Hideo Kojima's Philosophy of Play
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- Опубликовано: 24 ноя 2020
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MINOR SPOILERS if you're being really, really careful for Death Stranding
Ever since Hideo Kojima re-formed his eponymous studio to create 2019's Death Stranding, one word has been a fixture for all his endevors: Ludens. But what is this word, and where does it come from? How does it provide insights into understanding not only Death Stranding, but every Kojima game? And what clues does it provide us to anticipating his work in the future? Watch this video to find out.
Read "HOMO LUDENS A STUDY OF THE PLAY-ELEMENT IN CULTURE" by Johan Huizinga, here:
art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000...
******************
"Named after one of the most prominent video game developers working under Konami, Hideo Kojima, Kojima Productions [was originally] the result of Konami merging several promising subsidiaries, one of which was Kojimas own development team who were formerly working at Konami Computer Entertainment Japan.
A big aspect of Kojima Productions birth was the workload of it's namesake. As the Vice President of KCEJ, Kojima often found himself bogged down with administrative responsibilities and buissness management of the company which enforced major restrictions upon his ability to focus upon games under his development. Taking control over his own Production company allowed Kojima to focus extensively upon the games themselves and allowing him much freedom in terms of how he approaches his work.
Technically, Kojima Productions has been a squad of designers led by Kojima ever since 1987, although it was only in 2005 that there was any official title given to the group which came about after the aforementioned merging. Although Kojima Productions is a self serving company, they still often [relied] upon Konami as a publisher.
[However] on December 16, 2015, the establishment of the company was announced along with a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment for the development of the studio's first game. This first title is expected to release on PlayStation 4 and PC.
Reportedly many employees from Konami's, same name subsidiary Kojima Productions have joined the studio."
www.giantbomb.com/kojima-prod...
www.giantbomb.com/kojima-prod... 
Игры
![The Fabrication of MGS2 [METAL GEAR SOLID 2 RETROSPECTIVE 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QKyI64rNVqk/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Fabrication of MGS2 [METAL GEAR SOLID 2 RETROSPECTIVE 1]](/img/tr.png)
Another weird thing is when MgsV calls me boss all the time and then I go to the gas station and the guy there calls me boss and looks kind of like one of the soldiers I was just playing as...
I hope you knocked the guy out and took him home.
@@Cha4k and then he said "Thank you, Boss"
You don't know the awesomeness of a puppy's paw pads?
xD
Is that you boss
Ludens as a genre. I love it, really. Kojima's games have always seemed to me as visually uncanny, tonally fluid, genre-agnostic hot messes that, for all their confusion and occasional silliness, are instantly recognizable. If they were to have a single 'common element to group them, it's their upfront ambition.
Well said!
Just finished Death Stranding this morning, slow paced, but what a story, wow
Congrats man! That story covers pretty much every emotion I can imagine lol
One of the craziest video game experiences I have ever had.
Death stranding has really bad gameplay play but has an incredible story
@@Solarsey that’s subjective, i think the gameplay is captivating and engaging, but your opinion is valid.
Playing MGS is the reason I got in to game development, and hearing about Kojima reminds me why I got into in the first place.
Homo Ludens, ... wow this is very close to one of my very favourite quotes/line from Terry Pratchett.
''Homo Sapiens, it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.”
Thank you Jorin Lee for making me see imaginary links between my favourite books and video games. hehe
I'll check out this Huizinga.
Lol, he said homo
Dude, please do more Death Stranding videos. I just beat the game a week ago. Such a beautiful game, not only visually, but story wise as well. Ill go as far as to say the story is the best ive ever seen in a video game
Would absolutely love more Death Stranding vids, there is so much left to explore and talk about
While it is beautiful, and the story is very original, I wouldn't say it has the best story. In particular I found the dialogs forced in some places, especially between Fragile and Sam. I would consider Bioshock Infinite be better in that regard, though it does lack in gameplay.
I shed tears at the ending of the game. Yes this games are a slow slow pace game but it was worth it.
the guys in my Offline games Group just keep saying: “Pls, Hideo, you can stop making games now cause DS sucks”. Sure each person has their own taste
Happy you enjoyed it 😊
hideo kojima looked older 20 years ago than he does today
Accept the japanese-vampirism connection within your heart, you know this to be true.
Hes a clone...solid hideo..there is also a liquid hideo somewhere in the jungles of the congo
Working for Konami would do that to a man.
Just like jotaro
Success provides youth & vitality
19:35 “A form of snake, raiden, without the substance”, until mgs2 substance, which had snake
Yes-Answering the big questions!
Still quite possibly the most holistic video-analyst on the platform, even regardless of the franchise you discuss.
Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.
