Sony’s recent attempt to force account linking onto Helldivers 2 nearly killed the incredibly popular live-service game; prompting us to look back at how Konami did the same with Metal Gear.
Anyone remember Metal Gear Online? No? Didn’t think so….
The PS3 became a monster in terms of exclusives and cutting edge games by the time its lifespan ended. One of those games, that we all wish we could play again, is Metal Gear Solid 4. Alas, the mostly cutscene epic adventure by Kojima that blew our minds still remains locked away on PS3 libraries. About the only way to play it is via physical discs and a still working PS3…unless you get an emulator on PC to poorly run it somehow.
But that isn’t why we’re here. MGS4 might be one of the greatest—if not the greatest—entries in the franchise, but it also had an online component many people may have forgotten about: Metal Gear Online. This secondary part of MGS4 was a cool experience; giving you game modes and maps that brought the main game to life, while putting you in the shoes of Snake against real life opponents. Sneaking components, tactical advantages, and other various perks were put to tremendous use as you played, and it was an overall great experience.
What killed it though? The short answer is, Konami ID.
Despite already signing into your PlayStation, Konami thought it was wise to start linking a separate Konami ID to their games. Anyone jumping into PES or Metal Gear would then need to sign up and link their Konami ID to that specific account and game. Nowadays, this concept has sadly spread throughout the industry like a plague. At that time, however, it was an inconceivable hassle, especially considering Konami’s systems were half-baked (at best). Worse, it was purely for monetary reasons.
For starters, you didn’t just need an ID…. you needed a Konami ID AND a MGO ID. So you had to sign up for both, and it wasn’t easy. Today most links simply have you login, or have you logged in already via PSN, and you go on your way. Konami ID didn’t. You needed to login to their systems, hope it actually worked, and then link your specific character ID slot to that account; all via the PS3 web browser.
You were “given” one free account upon signing up. Anyone who wanted to add secondary character slots, or do specific actions, were required to pay an additional fee. Then every aspect of the game was monetized from that point forward. Expansion packs, cosmetic items, reward tiers, everything had some type of monetary value to it. But it made no sense because half of it didn’t transfer with your account. It only linked to that character’s ID slot, making the overall Konami ID basically pointless.
It was probably just a way to see how frustrating they can be and still milk the life out of Metal Gear? Oh no…. They did that with 10 dollar save slots on Survive, so it got worse.
When I saw Sony was moving to require linked accounts for Helldivers 2 on Steam, I feared they were doing the exact same thing. It’s not a big leap in logic, considering how arrogant they’ve been this entire generation. With little competition from Xbox, Sony has been looking for many ways to monetize their product. Sadly, that hasn’t been through first party games. So with your hands tied and the game requiring a PSN account, what would stop them from them requiring a “game ID” like Konami and forcing transactions, or PS Plus, through PSN? What would stop them from pinpointing it down to character creation?
As for MGO, we could have suffered because the overall game was fun, but Konami put zero effort into maintaining the game at all. Within a month of launching Metal Gear Online was already beset by people who’d learned the maps and how to spawn trap enemy teams easily, making the game no fun for new players. Shortly after release, hackers learned how to attack opponent teams via DDoS attacks, and when Konami finally fixed this issue they left their own servers vulnerable to the attacks. These attacks happened basically the entire time the game was available.
To top it off, even with all this monetizing, the game wasn’t hosted on dedicated servers. Most matches took place on player-to-player matchmaking, which meant anyone who was upset for losing could easily boot players for no real reason. This led to hostile environments where hosts would generally allow players to play a majority of the game, then kick them right at the end, erasing all their stats and earned rewards. Fool me once…. Fool me twice, I uninstall the game.
Once again, this begs the question of what the fuck was the point of Konami ID at all for this? Nothing was saved overall to the account, everything was tied to the character, and ultimately it offered zero value that PSN didn’t already offer.
Ultimately, MGO died because Call of Duty changed the way online games were played. Call of Duty changed focus of online multiplayer to quick back-to-back games, with easy access to simply jump in and jump out. Ease of use became the focus point of online games. Konami ID didn’t allow MGO to do this. Simply signing in to the game was a massive hassle with roadblocks via two IDs, that required using the PS3’s terrible online browser. It was a dated experience that simply aged faster than the competing online titles. And the fact that Konami ID rewards made it worse didn’t help. I mean if you lived in Japan you actually got rewarded double the points for the same tasks as everyone else…. Nothing made sense!
Which sucks because overall MGO was a fun game that could have easily been expanded on, and it brought to life the entire franchise online via expansions. So it is missed by those of us that played it, and maybe one day someone can do it right…. Without the Konami ID. As of now it lives on as a prime example of why all these secondary account linking titles are such a nightmare to us all. Konami is grade A corporate greed, and they were trying to get away with this 13 years ago, so we can only imagine how much worse it could get.
