Two weeks ago, George “Super Bunnyhop” Weidman published a YouTube video alleging he had information about the ongoing tension between Konami and Hideo Kojima. Now, it’s offline.
(In case you missed the drama of the last few months, Kojima and Konami appear to be in the midst of a breakup, even as Kojima finishes work on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.)
The video is no longer available, however, and heading to the URL displays this image:
The video was always a little bit suspect, since Weidman admitted he could not verify the source who claimed to have this information, and, as pointed out below, Weidman didn’t necessarily believe all of the source’s claims. Nevertheless, he published the video and it spurred a huge amount of discussion, especially since Konami and Kojima have been relatively silent lately.
Here’s a screen shot from the video, courtesy of the NeoGAF thread it spawned:
There’s a backup of the video available below, but I suspect that’ll get taken down shortly, too:
If this was all true, it would make the situation sound really nasty.
“Frequent black-out, security doors not working, people being forced to move desks every few days.”
“People have said that Kojima can sue Konami...but he won’t because he wants to finish the game and Konami knew that.”
“Kojima being fired is just the tip of the iceberg.”
There are two ways for a video to disappear from YouTube that doesn’t involve the creator deleting the video.
One, there’s YouTube’s Content ID system, which scans videos for copyrighted material. Content ID, however, typically kicks in as soon as the video is uploaded, and wouldn’t normally bring a video down from the service two weeks later. It’s possible but unlikely, as all my interactions with Content ID have occurred very early in the process.
Two, a company purposely (and manually) issues a takedown notice, knowing YouTube will err on the side of rights holders, at least until the issue is resolved. During that time, the video is offline. Companies have used this tactic in the past to suppress videos they didn’t care for.
Konami has not yet responded to my request for comment, though, and neither has Weidman.
The only thing we know right now is the video is offline, and just a day ago, it wasn’t.
The way Konami handled this could potentially backfire. When you want to fuel conspiracy theories, you have videos taken down. People are going to have field day with this.
You can reach the author of this post at patrick.klepek@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @patrickklepek.