Hideo Kojima Believes Shorter Games Are the Future, Isn’t Sure If Death Stranding Will Be Episodic

In between a keynote presentation and receiving an award, Hideo Kojima was interviewed by GameSpot at the 2016 Develop Conference, revealing that he believes gaming in general will move to shorter experiences and he isn’t sure yet if Death Stranding will adopt an episodic model.

Here’s what he had to say when asked if episodic game releases appeal to him:

For [Death Stranding] I can’t tell. I’m not sure. But in the future I think this is a change that will definitely take place and I’d be interested. I don’t think movies in the future will last two hours, especially when people are already demanding more speedy experiences and delivery. So taking shorter time spans to develop, putting it out, integrating user feedback quickly, and having that freedom in game-making, I think it will apply to movies and TV too.

Right now we have two-hour-long movies and TV episodes are roughly 40 minutes, but in Japan you have morning shows that last 15 minutes. That’s where I think things are headed, having five or 15-minute episodes. For games, having massive, long games will become a thing of the past.

Now at Kojima Productions after working at Konami, Kojima talked about being an independent developer and how he decided to make a big game with Death Stranding, rather than a smaller title:

It’s not that outside factors make the whole decision for me, but that was a time when I was trying to figure out whether I should make something indie or with a big budget. I wasn’t sure, but I decided that I didn’t want people to think that you need to be part of a big company to make a big game. I didn’t want the young developers to think they need to be part of a big company to make big games. That was one of the things that I wanted to prove: that young developers have a chance.

I do hear and listen to what other people think, but in the end I balance that out with what I really want to do. In this case timing had a lot to do with it, whether it was the right time to make a small or big game. That contributed to my decision.

Another motivation for making a big game was “in Japan, you make a big game by being part of a big company. Once you step outside that you cannot make games – or that’s what people think and believe. I want to prove that wrong.”

Going forward, he’d like to see developers and publishers being separate, like in the film industry. “I think going that way, we’d see many more interesting things,” he added.

Kojima also said he’d like to make a movie and write a novel someday, but “those wouldn’t necessarily be for the fans I have so far; it’d be for other people and so I can explore other things. I would like to do it.”

[Source: GameSpot, Ayako (Twitter)]

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