Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down

[eot]

Wellp, there goes Irrational. Wouldn't be surprised that after this, we get some stories on how horrendous the development of Bioshock Infinite was. Playing it feels like playing a hollow carcass of a game. It feels like a shitton was iterated and cut out. For what reasons (other than the obvious fact that some content just needs to be cut), I do not know.

I didn't get the feeling that stuff was cut, to me it seemed more like levels and characters were repurposed, shuffled around and bolted together.

 

I want Clint Hocking to form a new studio and hire all these people.

He left Valve, didn't he?

[Bjorn]

Funny you should say that. Saw this on GAF:

 

Tim's reply, awesome:

 

 

 

Has there ever been any credible account of Ken being terrible to work for?  I can see him having an ego, but this is an industry that's been known to air its dirty laundry on a regular basis, and I don't ever remember seeing anything out of Irrational like that.

[pkirkner]

That's the conclusion I came to, as people have pointed out a studio head wanting to leave shouldn't lead to that studio being dismantled.

 

Clearly, a lot went on behind the scenes to lead to Irrational being shut down. You're not going to get the full story in a press release from Levine when he's still employed by 2K. Hopefully the video game press manages to track the story down and give us something like this. And more importantly, hopefully the folks affected by the layoffs land on their feet.

[eot]

Has there ever been any credible account of Ken being terrible to work for?  I can see him having an ego, but this is an industry that's been known to air its dirty laundry on a regular basis, and I don't ever remember seeing anything out of Irrational like that.

Well, the only thing I've read is this:

 

In the past year, a number of high level employees quietly left Irrational for similar jobs at other studios. Levine acknowledges that, in some part, departures are a response to the company's abnormally intense iteration practices.

 

"I'm a bit of a slow chiseler, you know?" says Levine. "So it doesn't bother me that much. I think it's probably tougher for other people on the team. I think that's probably hard for some people."

 

Nate Wells, the art director of BioShock Infinite, and arguably the best known Irrational employee after Levine, was susceptible to massive creative gutting. This anecdote from a colleague of Wells gives an idea of what iteration, at its most extreme, was like in the office. Levine and Wells had a blowout fight over Finkton. In BioShock Infinite, Finkton is the shantytown, home to the workers and outcasts of the floating city of Columbia.

 

The art team and level designers had been working on Finkton for a long time, with Wells directing the style. The inspiration was like the slums in Jamaica or Key West. All of the housing was wooden and colorful, as if painted by the residents to make the depressed quarters more livable. And each bright shack was stacked atop the next, climbing into the sky like an anthill, with the skyline piercing through it.

 

Ken had been in level reviews numerous times. Then one day, the Finkton team was doing a play test, when Ken decided the entire stage was wrong. It looked like the residents lived in garbage. It needed to be beautiful, because Columbia was designed so that even the poor lived beautifully.

It was all wrong. And it had to go.

 

Wells was furious. Levine had been looking at this for months. In August of this year, Wells announced his new role as art director at Naughty Dog Studios.

 

"I'm very friendly with a lot of people from work," Levine says. "but at the end of the day you have to accept the fact that you as a person are sometimes going to be — whether it's 'you can't have that raise' or 'hey, can you change this thing that you worked really hard on?' — you are going to be a person who sometimes disappoints people. If you get really stuck over the fact that they may be upset with you for that, you compromise the game for that, they may like you less as a friend. You have to be very careful about that because you can end up really not fulfilling your responsibilities."

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/10/3853198/ken-levine-bioshock-infinite-vgas

[Henroid]

So he should have put thrown his career at the feet of 2K in exchange for them releasing the hostage that was Irrational? That's pretty crazy, dude.

Yeah I was giving it some thought while out on a walk. Levine was probably being creatively stymied by Take-Two. So I guess it was just a bunch of hand-forcing going all around.

[Henroid]

I have nothing constructive to add, but I spotted a headline that made me shudder.

