Hideo Kojima’s departure and the mobile-first reallocation (2015)

Revenue efficiency versus the creator as a brand asset

The heart of this decision was not a response to a financial crisis but a reorganization of the development structure itself, measured by the yardstick of revenue efficiency. Against an operated mobile business earning tens of billions of yen a month, big-budget console development — heavy in cost and time, however high its critical acclaim — was forced into retreat in management’s order of priorities. Placing a flagship creator and his production organization outside the structure can be read as the most visible consequence of the mobile shift that advanced under president Takuya Kozuki, a member of the founding family.

Yet what this judgment produced cannot be measured by financial indicators alone. Hideo Kojima’s departure was widely reported by overseas media as well, and long shaped an image, within the games industry, of Konami as a company that makes light of its creators. How great a price the reorganization — a success in the numbers, in the profit growth of the digital-entertainment business — exacted on a different asset, the brand: that question still clings to any assessment of Konami’s thoroughly efficiency-driven management style today.