Konami
Still a product of legend, Konami’s PlayStation-exclusive demo “PT” was released eight years ago, and soon after, it was pulled from Sony’s servers.
Now, the person who claims to have taken down the 2014 title, which was quickly revealed to be a critically acclaimed playable teaser for Hideo Kojima’s canceled “Silent Hills” game, has spoken about it for the first time.
After Kojima’s departure from the company the following year, the game was canceled and “PT” was controversially pulled from the PlayStation Store along with the ability to re-download it. Years later, it was unplayable on PS5.
Kojima acknowledged the eighth anniversary on social media on Friday, shortly after a former employee named ‘Pearl L’ revealed on Twitter that the two had been responsible for setting up the game’s surprise launch and having to make the call to have remove:
“Funnily enough, because I was the 1P leader at the time at Konami, I helped put this product in the storefronts, fake editorial and all. And I was the one who had to call Sony and ask them to download it and block downloads. It was a really fun conversation.”
Pearl answered fans’ questions after that, but couldn’t give a clear answer as to exactly why she pulled out, saying only, “I say this with love, ‘because Konami’.”
He also says it was a difficult situation for those working at Konami and customer service staff at both the developer and Sony, who had to bear the brunt of abuse from angry customers. She adds:
“Working with Sony (as always) was great. It was a tough situation all around. It was a WIDE! Honestly, [it was] It wasn’t a great situation all around – I really felt for Sony who had to bear the brunt of dealing with the situation – it was definitely an interesting lesson in power and the importance of picking your battles in the relationship management”.
She confirms that “PT” was the first time Sony was asked to remove and block re-downloads of a video game from its digital store:
“We had already done a lot to set it up, we had a lot of operational exceptions. And then add the request to block the download again? More engineering workarounds. It was exciting to see people get excited about it and see that the work was paying off! But somehow it wasn’t either.”
Finally, she revealed that she still values the experience, saying, “It was amazing to see everyone come together to try and figure out the experience and look like they came away with so much love.” The only way to play the game these days is still a working PS4 that managed to download a copy of the title eight years ago.
Source: Twitter, VGC