Develop Awards 2016: Hideo Kojima’s acceptance speech

Hideo Kojima was awarded our highest honour of Development Legend at last night’s 2016 Develop Awards ceremony.

He joins a hall of fame that includes previous Legend winners such as Tim and Chris Stamper, Mark Cerny, Tim Sweeney, Mark Rein, David Perry, Peter Molyneux, David Braben, Charles Cecil, Phil Harrison and Ian Livingstone.

Kojima was presented with his award by PS4 architect and long-time friend Mark Cerny in front of hundreds of developers and industry representatives at the Hilton Brighton Metropole.

Receiving a standing ovation as he took to the stage, he commented on the next chapter in his career.

“Last year was a big turning point in my life,” he said. 

“I’m not that young anymore so some people advise me to retire and take it easy but an even bigger amount of people told me they want to play more games of mine and were very supportive. So I took the decision I should keep making games while I live.

“In order to be able to make games freely, I made my own studio towards the end of the year. In the six months since then I’ve been doing many things in parallel: founding the company, finding facilities, recruiting people, evaluating technology, planning our next project. I’ve been extremely busy but at the same time, it’s been an extremely satisfying task.

“We finally have our new offices, and for that new office I would really like to have some trophies at the front entrance but I don’t have anything at the moment, I’m starting from zero, so I’m truly happy to be receiving this award tonight.

“I might be starting my trophy collection from zero, but I’m not starting from zero with game-making. I have 30 years of games development [experience] up to this point and I also have your kind support. From now on I want to keep looking to the future and keep making games, so thank you everyone for being here tonight.”

Other big winners on the night included CD Projekt Red and Sam Barlow with four and three wins respectively. Check out the full list of winners here.

A huge thanks to all our partners this year: CV Bay, MoGi Group, Amiqus, Epic Games, Unity, Sumo Digital, Crytek, Perforce, Games London, UKIE, King, OPM, Keywords Studios, Nordeus, Aardvark Swift and Develop: Brighton.