I started watching your videos about 3 months ago when I saw your 3 part breakdown of MGSV and ever since then, your attention to detail and philosophy, making connections to things from other games or the real world, has sparked an interest in me to be able to think and analyze things in such a detailed and complete manner. Its started as me thinking "Oh cool another MGS analysis" to, "I can't wait to see how this all fits together" No matter the subject material. Keep up the incredible work and I can't wait for the next video!
This deserves millions of views, psychologically it is sound and offers resonances to thinkers like Piaget, as a fan of MGS 1, 2 and 3 and Death Stranding, I really appreciated the parallels you offered. Great work, you could give a very good essay on the topic of Ludens.
Metal Gear, the concept of the weapon itself, has been touted in MGS3 as the "missing link" between infantry and artillery. I believe for the longest time that Metal Gear is just a more tangible and accessible version of his endgame: finding the missing link between narrative-driven art and interactive entertainment.
I had a thought while playing death stranding, i wish this was a movie cuz it'd be the best movie ever. Then I realized this is actually better than a movie. I immersed myself in the game for 3 years and that immersion makes the story so much more impactful and meaningful to me
Studied Huizinga. Wrote essay about play. Immersion is like being underwater. Change of state. We will experience a diffuculty to discern play world from reality.
Is that ok to live in fantasy?
Huizinga's idea of play reminds me of this quote by one of my favorite authors, brazilian poet Manoel de Barros:
"Noventa por cento do que eu escrevo é invenção. Só dez por cento é mentira”
"Ninety percent of what I write is invented. Only ten percent are lies"
Kojima is definitely the best game designer in video games history
This one is for you and the algorithm, keep up the great work, I love your content it's some of my favorite!
birthday anniversary teen cool fashion food mukbang
Kojima is the kind of game developer and artist we need more of in the world. Focused on vision. Not on easy profits.
This was such a great dive into the philosophy of these games. I love your point about how the references are part of the art, part of our broader social world, etc. That's why you're the best, boss!
Another excellently researched and presented video, thanks. Your discussion on The Kojima Frequency podcast recently was also great 👍
Very well put together! I appreciate the work you put into this. Thank you!
man I'm binging your videos once again and I just have to give you applause once more.
great job with all your kojima videos.
Amazing work my friend. Great content . I have been following everything you do man . Keep it.up ✌
This discussion reminds me of the Terry Pratchett Discworld book "Hogfather". If you don't know it, it tells the story of how the Hogfather, the Discworld's version of Santa Claus, has been erased, and Death has to take his place and make enough children believe in him by morning or the sun won't rise. Over the course of the story, which is mostly a very silly comedy of absurd ideas, the free-floating belief in the absent Hogfather ends up creating random new things like the god of hangovers and the eater of socks, who pop into being whenever someone suspects such a thing might exist. In the end, Death explains that believing in beings like the Hogfather are practice to believing in the more important fantasies, like justice, or civilization itself. These are just ideas that only exist if we as a people believe in them. But by making believe there is such a thing as a civilization, it comes true. If no one believes in the Hogfather, and he's rendered non-existent, then civilization, and ultimately meaning itself, collapses in a domino effect. And the universe is left in existential emptiness.
So yeah, play and make-believe, kind of important. Otherwise the universe is just a chaos of meaningless spheres moving in curves.
much needed video. thank you for making this video.
Please make an in-depth analysis videos(maybe a series) of Death Stranding. I am really interested in hearing you go in detail for that game, the way you did for MGS titles.
I absolutely love your videos. Thank you for doing what you do.
I really appreciate these essays. You've certainly opened my awareness to more of Kojima's inner workings and the subtletees in his games that I (a lamen) glossed right over.
Bruh I haven’t even finished the last vid lmao
Thanks for the video got my mind thinking and working 🙏
One thing I admire about Death stranding is its design. It's totally against every other video game in terms of design because most games such as cyberpunk and Bethesda games have so much ambition but it falls flat. Death stranding is very humble in its design and aware of its limitations. So many hardware limitations are tied to the lore of the game, like resource management = timefall. You can't go outside the map because of the lore. There are few NPCs because complex AI requires a larger studio to implement but also because of the lore. There's a multiplayer element but its connected to the lore rather than just some money-grab or shoe-horned in. It totally changed my perception of design, where it feels like the ideas and design come from the limitations rather than the other way around. Every other big studio does the opposite, they have the idea first, and then try to implement it despite all reasons not to. I don't think there's ever been a more perfectly 'designed' game. Because the medium of a game, storytelling, real world limitations and hardware limitations are all taken into consideration every step of the way and create a total harmony. There is no bad idea, all the ideas fit the story, the medium of it being a game, and the limitations they have as a studio
Thanks for this analysis, i felt myself reflected in many of your conclusions. You got a subscriber.
