For those of you who were watching The Game Awards last night, you most likely heard what happened between Kojima and Konami.

Geoff Keighley said that Kojima wasn’t allowed to attend the event due to Konami’s lawyers essentially banning him from showing up. The reason being was that he was still under employee contract, despite no longer working with the company. His contract is set to expire this month.

From the video above:

As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight and I wanted to tell you a little bit about that. Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight, but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight’s award ceremony to accept any awards[…]He’s under an employment contract and it’s disappointing and it’s inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates. But that’s the situation we’re in. Hideo is in Tokyo right now watching the show – and we wanted you to know Hideo that we’re thinking of you – and we miss you.

As a tribute to the Metal Gear creator, Stephanie Joosten was brought on stage to sing Quiet’s Theme, which you can view here.