HWcast1 Q3 - John-Michael Smith

 Q3. Write up your case on your blog with the following subheadings:

• “The facts of the case.” Here is where you describe the case in your own words.
• “Analysis.” Examine the case in terms of the consequentialist and deontological approaches.
• “Conclusions.” 
• “Future environment.” Describe your vision of a future in which technology is more advanced than today, or society has changed in some significant way.
• “Future scenario.” Describe how this ethical case (or an analogous one) would or should play out in the environment of the future, and give your opinions about it.

Answer:

The facts of the case. Hideo Kojima, game director within Konami since 1986, left the company in 2015 due to an apparent violation of ethics by Konami execs who were inspired to shift towards the mobile/gambling market. This ended in his games, "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" and "Silent Hill" both being left unfinished and hastily released by Konami. Later in the year, Konami barred Kojima from accepting his awards from The Game of the Year ceremony and turned the Metal Gear Solid IP into software played on gambling machines and mobile minigames.

Analysis.  While Konami had a utilitarian approach for their company, they lacked deontological and virtue ethics. Kojima vice versa. Konami had worried their bottom line might be effected by Kojima's far fetched and high budget ideas, which is very likely why they pressured him out and moved away from his work. Kojima on the other hand wanted his team and his work to be at it's peak no matter how long it took and what the budget said about it.

Conclusions. It's hard to say who's right or wrong about the situation factually. In my opinion, I think Konami's approach was the unethical outcome considering it was at the sacrifice of Kojima's career and art. Not only that, but they kept the IP to Metal Gear and Silent Hill, effectively doing nothing with it but releasing creations under the titles that would later be reviewed poorly for their predatory design, which is a very important bottom line to keep in mind in this case.

Future Environment. Technological advance plays easily into the subject of the creation of games (which if you're like Kojima can be considered a form of art). If technology was more advanced, games would be far easier to make, and situations like this where Kojima's ideas are too big for the budget would happen far less. So at that rate, if this same situation had happened in the future then Konami would have effectively let Kojima go in order to manipulate his creations for their own financial interests (using the IPs for their pursuit into the mobile/gambling market without Kojima's consent).

Future scenario. Imagining this scenario using my future environment as a basis is challenging because in a way this already did happen. There was massive public backlash against Konami in the west after audiences found out what Konami did with the IP post-Kojima. However, there'd be a lot less questionability as to what happened in the studio, giving major creative companies like Konami a lot less leeway in manipulating their developers and creators.