It may not have taken home any of the big prizes from The Game Awards but Konami and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain certainly was the biggest newsmaker at last night’s awards show. Even after the announcement of four new games at the TGAs, the post-show discussion centred around the news that Konami barred Hideo Kojima from attending The Game Awards.

Following Keifer Sutherland accepted the Best Action/Adventure Award, host/producer Geoff Keighley took a moment to acknowledge Kojima’s absence saying:

“As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight and I want to tell you a little about that. 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 awards ceremony to accept any awards. He’s still 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.”

Here’s Keighley’s speech in video form:

To suggest that Konami has lost all the love of gamers over the last few months would be a wild and dangerous understatement. The company took Kojima’s name and Kojima Productions off of the cover art for MGSV. He’s also either departed or departing the company (depending on the report you read) with his no-compete clause or contract ending in December. Konami used this to bar Kojima from attending both the TGAs and the PlayStation Awards in Tokyo on Wednesday night.

The good news for Konami is that their focus on mobile games and pachinko machines means that upsetting the core gamer shouldn’t hurt their bottom line too much. That’s about all the good news to come out of the whole Kojima affair.

Source: Kotaku