Hideo Kojima has been trolling us with the Metal Gear Solid series for a long time. MGS 1’s Psycho Mantis reading the memory card on PS1. Switching from Snake to Raiden without warning in MGS 2. Taking away everything we relied on to give us entirely new gameplay experiences in MGS 3. Controlling Snake as an old man (complete with aches and back pains) in MGS4. Putting one of the best MGS games in the entire storyline on PSP with MGS: Peacewalker. Kojima sure knows to mess with the expectations of his consumers. His latest stunt however, might be his best troll yet.
With anticipation for the next iteration in the series reaching peak levels, Kojima decided to release a portion of the game to keep gamers satiated. For this piece of content, Kojima would charge $20 on last generation systems and $30 (online price, it’s $40 if you cop retail) on current gen systems. Early reports from Kotaku state this piece of content is short. Really short. Like, “less than two hours worth of content” short. Kojima has already gone on record stating the new MGS: Phantom Pain is “hundreds of times bigger” than Ground Zeroes and he simply wished to put out this teaser now because “the system is here, now.”
I’m not sure if this is a nickel and dime move on Kojima’s part but for all the outrage that’s likely happening, gamers are once again faced with a choice. And they’re likely to pick the wrong one. Kojima has earned a good bit of faith with his prior work, no doubt about that. Releasing what is basically a glorified demo of a game to be released in the future for such a high fee, however, is toeing the line. Gamers can take a stand and not buy the game, but I doubt that happens. If anything, enough people will buy it to justify what Kojima has done and we’ll, instead, get articles documenting how gamers are again being dicked around by developers. It’s a vicious cycle.
I sincerely hope that Kojima has some sort of plan to reduce the price of the full MGS 5 game for anybody who chooses to purchases Ground Zeroes….but I’m almost positive (call it a hunch) the game will retail full price for all consumers. I’ll be reading the reviews and hoping it’s worth the money people paid for it. As for buying it personally?
Slim to none chance of that happening.
Peace.
Ourcade Games 
Good, don’t buy it, nobody should, $30-$40 is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE for what it is, games like Outlast have more gameplay and are cheaper on the PSN and free if you have PS+….Kojima needs to get his head on straight.
How do you know “what it is”. All that’s been said (and by only 1 review) is that the MAIN story is 2 hours. The side missions will add time to this, not to mention the fact that there’s multiple ways to complete each mission – not only in how you approach it, but i saw a video where you have to retrieve someone who’s been captured and the player does rescue someone but it wasn’t the person they actually wanted. Then of course there’s the difficulty – with the AI in MGS games this gives much better replay value than most other games.
I’ve seen so many people calling this a demo – it is not a demo. A demo to me is a selected level or time limit play of the full game. This is a full game – it may not be as large as The Phantom Pain is supposed to be but that doesn’t mean it’s not a full game.
People are also comparing the length/price to indie games which are a similar length, but what they’re forgetting if the graphical detail and AI/physics work that’s gone into a game like MGS.
Maybe people should stop thinking of GZ as a rip off, and more like TPP as a bargain, as that’s supposed to be “Hundreds of times bigger” and is only priced the same as any other game.
Whoa buddy relax.
You gotta realize it’s 2014. Most adult gamers barely have time to play. With the spare time they do have, most have an assortment of games to play and finish. Therefore, a good amount of people only do the bare minimum when out comes to games. A good amount of people will not experience all the game offers. That is a fact. You have to see things for what they are.
Devs can pack all the value in a game they want. Facts are the average adult gamer is usually only interested in the main story, and multiplayer when available. There are exceptions, namely extra modes. But replaying the story time and time again is not something most people do.
With that said, I will be purchasing. But acting like this title isn’t in the last bit over ambitious is a lie. Gran Turismo got ripped for years over the same practice. Devs get ripped for first day DLC. If this content is anywhere in the game then we’re essentially paying to play it early. That’s not WORSE?
I’m pretty sure Konami sets the pricing for their games, not the developer.
True. But it was probably his idea to even make this “Prologue” in the first place.
I’m not buying a 2 hour game for30 or 40 bucks. GTFO Konami!