Konami/Bemani and Artists conflicts.

Aaron is a user on this site, and yes he does indeed live in Japan. Well even if it's a "rumor", there'd still be apossible chance that the conflict is Konami treating the bemani team like crap. This is isn't the first time something like this may have happened, remember Kojima?

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where is the proof? I've looked online and on this thread and found nothing? the best thing I've seen is that quote and that's about it.


there is a possible chance I'm jesus but that doesn't exactly make it true.

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He has mentioned this before on one of the DDR groups on Facebook.

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Are you sure you're not trying to defend Konami?

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I'm not defending anybody,I just want to see actual proof instead of gossip from a guy that knows nothing about the situation.

this is TMZ tabloid stuff

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Aaron's proven to be a reliable source over the years, I trust him.

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Aaron's been a community staple since the beginning, like late 90s. He's got his ear very close to the ground and I wouldn't be surprised if he's heard something directly from someone closely involved. Hopefully we get some definitive news shortly.

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that's all I'm interested in

I'll gladly put my own foot in my mouth if we see actual proof.

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I believe the removal of the artist credits and that kind of shit does count as "loose" evidence, but I do agree that it would be nice to have some kind of statement from one of the artists or a higher-up from Konami itself.

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I believe Konami did make a statement, but then they said no one there is allowed to disscuss anything and they wouldn't go anything further beyond "there's a situation at our company". There's something shady with the higher-ups, or somehing else.

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Is there a link to this or any screenshot?

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This is the official statement from Bemani/Konami.

Honestly, this seems like the kind of shit they said to pussy-foot around Kojima during the whole MGSV riffraff. I'm expecting the worst.

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haven't started production on the pachinko machines yet, so there's a positive

little victories

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I feel really bad for the guy who was ordered to remove the artist credits for the jackets and whatnot, assuming its not the president himself who did it. He's gonna have dark times ahead if his name ever gets out.

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Aaron is essentially one of the people who first discovered DDR when it was first location tested (he was there at the 1998 loc test actually) and has followed the series since its birth up to now. He was responsible for giving us a photo of the infamous 'Yasu Pose', of which a player named YASU posed in front of a DDRMAX machine with the first 'AAA' score on MAX300 back in its day. He is technically working with Konami (not sure what department, but it's somewhere in the business) and has actually written to us recently on feedback a lot of Western players have asked the DDR Staff about the game/feedback on the latest release (DDR A)/improvements they would like to see, of which was translated and posted on one of the Facebook DDR groups.

....other than that he's just a regular guy with a family living in Japan who runs into a lot of weird and crazy situations.

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Unrelated note, Bemanistyle's site is down, and it seems it was for awhile unless I lived under a rock and being ignorant again.

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I got curious enough to look up the timeline of what happened between Kojima and Konami and how soon we knew about things.

Source/quotes/paraphrases for everything is this: https://www.polygon.com/2015/12/16/10220356/hideo-kojima-konami-explainer-metal-gear-solid-silent-hills

