Kojima just won a Guinness World Record

Posted on November 12, 2019

Hideo Kojima is definitely one of the most divisive video game directors in history, now winning a Guinness World Record for his two social media accounts.

You might have come into this article thinking he’d won the record for “longest cut-scene” or “first director to incorporate babies, nudity and Norman Reedus in a video game”, but he’s actually been recognised as “the most followed game director on Twitter and Instagram.”

You can say what you want about his games, love them or hate them, but Hideo Kojima is someone that gamers love to follow and keep an eye on – probably to see what kind of batshit story he’ll come up with next.

He also uses social media a lot apparently, managing to accrue a Twitter following of around 2.8 million accounts on his English account. On his Instagram, Kojima has a little more than 888,000 followers.

Guinness is being pretty specific about the “game director” portion of the record, as Kojima isn’t the most followed game creator on Twitter. Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson, known homophobe and asshole, has about 3.7 million Twitter followers.

Regardless of your thoughts on Kojima, the man sure knows how to get people talking. Death Stranding released under a week ago, and has been all over the media, with fans and critics divided on whether they think it’s Game of the Year material or simply a piece of trash. Perhaps controversially, Kojima has said overnight that Americans in particular have been the most critical of the game – perhaps because they don’t get it?

“I must say that the game received rave reviews, especially in Europe and Japan. Here in the United States, however, we have had stronger criticisms,” Kojima said. “Perhaps it is a difficult game to understand for a certain type of critic and audience. Americans are great fans of first-person shooters and Death Stranding isn’t one, it flies higher.”

Maybe this is one that will go under the “games versus art” conversation once the dust has settled.

In the meantime, we’re still getting our Death Stranding review ready for public consumption after a controversial start.