Another great one my dude
That mass effect *Like* music at 4:44 brings back many memories... So excited for Mass Effect Remastered!
Its in death stranding
@@sharmoutha I know. Was just saying that If it was in mass effect and you never heard it before, you would think it fit perfectly as menu music.
Love your vids man, keep up
Fantastic - incredibly well researched and rich in detail. EDIT: Just looked at your channel - looks like I have much binging to do. :)
Good quality analysis. Happy Thanksgiving Boss!
excellent upload again. thanks boss!
I accidentally found you, and tbh I am glad I did as it’s meant to be! Subscribed
Amazing vidéo, I've been wating for this one !
👍 From a Frenchman fan
Hell yeah dude! Antrhopology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Social Philosophy + Video Games = this is the Futurasound Scratch to an often troublesome Itch.
Perhaps your best work yet, boss.
You rock 🙂 I love your analytical approach. Subbed 😎
Beautiful video
this is your best video ever
The quality of your videos cannot be understated
Loved this
I need to play the MGS games someday. I loved Death Stranding.
If you have a ps3 I would HIGHLY recommend the MGS legacy collection only issue is that if you by it used it probably won't have MGS1
Kojima really is onto something very particular and special on this huh
This touches on something I’ve thought about a lot - these games feel inherently theatrical, in more of the stage tradition than the cinematic. I think that intentional act of engaging the audience in play you mention might be what drives that effect for me. Solid analyses!
Thankyou very informative, more please...
There was a song/piece by the group "Yes" that had the chorus "Nous some du sollei(bad French spelling, I know )we love when we play
Translation "We are the sun and,we love when we play"
I played MGSV because it was given to me by a friend, I was blown away by Kojimas mind. The game worked on so many levels, morality play,anti war,but it was the humour that crowned it as a master piece for me...just hope he carries on making games...
Thankyou again for this video
I'm always telling my friends that video games are the artform of the future,that interaction in a narrative is going to create finer and finer works of art.
Its like early black and white movie
Hollywood at present,soon to burst into
Technicolor wonder.Hideo Kojima is at the forefront of this artform...
I’m literally taking a class on play at college and holy shit I adore this vid
When you mentioned how Kojima and his designers likened their games to "playing tag", I remembered playing Hitman and thinking it was just like a game that little kids would come up with. That's an important principle to Ludo anything: alluding and appealing to a child-like freedom and wonder.
Nice vid 👍
Another great video
I just wanted to say this: thank you for making these videos, they mean a lot to me.
Oh, to be a funky little spaceman hanging out with a moon whale.
Another fantastic video!! You are awesome man. Is there any chance you’d ever do a video analyzing hueys tapes in MGS:V? Specifically his interrogation and the way he answers the questions. The voice acting is so good, I can hear his lies in his voice. But is he really lying? I have a hard time determining truth from fiction in his tapes.
I've got something like this in the works for sure, Boss! Thanks for your support
Futurasound Productions you’re the best
Remember how we played as kids? extremely seriously. aware we are playing, but also transported into another realm, where a pencil can be a spaceship. that is the 4th wall break Kojima does. you are aware exactly of what you doing, but he invites you to use the other great power we have as humans other than intelligence: imagination. 💖
Love your channel bro especially on MGSV and Death Stranding!! Please make more bro go deep even using conspiracy dig in
If I could [like] this a million times I would.
This is really good.
This is brilliant.
Interesting take. I love it.
This concept makes perfect sense, it's just hard to put into words. Play is what gives everything meaning.
Could you tell me the names of all tracks used in this video? They're all amazing
We never stop playing.
0:42 Their logo, I think it's supposed to be a a VR headset. That is Kojima's digital next step in evolution. Maybe headsets that go much further than we have right now, is something he's already imagined. I just realized. Woah.
@2:51. lol, dude legit went out to a Army Navy store and bought full on Class A's
EDIT: Also nobody here can convince me that the last tape in MGSV, the Truth, isnt Kojima talking to us - the players.
Perfect Videography
I always thought it could be The Boss
The Child? Yeah, she'd be right up there being the best Ludens that ever Ludensed. :D
@@AvianSavara Ludens
There's also this concept in Psychology, look for Jean Piaget about play.
Futrasound: What is Ludens?
Latin students: Am I a joke to you?
Superb
I think the choice of survivors in Death stranding is telling; "Photographer, Junk Dealer, Musicians Son, Jewelery maker, Preppers, Windfarmers, Roboticists etc. " craftsmen and artists are the only people left contributing value in a post management, sales and consumption based society. Its a scathing indigment on our current world that in Death stranding Sam and his mom constitute the entire US government and logistical supply line and its worth building a network out of like 30 people making expermental art and tech. its like a blueprint kojima made assembling his production team after leaving konami, or how socialist revolutions in france, russia, cuba, etc. succeeded.
