Hideo Kojima - The Creative Gene: How books, movies, and music inspired the creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid

I began the original edition of this book with a quote: A world without books is inconceivable.

More than six years later, my feelings havent changed. But I, and my circumstances, have changed greatly.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes came out in March 2014, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain came out in September 2015. In December of that year, I went independent and established Kojima Productions. I had briefly considered stepping back from video game development to instead support myself by making small-scale films or writing, but my desire to respond to the wishes of my colleagues and fans quickly proved stronger, and so I chose to continue creating video games.

I rented a small office spacenot even nine square metersand began a fast-paced international search to secure staff and the software tools and engines we would need for production. As our company grew in size, we eventually needed a larger office, and I scoured Tokyo to find one. Meanwhile, we were simultaneously beginning production on our new game. There were never enough hours in the day to get everything done, but even then, there was one part of my daily routine I never neglected: going to a bookstore.

This is what I do:

I go to a bookstore, pick out books, take them in my hand, buy the ones that call to me, and lose myself reading them. Even on my business trips, I cant feel at ease unless I have several books in my bag. Picking out books and reading them is more than a habit Ive maintained through life; its a part of who I am.

I was a latchkey kid, and as the first one home, turning on the lights was my duty; opening a book in solitude was my routine. Books kept the feelings of isolation and loneliness from crushing me.

My fathers early death contributed to a lack of role models in my life. But inside books, I was able to find adults and teachers to guide me along.

Books and movies provide only virtual experiences, but those experiences are valuable nonetheless. Of course, traveling somewhere yourself and taking in the local atmosphere would be superior. Climbing a mountain yourself would unquestionably provide a higher-quality experience than listening to someone else describe climbing one. But a person can only do so much, and so there is value in sharing in anothers experiences vicariously through books or film.

Stories allow you to experience places you could never gothe past, the future, or distant worlds. You can become a different ethnicity or gender. Even when youre reading all by yourself, youre sharing those stories as they unfold before you with countless people whom youve never met.

We are alone, but we are connected.

That awareness has been my constant savior since my childhood.

And thats why, through this book, I hope to communicate the feeling of connectedness that other books have given me.

The intermediaries of those connections are memes, a concept introduced by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Whereas genes are biological in nature, memes are units of informationsuch as a cultural ideas, customs, and valuesthat are spread between people and passed on to future generations. I think stories could be fairly described as memes given form. As stories are passed from one generation to another, and as they are written and read, culture is carried forward.

Like genes are passed on through a connection between one person and another, memes are passed on through a connection between a person and a book or a film.

The world is filled with countless books, movies, and songsso many that one person cannot possibly hope to experience them all. Consequently, I place tremendous significance upon the media I encounter within the limits of my lifetime.

Such encounters are acts of happenstance; they can seem like a product of fate. I have no idea what will connect with me, or where, or what kind of connection will form. And so, rather than wait in a passive haze, I desire to act with purpose and to cherish the encounters that result from my choices. I feel the same way about meeting people.

That is why I go to a bookstore every day.

I keep going so that I may create new encounters.

Every day, I come across all kinds of books, each offering their own unique connection: some catch my curiosity, some make their appeals to me, and some I simply pass by. Through the process of observing and recognizing those connections, I become better at finding encounters that are meaningful to me, and I further hone my sensibilities.

Not everything is a winner. That is true for books, movies, music, or any other man-made creative endeavor. In fact, nine in ten are misses. But among that other ten percent are incredible works of art. As someone who makes his living by creating, Im always thinking that I want to continue producing works that make it into that ten percent.

This gives me all the more reason to train and refine my ability to sense the one winner in ten. Thats not to suggest Im doing anything special through this process: I go to a bookstore, I buy a book when I feel a connection with it, and I read it. If the book I choose is a miss, there is no reason to become discouraged. That is also part of the learning process that will guide me toward another winner. Time spent reading such a book is not wasted, but rather leads me to my next encounter.

Tucked inside nearly every book on my shelves is the receipt from when I purchased that book; I keep them so that I wont forget that time. Printed with the stores name and the time and date of purchase, the receipts rekindle memories of not only the contents of that book, but of the time I spent with it, from before I left for the bookstore, to the storys lingering presence after the last page was read; and of the places around me, like the bookstore, or where I read the book.