transition away from big budget games. However Kojima is no infallible perfect deity who can do no wrong.
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