There seems to be no end to the behind the scenes drama going on between Konami Corp and Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima. During this week’s The Game Awards, show host Geoff Keighley outed Konami as being responsible for not allowing Kojima to accept an award given to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain for Best Action/Adventure Game. The award was instead accepted by actor Kiefer Sutherland, who voiced the game’s lead character, Solid Snake.

“As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight, and I wanted to tell you a little bit about that,” Keighly said onstage. “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.”

Keighley’s statements were met with boos from the crowd, a reflection of the widespread opinion voiced by many other gamers over social media.

“He’s under an employment contract and it’s disappointing, and it’s inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates for such an incredible game as Metal Gear Solid V,” Keighley continued. “But that’s the situation we’re in. Hideo is in Tokyo right now watching the show, so we wanted you to know, Hideo, that we’re thinking of you, and we miss you. We hope to see you at The Game Awards 2016.”

Konami versus Kojima

So far, everyone has been talking about the conflict between Konami and Kojima except for Konami and Kojima.

Earlier this year, acclaimed film director Guillermo Del Toro opened up about the canceled Silent Hills game that he had been working on with Kojima. Konami had halted all production on the game, which had already generated a significant amount of buzz amongst fans thanks to P.T., the “playable teaser” game that Konami pulled from PlayStation Network when it cancelled the game.

“It was a sort of scorched earth approach,” Del Toro said earlier this year. “It was not a gentle and ambiguous cancellation.”

The dissolution of Kojima Productions was also reported not by Konami or Kojima, but by the Japanese voice actor for Solid Snake, Akio Otsuka. Otsuka said at the time that Kojima Productions was “forced to disband.”

With the undoubtedly strict terms of Kojima’s employment contract with Konami, it will likely be some time before we ever get the full story straight from the source.

“Hideo Kojima 20100702 Japan Expo 1” by Georges Seguin (Okki) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.