What’s the story?
The creator of the popular games franchise Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima, will be inducted into The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame.
Kojima will become the 21st person to be offered such an award, which he shall be accepting in person during an awards ceremony on February 18th during the 19th D.I.C.E Awards show taking place in Las Vegas.
Presenting the award will be well known film director and writer Guillermo del Toro, responsible for directing such films as Pacific Rim and Hell Boy and more recently Crimson Peak). Both Kojima and del Toro worked together on a new game entry in the Silent Hills franchise – however the game was cancelled and was never completed.
AIAS president Martin Rae said in a statement that Kojima was “one of the most well-loved and well-respected designers of our time, it is a great honour for the Academy to induct him into our Hall of Fame.”
Kojima left his previous job with Japanese publisher Konami after over 20 years. He has now begun working with Sony to create a new game for the PC and Playstation 4 under his new self run studio, Kojima Productions.
Why is it newsworthy?
Kojima has been a long standing member of the games industry over the last 2 decades. His creative input in the metal gear series has really has a great influence over the entire gaming scene as a whole. He is one of the most well respected professionals in his field and as the AIAS president has stated is “well-loved and respected” by both gamers and other developers in the gaming industry.
Having recently left Konami,a developer with a very controversial history and poor relationship with gamers, Kojima had been in the media spotlight after previous claims by Konami that he had been on holiday rather than announcing his departure.
Due to be such an important member of the gaming community over many years it seems long overdue for Kojima to be presented with an honour of this magnitude. There are also links to this story, since the first person to be awarded with the award in 1998 was Shigeru Miyamoto the head of Nintendo, who died recently near the end of 2015.
Having been the head of one of the most popular franchises in gamings history Kojima is one of the biggest gaming developers to come out of Japan and is well known to many gamers over the world.
Reference list
Makuch, E. (2016)
Hideo Kojima Will Be Inducted Into Gaming Hall of Fame
Available at: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/hideo-kojima-will-be-inducted-into-gaming-hall-of-/1100-6433513/ (Accessed 6th January 2016)
Chalk, A. (2016)
Hideo Kojima inducted into AIAS Hall of Fame
Available at: http://www.pcgamer.com/hideo-kojima-inducted-into-the-aias-hall-of-fame/ (Accessed 9th January 2016)
Crecente, B. (2016)
Guillermo del Toro to present Hideo Kojima Hall of Fame award at DICE
Available at: http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/5/10715232/guillermo-del-toro-to-present-hideo-kojima-hall-of-fame-award-at-dice (Accessed 10th January 2016)
(2016)
Available at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0868219/ (Accessed 10th January 2016)
scottbanksjournalism 
As eve, a well discussed and reached story. Good to see Kojima recognised like this – you put it into context authoritatively, in a very well-written blog post.
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