Hideo Kojima’s 10 day trip around the world with Sony’s Mark Cerny has just ended. It concluded with Kojima’s final stop at the Quantic Dream studios in Paris yesterday. Today, the auteur game designer took to Twitter to share some of his thoughts and takeaways from the trip with his fans. According to Kojima, the biggest takeaway from the trip to game studios throughout the world was that game technology can become almost like magic in its ability to create new worlds.
‘”Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” by Arthur C Clark Here’s my feeling after the intensive studio visit,” Kojima said. ‘Game creation is like using magic- you can use the magic of technology to make dreams of the people in the real world come true. But just because you have technology doesn’t mean you can make magic. [Having] human resources who can maneuver technology and the environment to pull out their talent is necessary. And most importantly, the vision of the studio has to be accurate in order to embrace technology, human resources, and environment. With this, technology becomes magic.’
Kojima also discussed his trip in context of his own career. ‘And what I’ve learned the most on this trip,’ he said, ‘Start up a new studio, hire the staff to work with, find the office, construct the organization, work on the technology, and step into the challenge of creating new magic. This may sound like I am starting over from scratch- but I’ve got fans supporting me, friends [I] share my dream with, all over the world. So it’s not starting over from scratch- I’ll continue creating the cutting edge games that I’ve been making for 30 years.’
If there are magicians in the game making business, Kojima is definitely one of them. I cannot wait to see what he cooks up next.