In 1993, seven years after joining Konami and at age thirty, Kojima…

“Shinkawa was born to be a video game artist.”

“So I went around to different game companies, and partly because I was living in Hyogo prefecture at the time, but I thought I'd check out Konami.”

“You know, we've been asked this a lot - how do you guys know this? Even my wife didn't know!”

“There was a period, before my Father died, where I thought I'd become an artist, but my Father died very suddenly when I was 13. My family was full of artists, you see, and they hadn't been able to make a living off of it.”

In 2008 Kojima’s business card listed “Creative Officer, Konami Digital Entertainment” and “Director, Kojima Productions.” He argued that job titles don’t hire people, don’t make anything, don’t create profits and do not endure, and that he wanted to be remembered for his deeds and his name rather than any position; he intended to spend the rest of his life on his personal mission, not a title. When exchanging business cards he introduced himself simply as Hideo Kojima, a game designer.