Is “agua de beber” the background music about halfway through? Who did this cover?
The opposite of boredom is not pleasure, but excitement. People will naturally seek any type of excitement even pain.
Makishima Shogo.
This is where that expression comes from when someone tries to fuck you over and you confront them with it and they are like: "Hey man, I'm just playing with you". A great way to obfuscate reality.
Hideo Kojima: Build a bridge and feel how good it feels to help others.
The game itself: Build a bridge so you can get more likes.
God damnit, I got to watch the "Blue is the warmest color" for research and plot reasons.
My first semester on college all over again Hahaha, I studied game design btw
One word: subscribed 😉
👍👍
I love the idea that a state of play and fiction are interchangeable, joined and a response to seriousness and reality. Strangely enough, this gap is bridged more and more by a game which heavily features bridges. You can see that the ideas here are trying to be realized and that realization is a response being primed. Everything is a response to it’s opposite. That’s life... but also not.
I'm still in a dream for a new Metal Gear
Can someone tell me what the song playing in the credits here is?
Kojima is honestly one of the few game devs i wouldn't mind working under
As a long-time fan of MGS, I tried ignoring Death Stranding as some sort of arthouse gimmick Hideo was indulging himself using leftover ideas from MGSV and P.T. - But I got it about a week ago and the gameplay aspects are just as refined as MGS and align parallel to the message of the game in a way that only reveals itself as you play it. It's also the most atmospheric non-linear survival horror game I've personally experienced since S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and conjures the same adrenaline without firefights
Imagining that their little games is the thing that makes them free when in reality is the only thing stopping them from being free, or better said imagining that theres such differences, there's no difference between any complementary opposites
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and he lets them come;
things disappear and he lets them go.
He has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When his work is done, he forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.
So what was that song at the end?
I think Shigeru Miyamoto understands the concept of Ludens better than anyone, nowadays seems like videogames industries are working more on a story and cinematics than on a gameplay experience, and that's a failure, too much story, less gaming experience, Shigeru respects a lot the gaming experience, besides i'm not a nintendo or mario fan, but i gotta admit when i play a nintendo game made by shigeru, i always get too Ludens at it....talking about games, sure, but in the way of Kojima's i gotta admit i was kinda impacient while playing Death Stranding, feel more like it should be a movie instead of a game, and gotta admit the try to implement good walking physics and stuff, like you're character not just keep running in the wall, anyways, i think he is a heavy storyteller and he has the guts to make a revolutionary videogame, but he has to work more on the ludens part
Got enough ads on this video man? Holy fuck. I'm seeing 7 ad breaks on the timeline.
Alright... I'm in
Subscribed.
Given that I've not played a single MGS game. Would you recommend that I play them chronologically or according to the order in which they were released?
I can play MGS 1,2,3,4,5 and Peace Walker. I don't have the means to play the original MG 1 and 2.
Play them in release order.
@@DragoOnComet Thanks. might I ask what the rationale behind that is? (As opposed to playing them chronologically)
There are a few diff ways you could do this. If you want to see how the mechanics etc have evolved over time, than def play them chronologically. BTW you can easily play MG 1 and 2 inside of MGS3, so long as you're playing the PS3 Remaster, or the expansion 'Subsistence' on PS2 or emulator.
Story-wise, you could also start with 3, then play PW, GZ, TPP, and then MG 1,2, MGS, MGS2, and MGS4. That's the order story wise.
Either way, enjoy!
@@FuturasoundProductions Thank you! Much appreciated. It's via the HD collection on ps3 that I'll be playing 2,3 & PW. Is that you are referring to when you say MGS3 Ps3 remaster? (It's been ordered but hasn't yet arrived)
@@kpjlflsknflksnflknsa yep!
The Moors are back!!!
The only time I had heard the word "ludens" before this game was as a company who made cough drops
A Luden is actually the name of the extra-dimensional, advanced alien race that Kojima belongs to. He's sharing technology from his universe. 😆
Man is a Kojima fan
If the rumors are true, I'm going to enjoy Kojima san's take on Silent Hill
Homo Ludens is also meant to contrast against Homo Demens. People hear the mispronounced “demens” and think it means demonic. But it actually means “irrational/insane”. The contrast implies that play is an expression or reason and progress, and pushing against this impulse makes one “demented” so to speak.
Ludens: a brand of throat lozenge, currently manufactured by Prestige Brands 😉
I hope msg6 comes soon.. directed by hideo as a big surprise