Kojima Productions – Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
You might have heard reports about Konami blocking Metal Gear Solid 5 director Hideo Kojima from attending The Game Awards in 2015. Of course, the issues facing Kojima Productions as a whole were even more serious. Not only was it working on a massive project for years and year that Konami expected returns on, Kojima was effectively kept away from the rest of the team in the months leading up to his departure. Kojima Productions later became “Number 8 Production Department” and had no access to the Internet, only being allowed to send messages internally. Reports of toxic work culture at Konami started to surface courtesy of Nikkei. Cameras to monitor employees, reassignment of developers to cleaning and security roles if they don’t perform well enough, calling out employees who went outside offices for too long during lunch breaks – Konami reportedly did it all.
