I feel it’s a little unfair how people like Kojima are praised way too often while amazing creatives like Sam Lake never make it to the conversation
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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“Sam Lake, you heck!”
You’re allowed to praise someone without criticising someone else. Why not just talk about Sam Lake?
Besides, I feel like with the successes of Control and AW2, he’s far more in the conversation than he used to be.
Control was free on Epic the other day. Tempted to give it a go.
People have talked about Sam Lake a decent amount over the years. More importantly, his output isn’t quite as prolific as Kojima. Remember there was a huge gap between Max Payne 2 and Alan Wake and then another big gap between AW1 and Quantum Break.
More more importantly, you need to actually take a look at the credits of the games Sam Lake has worked on. Yes, games are a collaborative effort (well, big games are), but like it or not Kojima simply has far more of his own fingerprints on his games than Lake does. And finally, people are going to talk about Kojima more for the simple fact of having popularized an entire genre, having a career now spanning 35 years, and generally being an eccentric weirdo.
It’s not unfair and it’s not out of the ordinary that one would be talked about more than the other.
I praise both
Why is Max Payne talking about Max Payne?
I had no idea he made Control and Alan Wake. I haven’t played AW yet, but I loved Control
I think there’s a pretty good reason why Kojima is praised so often and above other contemporaries. Namely, his games are also just **really** excellent in terms of gameplay. I love Sam Lake’s games, but gameplay-wise they’re often not too deep or mechanically interesting. They’re fun for one or two runs, but after that you tend to have seen all you can see and do all you can do. You mostly play them for the visual and narrative element. Max Payne 1 and 2 are fun, but as third person shooters they’re pretty run of the mill if you ask me (nobody did).
On the flipside there are people that are *still* playing MGS3, doing all sorts of crazy runs or finding weird and cool ways of doing specific rooms since those games are just incredibily well made with a lot of moving parts. Even something more simplistic like Death Stranding, sure it has 10 hours of cutscenes, but there’s porters still doing deliveries and trying out new routes or raiding camps with funky strategies.
It’s more a meme at this point that Kojima’s games are movies. If you skip cutscenes you’re still left with absolutely excellent, genre defining entries. If you skip cutscenes in Sam Lake’s games, you honestly are left with nothing too spectacular imo.
I don’t think it’s fair to say people who deserver it are praised “too often” just because other ones you like aren’t praised to your preferred degree
Why put down someone else? Kojima’s recognition is well deserved. He pushed the medium forward multiple times in different ways and is one of, if not the most, influential people in the industry.
Sam Lake is also an iconic figure in the industry and is actually very highly regarded. If you think that he never makes it into the conversation, then you’re not in the conversation. Furthermore, while he is an icon that made some beloved titles, he is not put on a pedestal as much as Kojima because he didn’t do what Kojima did, frankly. Both are creative geniuses but Kojima is a true innovator that has had a large influence on how games are made today.
Kind of sick of people shitting on people like Kojima because they are tired of hearing about them, or don’t care for their games.
One of the only non Japanese gaming superstars that isn’t Todd Howard.
Deserves more respect.
What are you talking about? Sam is well known in the gaming community and I feel like most people like and appreciate him
MGS1 was in *1998*. People talk about Lake all the time, he just has a smaller cultural footprint because Kojima’s been famous for much much longer.
Sam Lake favorite character is Morte from Planescape: Torment.Â
And every game of his is a pure gem.
I was just thinking about it when seeing his interview today..! Super talented guy
Maybe I’m biased as a Finn, but in Finnish media Sam Lake is the game industry and the game industry is Sam Lake.
You didn’t even praise him here. You just insulted Kojima
How exactly is Kojima praised “way too often”? Is he receiving praise he doesn’t deserve?
But he does tho.
I’d say GKeighley has been cringe gushing over Sam almost as much as Kohima the last couple years. Both got a dedicated section at TGA this year.
Kojima just has “the auteur vibe” surrounding him since he doesn’t do many interviews etc. in English, that’s all.
The whole idea is a bit silly when you have 1st hand experience in the industry and work with directors tbh. They do an important (yet optional usually) job, but if there’s something of Kojima’s you REALLY like, it’s more likely he just signed off on the idea or tweaked it, unless you’re talking about MGS1
They don’t even do the same thing. Kojima is largely a director, Sam Lake is a writer. Kojima oversees every aspect of his games. The design, the music, the story, the gameplay. Sam Lake writes the story for the game’s he’s worked on.
Lake has directed one game – Alan Wake 2. And he did great! But how on earth do you even begin to compare the 2 careers & say one person receives more praise than another? That would be like saying Steven Spielberg receives too much praise for Jurassic Park while Michael Crichton is barely talked about.
Kojima has fostered a cult of personality around himself is the major reason. There’s a few other devs that have tried to do similar but he’s basically the most successful at it.
Miyazaki > Kojima
I’ve never enjoyed a Kojima game… But I have enjoyed multiple Lake games. So i agree
I really hope they re-scanned his face for the Max Payne 1+2 remakes.
Remedy really cucked themselves with these Microsoft/Epic exclusivity deals.