Hideo Kojima: on "Metal Gear Solid V" and cultural exchange in games

With "Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes" out this week, we asked director Hideo Kojima to expand on the game's hot potato topic of diversity by picking from his favorite aspects of international culture.

If there's been a concerted effort to make the "Metal Gear Solid" series more accessible to international audiences since 94's "MGS 3", then "Ground Zeroes" supporting character Kazuhira Miller represents that fusion.

Present right from the start of the "MGS" series, Miller is a half-Japanese US special forces operative, and "represents certain cultural aspects of Japan" in "Metal Gear Solid V," Kojima told Relaxnews during a round-table interview in Paris.

Service and Japanese culture
So what's the best cultural aspect of Japan, in Kojima's view? One thing that other cultures might benefit from?

"What I love about Japanese culture -- and this comes through in Japanese video games -- is the culture of service."

"We don't have the custom of tipping. We always make sure to serve the person we are working for without ulterior motives."

"If Nintendo consoles became popular in the 1980s, it's because Japanese developers had this culture. They did everything to satisfy the player -- it isn't just a developer's ego-trip."

Service and video games
"Video games are an interactive media and so I always make sure, when I create my games, to ask myself the question: 'What kind of service can I provide to the player so that he or she will be as satisfied as possible with my work?'"

"This is an aspect of Japanese culture that I would really like players to understand when they are playing a game."

Parties in the global melting pot
And how about the other way around -- if Japan could adopt one aspect from other cultures, what would it be?

"In spite of [Japanese] being close to one another ethnologically, without any great cultural diversity, we have a hard time creating friendships, notwithstanding our similarities," he said. "What I would like to bring [to Japan] is the culture of parties, you know?"

"I have been in Paris for several days. In the evenings we get together -- people of different origins, nationalities and backgrounds. But we are able to have fun together because parties are opportunities to communicate and make friends, despite any differences."

Metal Gear and multiplayer
That, too, has a gaming application for Kojima, with his studio's Los Angeles branch tasked with building a multiplayer mode for the "Ground Zeroes" sequel "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain."

"I'd like the Japanese people to take on this culture of exchange through the medium of video games, so I've asked all my teams in LA to work from within their own culture -- a culture of parties, of exchange, and of communication."

"Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes" is out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this week internationally, and the next week in Australasia. It acts as prologue to "Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain," TBA.