BioShock Developer Irrational Games Is Dissolving

You nailed it.

If anyone remembers the very first bioshock had like 3-6 years of various on and off again working and reworking of ideas behind it, do people remember the 'slug in wheelchair' sketches?

Now imagine Ken wanted to have a similar long term working and reworking of ideas.

now imagine paying the salaries of 200 people for those years while producing very little final work.

Yeah, this does suck for the people affected, but I'm not sure I can put the moral responsibility on Ken to always produce another game with that team for the rest of his life.

Is it not his decision whether he wants to make another game or not?

Anyway, I suspect that's what's happening here. We'll only know with time though

Exactly my first thought.

Levine is shutting down a studio and putting people out of work...because he wants to do something with a smaller studio? Where in the FUCK is that rational at all? (no pun intended)

Seriously, he could just step the fuck down and let Irrational still exist. This is fucking ludicrous, full of hubris, and just flat-out dumb.

Levine won't be seeing any of my money for a long while.

Mind you, this is my knee-jerk reaction. If it's more akin to that Neogaf thread going around where 2K wouldn't allow him to have it any other way, then 2K won't be getting my money for a long while.

Well after BaS ep 2 the Bioshock name/ip is going to die a slow and painful death.

"...most direct relationship with our fans possible." That is the puzzle.

It probably means a Kickstarter for a game that goes early access, releasing basically in alpha, while they get the premium-currency shop up and running. I am so cynical.

I didn't realize you knew him personally or had inside information about this, that's awesome.

Because, I mean, why else would you make such claims and talk trash about someone you've never met? Nah, you know something the rest of us don't. Good for you bro.

Hopefully this means that Ken Levine's Fire Emblem "rip off" will finally get made.

@gunslingerpanda said:

I didn't mean to quote it as fact. Just someone's opinion on NeoGAF. One that put some different thought into the whole situation.

I feel like right now everyone is quick to judge Ken Levine and put the entire thing on him. But I'm having a hard time believing Take-Two has no part in this. They are the Publisher after all.

@hobozero: You and that guy are really showing your dumb. We have hardly any information on the topic, so yeah a lot of people aren't just starting a mob against Levine since there could be a number of reasons that Irrational is shutting down besides just Ken leaving and wanting to do something new. If it turns out everything was on him then sure I can agree he's an asshole, but from a lot of things surrounding this that are pretty suspicious. So maybe we should just wait until we have more information before we form a mob to try to force Levine out of the industry for something that might not even be totally his fault.

@r3dt1d3 said:

There's plenty of creative people around, I guess there also a bunch in the irrational. It's just that sometimes this super designers get a bit over their head of what they are, to name a few, Peter Molyneux, John Romero, Cliff Bleszinski, David Jaffe. Don't get me wrong their games were good, but they all get the: "it's all about me, my imagination, my story, my direction syndrome" - until they realize their latest product was in works for way too long and it turned out mediocre, and they don't want to deal with that any more, they are burned out, and want to do small things and not deal with AAA games that require millions over millions of dollars do make. And that basically happened to all of the above mentioned people.

Egomaniacs who think that the studio can't work without their input, when in fact they are just dragging it down. Some notice that sooner some later, but at the end they all leave and focus their life on something else, some are just decent enough not to drag 200 other people with them, weather or not it's directly their fault or not.

@tourgen said:

the IT business in general is, especially in the US. nobody expects pool tables, free food, tennis courts, beach volley, smoking lounges, pools, arcade machines, flexible working hours, etc. etc. and a $5000 check at the end of the month over here in Europe. People do their stuff for a normal wage in a normal office, but over in the US being a game developer is considered being special.

I'm sure we're all in agreement that there's more to this story, but as it stands now this whole situation just reeks. More needs to be said about this, unless having a huge contingent of gamers turn on you seems like an ok thing to Ken and Take2. I truly see no good coming from any of this.

aaand my new favorite tweet on the subject:

@hecterrific

Heaven forbid a successful man do what he wants to do. Wait for any horror stories from the people that are to be laid off (if there are any)before you spit venom. And judging by the tweets posted, some people are too eager to jump in the doom pool.

game dev industry seems pretty ruthless and uncaring to the people putting in the hours. It seems like a good industry to avoid if you want stability and reasonable pay for your skills.

This bums me the fuck out.

I absolutely agree. To use an music analogy. This is a bit like when Roger Waters decided that he wanted to go off and do his own solo thing, and basically fired every other member of Pink Floyd after the recording of The Final Cut. Now, because of how ownership to bands works, the other members of Pink Floyd were able to sue Waters to get the name of the band back (though Roger Waters retained all the imagery and iconography from The Wall tour, as well as the Big Inflatable Pig from the Animals tour). Thus, we were able to get two more Pink Floyd albums that were decent (A Momentary Lapse of Reason) to really good (The Division Bell).

However, due to how the game industry works, I doubt a similar lawsuit could happen here. It'd be nice if the displaced employees could sue to get the company back, while Levine goes off to do his own smaller project elsewhere, but oh well. That said, if the laid off employees want to start their own company, I think the name "Sane Games" is available.

Bad news. Silver lining: GIANT BOMB HIRES SHAWN ELLIOTT?

Swat 4 was a really good game.

My favorite (now deleted) tweet so far:

I just realized.. I look at your comment, and see Kingoms of Amalur across the hall. That house sure is empty...

Ken doesn't mention any hardship at the studio in terms of finances, and I think if Irrational wanted another go at a AAA game, the sheer pedigree of its critical successes would have warranted another project and funding. Of course, there are a lot of contractual employment that goes on as well as extensive outsourcing contacts used until the release of a game. But Mr. Levine perhaps wasn't too thrilled about the financial implications of future projects bound to revenue milestones and cut a deal with the publisher to essentially liquidate the studio. Given a lot of stories in public about how his style of game development has been wasteful and often authoritarian, if he has any regrets about the situation, if at all, he has no one but to blame himself.

