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Konami Didn’t Let Kojima Accept His Award Last Night
An interesting thing happened at The Game Awards last night. When Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain won the first of two awards it would take home that night — one for Best Soundtrack, and another for Best Action/Adventure game — series creator Hideo Kojima was nowhere to be seen. Kiefer Sutherland accepted the award on his behalf, and then Geoff Keighley offered an explanation to a confused audience.
“Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight, but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight’s award ceremony to accept any awards. He’s still under an employment contract and it’s disappointing.”
Kojima isn’t singularly responsible for how great MGS V is, but he did create the series and it would’ve been an entirely different game without him behind it. His acceptance speech shouldn’t have had a 140 character limit.
Thank you very much.
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) December 4, 2015
If you didn’t watch the awards show, there were a handful of memorable moments, both good and bad. The best of them was captured in this video, when Konami’s epic assholery earned them the award they truly deserve: an auditorium filled with booing fans.
Konami’s being a real ass.
That is all.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
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