- 2015-03-03: Konami announces "corporate restructuring" and "personnel changes" in a press release, with neither document mentioning Kojima at all. Specifically, the last document is supposed to list all of Konami's executive officers (and Kojima is one). First hint of Kojima being thrown under the bus, but kind of only noticeable in retrospect. According to the article, most people notice nothing at this time.
- 2015-03-19: Konami's Metal Gear website silently deletes all mentions of his name (including "A Hideo Kojima game" and "Kojima Productions"). Significantly, images of promotional posters are non-trivially edited. Konami also renames Kojima Productions Los Angeles to Konami Los Angeles Studio, and moves the official Metal Gear Twitter account from @Kojima_Pro_Live to @Metalgear_en. GameSpot reports a power struggle between Kojima and Konami, and basically says that Kojima is now treated as a contractor instead of an employee (meaning he and the employees he hired now have restricted access to internal corp stuff). The contract allegedly (now 'confirmed') ends in December 2015.
- 2015-03-19: In an official comment, Konami says that it and Kojima would "continue to develop and support Metal Gear products."
- 2015-03-20: Kojima and Konami make a joint statement saying that Kojima "will remain involved throughout" the development The Phantom Pain. Kojima makes the explicit quote "I want to reassure fans that I am 100% involved and will continue working on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain." If you read between the lines, this basically says "The Phantom Pain will be my last game." More concretely, Konami puts up a job ad for someone to work on future Metal Gear games.
- 2015-04-25: Konami officially cancels Silent Hills, deletes the demo, and removes Kojima's name from the Silent Hills website. The game's co-director explicitly says that the cancellation was abrupt and surprised him, calling it a "scorched earth approach".
- 2015-05-29: Konami says that the previous corporate restructuring was so it could begin a "mobile first" approach. It clarifies that it isn't giving up on everything non-mobile (though it's obvious that mobile is less risk and higher reward), and says that both Metal Gear and Silent Hill are "extremely important" and it will "continue to produce products for both franchises."
- 2015-07-14: The final boxart for The Phantom Pain is revealed to also not include Hideo Kojima's name.
- 2015-08-03: A report mentions how employee morale at Konami is at an all-time low. Specific reports are game devs being given menial jobs, cameras being installed, and bosses publicly shaming employees who take lunch breaks that are too long. Other specific reports are all of Kojima Productions' computers being disconnected from the internet and the department being renamed from "Kojima Productions" to "Number 8 Production Department".
- 2015-10-09: Kojima throws a farewell party, leaves Konami's offices for the last time, says that he's under a non-compete clause until December, and says that he can't comment on anything else.
- 2015-10-10: Konami says that Kojima is still an employee and that he and his team are just going on a long vacation.
- 2015-11-03: Konami officially announces that its Los Angeles studio is now closed.
- 2015-12-03: Konami prevents Kojima from attending The Game Awards.
- 2015-12-15: Kojima officially announces for the first time that he is now working for an employer other than Konami.

To sum up:
- We got new information every 1-2 months or so.
- The "non-trivially delete all mentions of employee names from site" thing is especially eerily similar.
- It took 9 months from first announcement to Kojima's ties being officially broken.
- It took 7 months from first announcement to Kojima's ties being 'unofficially' broken (farewell party, leaving offices for last time).
- Konami made arguably misleading official statements at least four times.
- If the worst happens (everyone at Bemani is fired or resigns), only time will tell whether DDR and/or other games turn out like Metal Gear or like Silent Hill. Metal Gear got a new game announced in August 2016 and is scheduled for release in early 2018, while Silent Hill has had nothing for 3 years. Basically, it'll be the difference between "Konami hires new people for the series that used to be under Bemani, and may or may not rename Bemani", and "Konami shelves all the Bemani series (that they own) forever". One data point in favor of the latter () is that Konami put up a job ad regarding Metal Gear one day after they started deleting Kojima's name from everything, while nothing of the sort's happened with any Bemani series yet.

Some dates:
- October 2017: Konami deletes all artist names from Bemani's website, including several non-trivial image modifications.
- March 2018: This is two years after the release of DDR A, the longest gap there's been between games except for Extreme -> SN1.
- May 2018: This is seven months after the first 'incident'.
- July 2018: This is nine months after the first 'incident'.
- September 2018: This is DDR's 20th anniversary. DDR X was released on this month 10 years ago.
- July 2019: At this point, any gap after DDR A will have exceeded the Extreme -> SN1 gap.

Unfortunately, if we want Konami to change for the better, there needs to be some sort of big boycott movement... That never worked for us because we were the minority. When Americans cut off ties after the Kojima incident, Konami only needed to just keep their focus on their main market- Japan. Something big needs to happen towards the Japanese fanbase... And I fear they'll just keep buying, they'll just keep supporting this company. I'm pretty sure Konami's not the only company like this in Japan. From what I can tell from the information I have, this kind of thing is almost normal. We can't know about this, it's considered rude to make a negative statement of any kind in Japan. I remember this happening not only in the Kojima incident, but in the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown. The Japanese workforce sucks, and while I'm sure Konami is one of the worse places, it can't be abnormal for no one to really be doing anything. Honestly, I want something to happen to Konami for any of this. Whether they burn to the ground, or take a massive shift in staffing (Specifically, a new CEO) that changes things for the better. This issue isn't about Bemani. This is about the people who work at Konami, and their rights as people. That's how I see this.

I second this.

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