Should Konami go bankrupt?

[Harvey]

By this point, I think almost every gamer is fully aware of the dark side of Konami especially after knowing several things such as

1. Treating their employees like dirt in every possible way whether part of the company or not.

2. Treating their fans like crap whether that's subjective matter or not.

3. Treating Hideo Kojima horribly to the point that he can't even mention a word about Konami even after he left there.

4. Is pretty much making the overall game industry look bad.

So Its come to the question...should they just go bankrupt already?

Yes I'm aware that there are people working there and they got families to care for and getting jobs is hard...but the more Konami sticks in, the harder it is for the staff working there to even work elsewhere and the sooner it goes, the sooner it can end atleast to me.

So what do you think? I actually wanted to put this on the serious discussion section..but since this is part of gaming, I wasn't so sure if it can be placed there?

 

[Sodium Hydroxide]

To be entirely honest with you, I would've said without any hesitation that Konami should go bankrupt when only considering how little they care about their fans (and if you want evidence, just ask your Yugioh-playing nerd friend what they think of the June 12 banlist). But considering the other things...My opinion has changed. I no longer think Konami should go bankrupt, I now think they should never have existed. I understand the primary point of a company is to make money, and to them those things might not be as much of a priority; but if you've got yourself a reputation of treating fans/employees like dirt at best (probably worse, though) then you're barely going to make money anyway. Which means they probably will go bankrupt fairly soon anyway, and thank whatever powers that be for that!

TLDR Whoever started this horrible culture in Konami's operations is a terrible person and they're shooting themselves in the foot by being jerkish to everyone involved with them.

[Maritisa]

They bloody deserve some kind of crisis, because it's the only way they'll ever get slapped out of their hubris. There are no ifs ands or buts about it.
I'd rather see them see the errors of their ways and realize how utterly awful they've been and show genuine remorse about it and try to fix their problems rather than just go bankrupt though, because the problem is that if the company just dies the worst of the worst are going to get off relatively fine and go contaminate some other area of society and/or the game development industry, and those few who still care and are otherwise just being hurt and manipulated and taken advantage of will be out of a job and struggling to find anywhere to go. Either that, or those corrupt folk ruining the company need to face criminal charges for their countless mistreatment of their employees and all what have you.

But if it's a choice between it continuing to exist as is and it being eradicated I'd rather see it shut down in the most brutal corporate way possible to hammer home that they fucked up. Hard. It's just that calling for its shutdown isn't going to deliver justice to those who deserve it, given how this type of thing works. It might deal it indirectly, but there's an equal chance it won't.

Point is, the people responsible need to face the consequences of their actions, and those who did no wrong and have just stuck with the company because they had little choice deserve far better than what they've put up with.

[Dismissed]

Konami is one of the worst game companies alongside EA.

F**Konami. At least EA can make good games like Plants vs. Zombies Heroes. Sure, EA loves freemium and pay-to-win, but at least they don't turn their games into freakin' pachinko machines.

This is just my opinion, no need to complain about it. Just saying in advance.

[Harvey]

@Purple Mage

Yeah speaking of EA, how evil are they compared to Konami?

 

[Dismissed]

Let's see... they make you pay for almost f***ing everything to win. In Plants vs. Zombies 2, a lot of powerful plants needded to be purchased with real money, and most of the later levels are so freaking hard that you need to buy power-ups to complete them. In PvZ Heroes, they recently made an update which made some nice cards have higher rarity, which means a lesser chance of obtaining them and making them more expensive to craft. There are probably similar equivalents in other EA games. So basically think Supercell, but more variety in terms of what they can sell to you. Although they also have a decent console/PC presence aside from mobile games. But if I ever see a real-life PvZ slot machine, I'd lose my faith in them like what I did with Konami.

[Magical CC]

No but consider that they are sitting on a mountain of great franchises and didn do anything meaningful with them makes me feel uneasy.

[Harvey]

2 hours ago, Ritisa said:

I'd rather see them see the errors of their ways and realize how utterly awful they've been and show genuine remorse about it and try to fix their problems rather than just go bankru

But that's just the problem, they literally can't seem to fix their problems at all. The only way they can is to sell themselves to a better corp and just move on. How can they possibly recover their reputation at this point?

 

[Etrurian emperor]

Yes and not only because they really deserve it. Them failing hard may also discourage any other Japanese company from killing their gaming division to focus on gambling and other ventures. 

[Sentacotus]

Probably yeah.  Even if it doesn't seem like it right now, bad business decisions have an odd way of catching up particularly when so many are made back to back.  Konami is not a monopoly even in the pachinko space if I'm not mistaken.  So that means they have a single point of failure when it comes to their business with other competitors chomping at the bit for their market share.

[Slumber]

5 hours ago, Purple Mage said:

Konami is one of the worst game companies alongside EA.

F**Konami. At least EA can make good games like Plants vs. Zombies Heroes. Sure, EA loves freemium and pay-to-win, but at least they don't turn their games into freakin' pachinko machines.

This is just my opinion, no need to complain about it. Just saying in advance.

You can chide EA all you want for microtransactions, but by most accounts, they treat their employees well and don't basically torture them. They micromanage developers sometimes(IE Mass Effect Andromeda), but that's pretty minor compared to all of the shit Konami did to Kojima Productions and the creator of Goemon. 

AND if people don't like working conditions at EA, EA doesn't blacklist former employees from shit like getting healthcare.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Slumber

[Darros]

Addint on to EA for a minute: I don't play them but EA also has Madden and NHL. I know the thing to do is make fun of esports, but they're not going anywhere any time soon. So I'd say they're fairly stable based on that and they're not entirely guilty of shit like Konami is.

