Konami has gone a little farther than necessary due to its split with Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions. It was recently announced that the planned reboot of the Silent Hill franchise, Silent Hills, was cancelled by Konami. That means the vision from Kojima and Guillermo del Toro would not see the light of day, outside of the recently released Playable Teaser. However, Konami has gone too far in scrubbing it from the PlayStation Network. Players no longer have access to download the game. In fact, if you downloaded it and delete it, you can never get it back. Konami has gone way too far in scrubbing the demo.
The Playable Teaser was just a sample and a demo, but it was an amazing one. It got gamers very excited for what Kojima and Del Toro potentially had in store for the franchise. Of course, the project has been erased, but that does not mean Konami has to get rid of the Playable Teaser. This behavior makes Konami look as a company look downright immature and childish. In short, Konami comes off as a spurned lover that dumps all of a former partner’s old things out the window during a bad break-up.
To play devil’s advocate, it is possible the Playable Teaser has been removed for legal reasons or contractual reasons. However, I doubt this is the case. The reason I do not believe it is because after the public split between Konami and Kojima, Konami started removing all mention of Kojima’s name from Metal Gear Solid websites and promotional materials. Kojima is the actual creator of the franchise. For Konami to deny Kojima that credit is downright insane. Kojima may not own the rights to the intellectual property that is Metal Gear, but his name is synonymous with the franchise. Even when Stan Lee’s company, Stan Lee Media, sued Marvel for the rights of many of Stan Lee’s creations in the Marvel Universe, Marvel Entertainment never erased Lee’s name as the creator or co-creator on Marvel comics, TV shows and movies. Regardless of any falling out between Stan Lee and Marvel, his contributions to the company and the Marvel Universe can never be changed or erased.
Konami should not have gone this far. Yes, the Playable Teaser was a sample for a game that will never see the light of day, but that does not mean Konami had to completely erase the P.T. from the face of the earth. It is simply bad form.
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