In what appears to be contract renewal-related issues, there are some visibility snafus cropping up in relation to music composers working in-house at Konami, everyone’s favorite source of bizarre gaming news. This appears to be manifesting in the Konami Amusement division (arcade games and pachinko) as well as Bemani ( DDR , etc.) and in-house people.
This first cropped up during a regular show Konami runs via its YouTube channel called BEMANI Namahousou. The show goes over regular happenings in the Bemani world, including game events, announcements, and more. During the monthly song ranking segment, viewers noticed the names of many artists, mostly in-house people, disappearing from where the credits would normally be seen.
This also cropped up on the official Bemani website, with the entire list of artists going missing. Additionally, some games such as Pop’n Music and Sound Voltex have been updated with certain songs saying “BEMANI Sound Team” instead of the normal artists. When reached for comment, Bemani responded saying there are “internal issues.”
Speculation of course went to maliciousness or trouble within the company for in-house artists. The burden of bad mojo from all the Kojima drama still hangs heavy over the Konami name. However, further investigation from fans led to the scuttlebutt now pointing at contract renewal negotiations, meaning that many artists may just be experiencing related speedbumps, with their names going away temporarily while Konami renews its rights to their names. We’ll find out more as this story develops and we see the results as they manifest in-game.
Source: Reddit