It extends to anime, manga, and visual novels. A lot of Japanese writers strive to make very complex and concept-rich worlds. More often than not they end up spreading themselves too thin and make convoluted stories filled with details that don't seem to add anything of value, stuff that confuse and exhaust the reader. Even when they do succeed at telling compelling stories (and there are plenty), they'd often require too much attention and effort from the player/reader/viewer to fully appreciate them. Examples: Umineko and Hidetaka Miyazaki's works... I love them but they certainly aren't for everyone.

And as you said, cultural and linguistic barriers add to the confusion. A lot of meaning is inevitably lost or somewhat altered through translation. As a fluent speaker of two completely different languages, I can relate to this. A translator has to choose between accuracy and eloquence. Complex Japanese stories therefore lose meaning or eloquence/poetry or both. This is without getting into the cultural/social/mythological side of things. A simple concept to a Japanese reader is a mystery or a weird concept to an outsider.

ICO and SotC are just masterclass in simple yet profound storytelling. We need more Fumito Ueda's!

I don't get the hate that Cage gets. I have enjoyed his games very much, I think he's a good storyteller with a talent for creating atmosphere. Very movie-like, which I love in my games. I guess the haters are those who don't want games to resemble movies?

I haven't played any of his games, neither I'm interested

My true question to this thread is how he became famous in first place. I get he make games that are praised and successful, but I mean, most of video games directors aren't celebrities at all, despite how good they are. I never see headlines about The Last of Us creators, or Dark Souls creators, but I see news about Kojima almost on monthly basis

What exactly gave him enough clout to yield threads like this?

I honestly think Kojima should have just stuck with the whole "patriotism for ourselves" and the war economy storylines, instead of "peace through disarming nukes (which hasn't happened irl and only happened for console owners, since PC hasn't disarmed theirs), and bombs embedded in vaginas/ breathing through skin.

Heck, the doppelganger plot point was better than the deal with paz and Quiet, and felt more grounded. I just think that Kojima tosses these completely random and edgy bits and pieces to catch you off guard, and I mean, yeah it does, but I didn't ask for stuff like bombs in vaginas or a strip down shower scene with guys watching quiet, in my action espionage game?. 

The different enemies we've faced from MGS1-4 were interesting, and yeah some had otherworldly means of gaining those powers or using them, but their backstories made some sense (Like how Vamp was made semi immortal via nanomachines, or Fortune believing she was psychic, but she had advanced tech on her belt).

I do wish Kojima would leave the sexual stuff outside the box, since most of what he creates is within a serious or mysterious tone, and sex doesn't really play a part in his storytelling anyway. 

Yeah, I am aware of one good game from Nomura (KH1). Yet he is again and again allowed to helm big projects. I hear FF7 remake (he was the director of that one, right?) turned out to be rather good aswell. But that was perhaps because the bluepront for the story was already there. And I heard there were some devisive changes. Still intend to play it as soon as all three games are out.

Than again I think the broader gaming community does not know about Nomura in the same way they know about Kojima. I suppose Nomura is the most overrated by diehard KH-fans and weirdly by SquareEnix themselves. I don't get why they keep handing him projects.

That is interesting. I mean Detroit and Heavy Rain sold well enough. I bought them myself. But I would not say they were good games by modern standards.

And "modern standards", or standards that keep on getting higher might be a bigger problem here. Havy Rain might be good for a game that is almost 13 years old. But things have changed. It was only three years after Heavy Rain that The Last of Us released. Both story heavy games that want to explore some deep sh*t about the human condition. Both were considered daring and heavy hitting when they came out. But looking back now, Heavy Rain seems like a joke in comparison to TLoU - a game that has gotten enough praise, but perhaps not for how realistic its characters were portraied. Joel and Ellie spoke like real humans. It was a quantum leap. Ethan (the Heavy Rain guy) was like a robot in comparison. Performance was fine, but the material, the dialogue and the directing was god awfull. So overly sentimental. So much: ahhh, look at how we can capture real emotions now! It was a saw movie with the sentimentality (and plot holes) of a soap opera.

Video games evolved and David Cage got stuck in the past. And perhaps so did Kojima as well. MGS4 I thought was really good. For a 2008 game. But it took itself very seriously. It's tone was (generaly) heavy and the drama thick. Perhaps Kojima can even be regarded as trailblazer for emotional storytelling. I can't think of many who did it better at the time. It was something rarely tried perhaps. But the things said in mgs4 and DS (and how they are saying them) could not be picked up by any serious movie studio today.

It is obviously a good thing that our standards rose. And perhaps taking that into account, I was too critical of Kojima in my OP. But the point I think still stands: some of his concepts and ideas (mgs2 for example) feel as new and important as ever. But his style of storytelling, his writing (that I am familiar with) and even directing (cry some more, we need thicker drama) did not endure the test of time in this very fast evolving medium.

5. Five people made Doom in 1993.

80s and 90s was a different era. So you know who Shiggy was. Yuji Naka. John Romero. More stuff was new, ground breaking to the industry but creating new genres and such. Mario,Doom, Sonic and more were a new concept. Video game magazines were the only exposure to them but the people who read them were really into gaming as the industry was still somewhat niche. So a new game instead of the new game from publisher X, it was more the new game from John Carmack or Kojima. Teams were smaller then. Some games made by a single person. Unlike now where a AAA game has like 800+ people working on it. Industry now is insanely huge, mainstream. New genres and innovations are sparse at best and mainly just variations of things that exist already. We don't get to know who makes them really anymore. Just a studio with hundreds of people.

Just speaking for myself, I'm going to say that if I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a movie. Movies are not the be-all end-all of storytelling for me, and I prefer games to be their own thing instead of trying to ape movies. 

I absolutely don't want my games to be like movies. I want to play my games.

KH1 was good because it wasn't bogged down with constant "OH but then..." moments with terms and words thrown at you which have no meaning in wider context. FF7R was not a good story or well written, every other line was anime 'sigh' noise, plus the end is just jibberish.

By name, Kojima is more widely known, for sure which is good overall but outside the gaming world, how many creators are really known? Sid Meier? John Romero? List isn't long. Not like movie directors or book writers.