The internet’s angry at something new every day. With P.T., there’s a good reason. Look, I don’t give a shit that Konami and Hideo Kojima are having a spat. I care about Konami burying an amazing piece of gaming history, and players not having any way to stop them.
Here’s how I feel right now:
I don’t know who made that image (if you did, let me know), but you’ve captured my heart.
We’re used to older games being shuffled into the background when new hardware comes out. At best, we’re given a chance to spend more money to play games we already own. At worst, we’re driven to piracy in order to have experiences we’d be happy to pay someone for.
Unless something changes, P.T.is doomed to the second fate, meant to fall through the cracks. Given we’ve barely scratched the surface on emulating PS3 and Xbox 360 games, playing P.T.on anything but a PS4 with P.T. pre-installed won’t happen for a long time.
The games industry is not good at preserving its own history. We have to rely on people in the darker corners of the Internet fighting the good fight, even as the industry tears them down.
Konami funded P.T., so hey, they can do what they want, but when a game’s released into the world, it’s more than a product that generates revenue for a bottom line (or, in this case, potential revenue). If it’s lucky, it becomes part of gaming culture, and P.T. definitely was.
In the same week, we’ve seen what’s both amazing and upsetting about the advent of digital distribution. The Adventures of Tron Bonne, a rare Mega Man spin-off for the PS One, was regularly going for more than $US200 on eBay. Now, it’s available on PlayStation Network for $US6. P.T., one of the best horror games of all-time, is now longer available. Period. It’s totally gone.
It’s fine that Konami doesn’t want to make Silent Hills. Games are cancelled all the time, and we’re forced to wonder “what if?” over beers. It happens. There’s no way to know whether Silent Hills would have been any good. P.T. did exist, though, and it was absolutely horrifying.
We’re just a little over two years into this console cycle, which means millions of people have yet to buy a PS4. So many people will never get a chance to play P.T. How many thousands weren’t even aware P.T. was coming off the store or simply forgot to put it in their download queue?
And, yes, the puzzles are bad. Granted, Hideo Kojima and his team figured it would take the Internet weeks to figure out the riddle — when will people stop doing this? — which probably explains why the rest of P.T. is a mess. It’s purposely obtuse, meant to encourage collaboration, and makes everything after that heartbreaking scare an exercise in frustration.
I’ve never beaten it, and I don’t care.
P.T. was hardly perfect, but the first 30 minutes, everything leading up to the game’s biggest scare, are close. One of my new, favourite pastimes is to hand the controller to someone who’s never heard of P.T., and wait for this monstrosity to creep up from behind and ruin everything.
Bless you, P.T. See you next Halloween.
Comments
25 responses to “Konami Sucks”
“We’re just a little over two years into this console cycle” – No, we’re not.
If you consider the Wii U’s release as the start of this cycle, then yes we are.
Who considers the Wii U as part of the current cycle. At best the Wii U is akin to PS3 / 360 …
“The next generation doesn’t start until we say it does.”
– Kaz Hirai, E3 2006.
Well I wouldn’t think that many people do, more like a very late arrival at the end of the last cycle. But more importantly the author is specifically talking about people not having purchased PS4s yet, and therefore being unable to play this demo, (which is not even available on WiiU). But what should we really expect from the site that celebrated the 5th birthday of the Vita recently.
I think Nintendo are in a cycle on their own at this point.
You mean “spiral” right?
We must go forward, not backward. Upward, not downward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!
You mean “twirling” right?
I think he might have been trying to say that we’re into the second year of this console cycle. Which is true.
I really liked it. Very scary. Was told that even if it’s in your “Library” but not on your console, you can’t download it. This isn’t true. Even though it’s not on the store, I was still able to re-download it last night from within my library.
Just putting that out there.
Check again. Apparently the store update has killed it for the US and EU. I never got it so I’m unaffected.
No, @shpeshal_ed seems to be right. I wasn’t gonna bother even trying after reading the article yesterday. It’s certainly downloading now though.
Woohoo! Australia flying under the radar? So now the only way to get the game is by account sharing with an Australian who has the game in his/her library 😛
Can confirm.
So I guess you just spoiled it for most of us with that gif? Cheers bro. Guess I’ll never play it anyway so no biggie.
That’s the thing though, it’s random where it occurs, and every playthrough is different. Even though you know what the monster looks like, doesn’t mean it won’t still make you empty your bowels in fear, like me.
Damn jump scares! Bloodborne is bad enough with monsters waiting around corners, dropping from above or bursting out of coffins. I don’t think I could stomach a game whose sole purpose is to scare the shit out the player.
It’s not as bad as it sounds. There is always a subtle way of now when a jump scare is going to happen. For example, the one in the gif always has static filling the audio beforehand, getting heavier and heavier, giving you time to leap behind the couch before it happens.
I thought the festering mumbling bag was way scarier, and it didn’t even jump out at you (thank christ)
Has anyone investigated if this was a licensing or IP ownership issue? Konami did the exact same thing with Skullgirls when they and Lab Zero parted ways.
Unless Konami has done what seems to be impossible these days and quietly sell off the Silent Hill IP (which it looks like they WILL eventually get around to doing but not yet) i highly doubt it is an IP/licencing issue and more of a removal of what was effectively an advertisement for a now dead game.
Patrick is going to end up on Konami’s dumb blacklist 😛
But the whole world is already on that list (check the GIF above)
Yeah what are they going to do to us? Cancel Silent Hills again?
Ok.. i’ll be that guy
You guys purchased a “license” for the game. Not the actual game or demo. And Konami has now decided to revoke the demo. So your license means squat.
Welcome to the digital world people. Don’t act too shocked or outraged when this stuff has been mentioned over and over again and was summarily dismissed.
What if… they’ve pulled it only to RE-release it with Project Morpheus enabled?
*Dr Evil motion*