Hideo Kojima: Instinctual Creativity

    Hideo Kojima is considered to be one of the best game developers in our generation. He has created stories and games that will forever change how video games are perceived and how the stories would be told. Kojima was lonely as a child as his father passed away when he was 13. He is open to what he feels and how he coped. He mentions how he is good at creating a “pretend family”, he would turn on all the lights, he’d turn on the tv, not to watch but to distract himself from the loneliness. He turned to reading books to escape reality, which turned him towards sci-fi books. This habit of reading inspired creativity in him as during the 80s of the StarWars craze, he felt like the escape opera scene had become stale. His reading allowed creativity to thrive as he started to write his own scripts for movies and tv shows when he was younger.

Though he went to college for movie making this ended up coming to a dead end for him as he couldn't find his big breakthrough though it opened a new opportunity for game development. His stories that he tells though these games now are not always meticulously planned, he creates them out of feel, because he wants to, not always knowing why he's doing it but knowing deep down it's because he wants to. Kojima is quoted as saying “sometimes I'm making something because I believe in my heart it will be interesting”. Kojima runs off basic instinct that gets criticized by companies as it's not a “safe” way to make games based only on pure instinct, but the games he creates from them say otherwise as they become fan favorites. One of these games was “Death Stranding” which follows a delivery person who wanders the planet alone hiding from enemies and is engulfed in a beautiful story, but mainly the game is about walking. The game was considered experimental and had its doubts, but Kojima didn’t care of the risks, he knew deep down he had to make it but not fully sure why. He later reports that it's about the journey of the story that makes the game why people like it so much, not necessarily the mechanics. It was used as a social platform as well where other players could leave items behind to help other players out, and formed a community. A game like this was never seen before.

This somewhat relates and comes up in Faith, Hope, and Carnage as Nick Cave says ”Most of the time, I have no idea what I am doing while I’m doing it. It is almost purely intuitive.” Both people know their craft, they know their mediums, and are at a point where they can follow instinct and come up with something great. It's the raw instinct of knowledge that they both possess to be creative, that they no longer have to think about it because it has become a part of them and that they can create without having to worry. Creativity has become second nature as if it was muscle memory, that when they feel it, they run with it, they might not know why, but they know better to second guess it.