 

Ken Levine Closes the Booker on Irrational Games

 

I get that gaming news sites like making dumb pun headlines but... ugh.

Ken Levine King Crow-man's Irrational Games

[gregbrown]

My guess is that Bioshock Infinite's tortured, lengthy development—which from all indications, was Ken Levine's responsibility—led to the game being a financial loss, and Irrational was liquidated as a result. Ken Levine's new smaller team is most likely a big golden parachute to keep him in 2K, and that's the favorable theory! (Levine willfully firing dozens to pursue his creative dreams is the unfavorable one.)

[Stuart]

I didn't get the feeling that stuff was cut, to me it seemed more like levels and characters were repurposed, shuffled around and bolted together.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant.

[gregbrown]

He left Valve, didn't he?

Valve is another studio that seems less-than-healthy these days. The Steam & F2P bundles of money has led to (and in some sense, disguised) a total lack of creative vision. At this point, they should be considered less as a game studio, and more as a tech company like Google or Facebook—with expected behavior set accordingly.

[Bjorn]

Well, the only thing I've read is this:

 

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/10/3853198/ken-levine-bioshock-infinite-vgas

 

Thanks, that does help put it in perspective.  Barring some jarring revelations, he sounds frustrating to work for, but not a monster like some bosses.  High expectations but a poor ability to clearly define what he wants. 

 

That story about having the art team trash the original Shanty town is kind of a classic creative genius/maniac type story.  But it doesn't necessarily sound like the wrong decision either.  A Jamaican, colorful shanty town in the bowels of Columbia would have felt jarringly out of place, though it would have made for a nice change from the sterile beauty of the rest of the city. 

 

If I'm surprised at one thing, it's that they didn't decide to try a DoubleFine model of splitting IG into a bunch of small teams to experiment with a variety of small games for awhile.  Or maybe the exodus of employees over the last year or so took the best potential creative leads from the company?

[feelthedarkness]

You probably need independent funding, like DF has, to play that level of managerial shuffle. 

[elmuerte]

but this still comes as a shock!

 

 

You might say: a company shock

[Stuart]

Really worried if the people laid off will find jobs, specially in this economy. Hey Campo Santo, ya'll should hire some people from Irrational. :3

[Codicier]

Really worried if the people laid off will find jobs, specially in this economy. Hey Campo Santo, ya'll should hire some people from Irrational. :3

 

It's a shame to see this happening to anyone but at least they will all have what was a critically well received game on their cv's, & who knows maybe we will see a couple of new studios spring up in addition to Levine's slimmed down venture.

 

On a side note how many "Big AAA" studio's are there left out there these days anyway?

[kaputt]

That's so sad, the guys at Irrational were really talented. I got the impression that Bioshock Infinite wasn't really that successful financially, but I don't think it was that bad either. Even if it wasn't successful, it was just one game, they surely could recover in their next project. It's kinda strange.

Hope the people get new jobs, they sure are talented. Fulbright could hire some of them, and then release "Sister's Shock" as a spiritual sequel to Gone Home (yeah, I guess the puns you quoted contaminated me, sorry, really).

[darthbator]

Valve is another studio that seems less-than-healthy these days. The Steam & F2P bundles of money has led to (and in some sense, disguised) a total lack of creative vision. At this point, they should be considered less as a game studio, and more as a tech company like Google or Facebook—with expected behavior set accordingly.

 

That's how they see themselves these days. Just look at their jobs page or their steam dev days talks. I think they consider themselves much more of a platform developer and technology company then they do a "game developer". I actually think that has happened at valve is SUPER exciting. They've basically become the worlds foremost "video game technology" company. I think that's something that the space badly needs and it's good that they're providing it. We have a lot of amazing game developers but valve stands among the few technical innovators in our space. 

 

At this stage I view the official valve games more as vehicles to test new monetization strategies or deployment technologies. I tend to expect innovative tech not innovative gameplay from modern valve. 

