In an interview with a Japanese station, TBS Radio, the founder of Kojima Productions, Hideo Kojima, said that he had to buy and read 300 to make a game after everyone told him that games didn’t need stories. The video lasted around 30 minutes, and the man spent the time talking about his experience in the gaming industry. He said that he had been interested in making films in his youth, but putting his ideas into words was challenging back then since there were no computers.
Unfortunately, his father died when he was 16, which made him study economics at university. Instead of becoming a banker or stockbroker, Hideo Kojima fell in love with video games. He wanted to pursue a career in the gaming industry. Back then, games were much more simplistic and lacked any story. Everyone told Kojima that games didn’t need a story. “So I paid for everything out of pocket, like if I wanted to buy books,” Kojima said. “I’d read about 300 books to make one game. I didn’t have an advisor either.”
Kojima said that he joined Konami because he wanted to make arcade and console games. However, he was sent to the MSX computer division, and one of the managers took a liking to him. Eventually, the man was asked to make a combat game, but since he didn’t want to make a war game, he thought of making an escape game. Knowing the basic idea would get rejected, he thought it would be best to turn it into stealth, and that became the first Metal Gear.
Kojima said Metal Gear was the result of his struggle against the common belief that games didn’t need stories. “You were just expected to shoot back at whatever shot at you,” Kojima told TBS Radio. He said everyone was opposed to his idea since nobody could see his vision. Since he had one failure under his belt, he said that nobody wanted a rookie like him. Thankfully, the man was close to a senior who helped make the others give Kojima’s idea a try.
Later, during the interview, Kojima said that he joined the gaming industry due to his broken dreams. He noted that many people back then also joined because they failed to chase their dreams and decided to join the industry because they wanted to make a living doing music or art. He claimed that the failures made them work together since they wanted to prove themselves.