Reading these comments:

I guess if we're looking to raise up auteurs within the gaming industry, we have to villainize them as well.

Rod Fergusson getting his own studio and then leaving less then 3 months was the fight sign

And there fuckin' goes SWAT 5.....and SkyoShock.

I'm all for Ken Levine doing something new with a small team. But closing the studio down rather than handing off the reigns to someone else (or even selling the company to a publisher, I'd imagine there'd be someone interested) doesn't make any sense to me.

I hope everything works out for all involved.

I feel like this probably is not right choice to make but I guess I have never run a studio before.

To those questioning why he wouldn't just quit and leave the studio open, if he quit and took his top 15 developers with him, why the hell would Take Two keep the studio open? It's a costly studio that they were willing to fund because of the exceptional talent behind it. Remove much of the top talent and remove the need for the studio. Boston is not a cheap place to work and the government there doesn't offer any incentives to game developers. If they want a dedicated Bioshock team they aren't going to keep it in Boston if you remove all the leads from Irrational. They would close the studio and open a new one in Canada where the government will subsidize costs and the actual cost of living is much lower.

I don't think that was an option. I think his choices were to close the studio entirely and start fresh somewhere else, or to lay off 90% of the staff and keep on a small core team within the Take Two fold.

I think with the loss of Irrational I'm most bummed that we'll probably never see another Freedom Force (although we probably wouldn't have anyway). I've had my fill of Bioshock, but I absolutely loved the FF series and always wished they'd return to give it a new take.

So where exactly is it stated what everyone just seems to assume, that Ken Levine is responsible for the closing of Irrational? Does the head of what once was called 2k Boston even have the power to fire dozens of people who in practice, I presume, were employed at 2k and not at Irrational?

sweet, good gameplay will finally return to the Bioshock franchise.

Man, there is a ton of rampant speculation that people are taking for the absolute truth about something that was only just announced, that always had a habit of working out in the end right?

that season pass

Yeah, I went off the rails a bit more than I had to. Sorry about that. Of course I can't say for sure what Rod Fergusson specifically contributed or how much influence 2K had on the development of the game, these are just speculations on my part. I do however base my theories on how the industry usually works. It's very predictable, unfortunately.

I'll be incredibly surprised if this was actually Ken Levin's first choice. Those of you in a fiery rage right now with the assumption that Ken grabbed his 15 best pals and left 2K middle fingers in the air seem to already have beef with him and want a reason to shit on him.

Ken Levine is a selfish piece of trash. Another artist who thinks his creativity is stifled by the industry that made him. All those people who just lost a job and now don't know how to provide for their families. Yeah they might have jobs open but they gonna have to move. And you don't ever want to put your family through this kind of uncertainty. So let Levine enjoy his cup of coffee this morning and not care.

18-35 year old white male

Duh.

Why is everyone blaming Ken for the studio closing? Has no one stopped to think that Irrational without Ken Levine and his top 15 isn't worth 2Ks money? I highly doubt the rest of the studio is capable of delivering AAA profits without their top people.

I wonder what's next?

These guys know they just made Bioshock Infinite right? They could have kept going.

I don't feel like the excerpt does this justice. It sounds like the departing team will have a lot of time to puck their ducks in a row, and they're doing a lot to help the team transition, including the possibility of finding new positions within Take-Two and providing something like a job fair.

Besides financial support, the staff will have access to the studio for a period of time to say their goodbyes and put together their portfolios. Other Take-Two studios will be on hand to discuss opportunities within the company, and we’ll be hosting a recruiting day where we’ll be giving 3^rd party studios and publishers a chance to hold interviews with departing Irrational staff.

It's obviously not an ideal situation for many people that may be affected by this, but it's not as bad as it would normally be in the industry. Even then, the video game production model is going to have to change soon. We're likely to see a lot of upheaval in this upcoming gen.

Okay, here's a thought. Maybe most of Irrational was built to make Infinite, and Levine is just cutting off the fat in order to make a new type of game. What good is talent specializing in big budget linear shooters when the studio is trying to make a different game? It sucks for the people losing their jobs, but does the world need more linear FPS games?

Whaaaaaaaaa?

@jsnyder82: It was a mess in development though and what we got was a mishmash of ideas all thrown into a bland shooter which makes it a mess because you can't really tell what it's trying to be. I wasn't saying the basic mechanics of the game were a mess or broken. I was saying the game altogether and everything involving it leading up to it's release was a mess. Also it is in no way an opinion that the story made no sense. It's fine to like the story or think it's good, but it still doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah it can make as much sense as it needs to for you to think it's a good or fun or interesting story, but it in no way makes sense from an objective point of view. A story containing huge holes and not having consistent logic has nothing to do with opinions and there's nothing subjective about it.

Well that is one way to avoid developing another Bioshock sequel.

Infinite had so much potential and it ended up as a boring shooter in a setting that somehow had less freedom than Rapture. I liked the music though.

Now that I can get behind. It was all the speculation and theorizing on things that no one knows for sure that had me a little unnerved.

Closing Irrational seems a little extreme, there's the option of down-sizing the studio. Best of luck for all involved

That is not in any way the definition of a "mess". Not to mention the fact that in the same paragraph, you said it was a "solid game". Which kind of contradicts the whole mess thing. And it's also your opinion that the story made no sense. I thought it made as much sense as it needed to.

Bioshock: Infinite went through chaos in development, Ken commissioned the entire game to be made again.