[mike]

My guess is that Bioshock Infinite's tortured, lengthy development—which from all indications, was Ken Levine's responsibility—led to the game being a financial loss, and Irrational was liquidated as a result. Ken Levine's new smaller team is most likely a big golden parachute to keep him in 2K, and that's the favorable theory! (Levine willfully firing dozens to pursue his creative dreams is the unfavorable one.)

 

There is almost no way it was profitable, or at least anywhere near profitable enough to ensure the studio continued to exist. Since the release of Bioshock in 2007 Irrational released exactly zero games until Bioshock Infinite. That's six years. If you're not a studio named Valve or Blizzard you will go out of business if you make one game in six years. The fact that 2K somehow let them continue to function without having a viable product is insane, and Irrational needed a ton of help to even get it shipped. If you assume an average of 300 people working on it in three studios (IG, Marin and 2K Australia) making an average of $50k that's $15m a year purely in salaries ($90m total). If the game sold ~4m copies (as of last July) at an average of $40 of revenue per copy to T2 (I am potentially being generous there) that's $160m in revenue generated from the game. So already over half the revenue is gone just purely from having to pay people a wage. Factor in health care costs, keeping the lights on in any of those studios, whatever other costs are associated with running a company, rent, equipment costs, marketing budgets... there's not much left over to support a studio for however many more years.

[Stuart]

On a side note how many "Big AAA" studio's are there left out there these days anyway?

 

Plenty, unless you mean studios that have been existing since the late 90s...which in that case, I can't think of any at the moment. Firaxis and Maxis haven't closed...yet. 

[Frenetic Pony]

There is almost no way it was profitable, or at least anywhere near profitable enough to ensure the studio continued to exist. Since the release of Bioshock in 2007 Irrational released exactly zero games until Bioshock Infinite. That's six years. If you're not a studio named Valve or Blizzard you will go out of business if you make one game in six years. The fact that 2K somehow let them continue to function without having a viable product is insane, and Irrational needed a ton of help to even get it shipped. If you assume an average of 300 people working on it in three studios (IG, Marin and 2K Australia) making an average of $50k that's $15m a year purely in salaries ($90m total). If the game sold ~4m copies (as of last July) at an average of $40 of revenue per copy to T2 (I am potentially being generous there) that's $160m in revenue generated from the game. So already over half the revenue is gone just purely from having to pay people a wage. Factor in health care costs, keeping the lights on in any of those studios, whatever other costs are associated with running a company, rent, equipment costs, marketing budgets... there's not much left over to support a studio for however many more years.

 

4+ million copies is a lot. But so is 6 years. I doubt it lost money, but probably isn't the most profitable thing in the world.

 

I would say that shutting down the studio entirely seems abrupt. Splitting Ken's new small team off from the studio proper might've been a better move, if it were effective to do. A more focused game development by a proven studio isn't something to sneer at. Maybe they just couldn't make it work.

[mikemariano]

At this point, they should be considered less as a game studio, and more as a tech company like Google or Facebook—with expected behavior set accordingly.

 

GABE NEWELL: "Oh, done.  We have an inflatable donkey.  Game changer.  Innovate."

[mike]

4+ million copies is a lot. But so is 6 years. I doubt it lost money, but probably isn't the most profitable thing in the world.

 

I would say that shutting down the studio entirely seems abrupt. Splitting Ken's new small team off from the studio proper might've been a better move, if it were effective to do. A more focused game development by a proven studio isn't something to sneer at. Maybe they just couldn't make it work.

 

I don't know the logistics of shutting down a studio but an AAA studio that makes one game every 2 - 3 years puts all their potential revenue into a very high risk thing, and if that game doesn't make enough to sustain the company for the development of the next one then they probably get shut down (look at EA and Activision, who have shut down a ton of studios). I think the bottom line with a lot of studio shutterings is that they just weren't making enough.