 

As for "should Konami go bankrupt" it's iffy. You're putting a lot of people out of their livelihoods who haven't really done much wrong if that's what ends up happening. Being the lower-downs for a company like that just kind of completely sucks. I guess it depends on what severance looks like to the employees. If I had to wager a guess though it's not going to be good. It's not a two second issue unfortunately.

[Dismissed]

7 minutes ago, Slumber said:

You can chide EA all you want for microtransactions, but by most accounts, they treat their employees well and don't basically torture them. They micromanage the shit out of developers sometimes(IE Mass Effect Andromeda), but that's pretty minor compared to all of the shit Konami did to Kojima Productions and the creator of Goemon. 

AND if people don't like working conditions at EA, EA doesn't blacklist former employees from shit like getting healthcare.

Well yeah, personally I prefer EA over Konami.

[Sentacotus]

8 minutes ago, Darros said:

As for "should Konami go bankrupt" it's iffy. You're putting a lot of people out of their livelihoods who haven't really done much wrong if that's what ends up happening. Being the lower-downs for a company like that just kind of completely sucks. I guess it depends on what severance looks like to the employees. If I had to wager a guess though it's not going to be good. It's not a two second issue unfortunately.

I mean yeah of course I doubt any sane person would wish that on another.  However, I blame the board, CEO, and management for making the many poor business decisions that would theoretically put Konami in that position.  Thats why while the purpose of a company is to make money and expand its important to realize when you're in charge that you're also in a sense responsible for people's lives which often times leads to hard decisions having to be made.  But now I'm going off on a ramble...

[Darros]

Nah, it's not as tangential as you think. I'm pretty here for the idea that corporations completely fucking suck. But on the other hand it's the system we kind of have, and dismantling something like that would really screw over a lot of people. At least with bankruptcy and all that stuff you have the chance to dole out severance pay.

[Tryhard]

23 minutes ago, Darros said:

Addint on to EA for a minute: I don't play them but EA also has Madden and NHL. I know the thing to do is make fun of esports, but they're not going anywhere any time soon.

Don't you mean just sports games in general? eSports is more about competitive gaming like fighting games, MOBAs and RTS games, etc. Generally not sports games.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Tryhard

[Darros]

Just now, Tryhard said:

Don't you mean just sports games in general? eSports is more about competitive gaming like fighting games, MOBAs and RTS games, etc.

Probably. I thought "eSports" just meant digital but I guess I was wrong. No big. The point is still the same. We're not losing Madden or NHL anytime soon (or ever).

[Harvey]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

You can chide EA all you want for microtransactions, but by most accounts, they treat their employees well and don't basically torture them. They micromanage developers sometimes(IE Mass Effect Andromeda), but that's pretty minor compared to all of the shit Konami did to Kojima Productions and the creator of Goemon. 

AND if people don't like working conditions at EA, EA doesn't blacklist former employees from shit like getting healthcare.

Ok...but what about shutting down companies after buying them? Like Maxis for example?

Also, call me nuts but I'm guessing that EA can't be any more evil than Konami due to US laws being far stricter than that of Japan. I mean, if Japan had laws that were strict, Konami would have been done by now wouldn't it?

 

 

Edited July 24, 2017 by Harvey

[Slumber]

7 minutes ago, Harvey said:

Ok...but what about shutting down companies after buying them? Like Maxis for example?

Also, call me nuts but I'm guessing that EA can't be any more evil than Konami due to US laws being far stricter than that of Japan. I mean, if Japan had laws that were strict, Konami would have been done by now wouldn't it?

 

 

I know this is you, but you make it sound like EA bought Maxis and then shut them down for no reason, and not like EA hadn't owned Maxis for 15 years before laying everyone off and rebranding the company(Maxis still exists, by the way). Spore was the straw that broke the camel's back on that one, and that failure sits pretty much purely on Will Wright. 

Edited July 24, 2017 by Slumber

[Magical CC]

Maxis is not the only victim of EA mind you. Plethora of franchises and studios died in the pit for no good reason thanks to EA. EA has more blood on its hands than Konami ever will.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Magical CC

[Harvey]

3 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I know this is you, but you make it sound like EA bought Maxis and then shut them down for no reason, and not like EA hadn't owned Maxis for 15 years before laying everyone off and rebranding the company(Maxis still exists, by the way). 

Umm...they did shut down a division of Maxis causing some layoffs....which is about on par with getting a company to go bankrupt.

 

[Sentacotus]

46 minutes ago, Umbran Darros said:

Nah, it's not as tangential as you think. I'm pretty here for the idea that corporations completely fucking suck. But on the other hand it's the system we kind of have, and dismantling something like that would really screw over a lot of people. At least with bankruptcy and all that stuff you have the chance to dole out severance pay.

Yeah and whether we like it or not corporations do tend to create a lot of jobs.  Sure they are vulnerable to restructuring and division layoffs to increase their profit margins like the aforementioned instance but the alternative of regulating them to no end and trying to tax them into oblivion to get them to "comply" usually does more harm than good for everyone involved usually more so on the employees.

Whats concerning about a company like Konami is their fondness for blacklisting an downright blackmailing employees for not being in line with their company's dealings or trying to bring up better ways to run the company/products.  Aka Hideo Kojima.  But I do honestly think that it does work itself out because I think it in turn makes it very hard for those companies to get top tier talent because of their reputation I mean the whole Kojima debacle wasn't exactly quiet news either.  

[Dismissed]

Well, after taking over PopCap, they laid off most of the original PvZ staff. I'm also sure they treat their employees relatively well compared to Konami.

I guess it's my fault that I brought EA into this discussion.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

A THQ style liquidation where all the intellectual properties are sold off to the highest bidder might be nice. But I wouldn't know where to begin on who I'd like to see purchase what. Suikoden, Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Contra, Castlevania, bomberman, that's a lot of franchises that are questionably viable in their classic states.