[Frenetic Pony]

I don't know the logistics of shutting down a studio but an AAA studio that makes one game every 2 - 3 years puts all their potential revenue into a very high risk thing, and if that game doesn't make enough to sustain the company for the development of the next one then they probably get shut down (look at EA and Activision, who have shut down a ton of studios). I think the bottom line with a lot of studio shutterings is that they just weren't making enough.

 

Oh I can see that. Frankly I'm glad for a lot of this, I like most "indie" games more than triple A these days. But Bioshock Infinite's lack of a huge profit probably stems from it's 6 year development cycle. If they could cut two to three years off that they could get a fairly profitable game. To me a large part of the problem is game development hasn't gotten off the "experiment a lot, prototype, prototype..." etc. phase.

 

That can be great for a smaller game, where there's less to prototype so it doesn't take as long or as many people. But if you've got a studio of a hundred people working on a huge game, well that's a ton of money to pay people for not being sure of what you're doing. Not that I'm saying I know of a better way, but that just scaling that way up in terms of people and resources isn't effective. EG: All that time spent on not making a multiplayer in Infinite. Deciding to put Elizabeth in but then realizing they don't know how to do an AI companion.

 

The other thing I can see is the ridiculous things these budgets are spent on. Crysis is still a great looking game and cost a bit less than $20 million to make. "Next gen" games don't look terribly better, and yet take longer and double or more the budget to make somehow. The ridiculous amount of perceived competition in "triple A" games needs to stop. No you don't need 500 little cut scenes to tell an effective story. No you don't need all your characters mo-capped with ultra detailed facial animation. No you don't need 500 scripted events to make your game feel like a Michael Bay movie. EG: Battlefield does not need a single player campaign to sell, at all.

 

Games can look great and do more without spending more money. Evolve is an awesome looking game from a relatively small studio that I'm looking forward to a lot. Cutting costs is definitely possible, but no Triple A studio seems interested in it, at least not until they suddenly fold. Which is what may or may not have happened to Irrational. Maybe one day we'll get the story, because with a world beating fiscal year it's not like Take Two is hurting for cash immediately or being pressured by investors. Something must've just collapsed or finally broken.

[Forbin]

Bioshock Infinite went gold almost exactly a year ago today.  There's obviously a bit of patch work and DLC that happened in the time since, but that's a long time for a studio that size to figure out it doesn't have plans. I'm totally shooting in the dark, but I feel like they've been working on a few ideas for large scale projects for a while, and they haven't been making progress rolling those concepts out of pre-production.  Even wholly owned studios need to convince their publisher to invest in future projects.

 

It's impossible to know everything that Levine's gone through, but I feel like this wasn't the best way to handle it.  Shutting down a studio, then starting another one under the same parent company just doesn't sit well with me.  It feels like he's had a ton of time to plan his exit strategy and everyone else was surprised to find they were out of a job.

[Gormongous]

It's impossible to know everything that Levine's gone through, but I feel like this wasn't the best way to handle it.  Shutting down a studio, then starting another one under the same parent company just doesn't sit well with me.  It feels like he's had a ton of time to plan his exit strategy and everyone else was surprised to find they were out of a job.

 

Yeah... This is shocking news, like everyone's been saying, but at least for me, it's hard not to perceive it as a golden parachute for Levine. Why didn't he just reform Irrational from the inside? All I can think is that either he didn't want to do it himself, which makes him seem oblivious and self-centered, or 2K was really the one pressing the button, in which case it's merely uncomfortable that he gets to stick around with a select few.

 

I can't know what's gone through Levine's head, but it does seem as though the easiest answer is that 2K wanted Irrational gone but didn't want to take the PR hit from shuttering a popular studio, so they kept Levine and the goodwill he represents while still getting to shoot the money pit that he'd built in the head. Possibly they also sincerely hope that Levine can work wonders with a much smaller and more dedicated team, too. I don't know how I feel about it, but I think I might tend towards JP's reaction.

[Stephen]

I think that when all is said and done, this is the man we need to remember. Look at those eyes. Those lips. Those cheeks, brazen with whiskers that sigh, "We blow now, never in need of halcyon days."