Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down

[thorn]

To all the people trying to speculate based on the fact that Bioshock Infinite took six years to develop - wasn't a large chunk of the project done with only a small team iterating on ideas, after various members of the Bioshock 1 team left to set up 2K Marin? I'm sure I read that in an interview somewhere. That should tweak those budget guesstimates somewhat, and bring new light on the fact that Levine wants to play around with ideas in a small team again.

 

Still, it's shitty that they let all those people go instead of letting them stay on as a team with a different leader.

[mike]

To all the people trying to speculate based on the fact that Bioshock Infinite took six years to develop - wasn't a large chunk of the project done with only a small team iterating on ideas, after various members of the Bioshock 1 team left to set up 2K Marin? I'm sure I read that in an interview somewhere. That should tweak those budget guesstimates somewhat, and bring new light on the fact that Levine wants to play around with ideas in a small team again.

 

Still, it's shitty that they let all those people go instead of letting them stay on as a team with a different leader.

 

I don't recall Irrational scaling down after Bioshock shipped. Some people left to form 2K Marin, sure, but it wasn't like Irrational only had 10 people after that. The company was always around 80 - 100 depending on what stage of development they were in. Bioshock was also financially successful, and it was 2K's first hit game (critically and commercially), so they weren't about to let anything happen to Irrational.

 

Here is the thing though: if Levine wants to go off on his own and make a game with a small group of people, why does he need to close down Irrational to do it? Furthermore how does he even have the power to do that, seeing as how IG is fully owned by 2K? If a studio is financially viable would 2K just stand around when a madman decides to close it because he wants to do something else? Why not just give him a team and have him do whatever? The thing he's apparently doing doesn't even need to happen outside of the walls of Irrational. He could just move his 15 team members to their own conference room or floor or whatever and they could toil away at whatever he wants while the rest of the company works on whatever other game. That's not what's happening though.

[Gormongous]

Here is the thing though: if Levine wants to go off on his own and make a game with a small group of people, why does he need to close down Irrational to do it? Furthermore how does he even have the power to do that, seeing as how IG is fully owned by 2K? If a studio is financially viable would 2K just stand around when a madman decides to close it because he wants to do something else? Why not just give him a team and have him do whatever? The thing he's apparently doing doesn't even need to happen outside of the walls of Irrational. He could just move his 15 team members to their own conference room or floor or whatever and they could toil away at whatever he wants while the rest of the company works on whatever other game. That's not what's happening though.

 

Yeah, that's a great way of putting what I was struggling to say. The way things played out, this is all obviously a fig leaf or a smoke screen or a blind for something else, but it's anyone's guess what that something is.

[Twig]

I think he's just the fall guy, and he's willingly taking the fall either for his own benefit or for 2K's benefit or for the benefit of all the people who are getting laid off (maybe he feels like it makes it better for those people if the decision comes from him, and not some corporate overlord, I don't know). Whatever the case: the fall guy. And 2K is rewarding him by continuing to fund his development, but on a much smaller scale?

 

I dunno, it's definitely weird. I could be way off base. Maybe Ken Levine really does just hate people. He's always come off as pretty legit, and I think he's also been one of those people who actively says "it's not just me making the game, it's everyone"? I could also be confusing him with someone else, and that would sort of run contrary to the story about the Columbia shanty town.

 

I dunno, it's definitely weird.

 

I'm sort of conflicted. I'm looking forward to what they do next with a smaller scope, because I really think that's what's best for Ken Levine's weird ideas, but I also don't know if what's happened here is OKAY and also I feel bad for everyone who got laid off. I got laid off of a job that I didn't really like and felt terrible. I can't imagine how it feels if you actually love your job. Which, well, I guess I'm just assuming they all loved their jobs.

 

Hey!

[Merus]

I don't recall Irrational scaling down after Bioshock shipped. Some people left to form 2K Marin, sure, but it wasn't like Irrational only had 10 people after that. The company was always around 80 - 100 depending on what stage of development they were in. Bioshock was also financially successful, and it was 2K's first hit game (critically and commercially), so they weren't about to let anything happen to Irrational.

 

2K also own Rockstar.

 

And they dealt with Team Bondi, which I think is an instructive place to look. 2K was interested in buying out Team Bondi and rebranding them Rockstar Australia or Rockstar South or something, to go with 2K Australia, but sussed out that Team Bondi wasn't functioning and decided not to invest. They seem to be more indulgent than most publishers are with their AAA teams, because they get people they think they can trust to do good work and give them essentially unlimited resources, but Team Bondi, then 2K Marin, then Irrational, probably soured that particular strategy. I think they've learnt that they can trust Rockstar to deliver, nevermind the atrocious conditions there, but that Rockstar's reliability isn't as reproduceable as they maybe hoped.

[tberton]

"Keeping your job while everybody under you gets fired" is not being a fall guy. Being a fall guy is taking responsibility for the unprofitably of the comapany you controlled and leaving yourself. At best, this is PR spin, placing the creative "needs" of one person over the financial needs of dozens. At worst, it's Levine being an egocentric asshole.

 

Neither makes me think better of Levine. In the first case, I'm not interested in a "visionary auteur" who covers for the shady dealings of his parent company. In the second, I'm not interested in the work of an egocentric asshole that let down everybody who worked under him.

[feelthedarkness]

If 2K owns Irrational, Levine doesn't get to be the one to "shut it down" unless he somehow negotiated the world's sweetest contract. I mean, The Docs at BioWare had had it, and they're both out, but that place isn't going anywhere on EA's watch. I don't have any theories, but I definitely believe the publisher gets to make the finance decisions. i.e. we aren't paying all these people after this day. 

[Henroid]

If 2K owns Irrational, Levine doesn't get to be the one to "shut it down" unless he somehow negotiated the world's sweetest contract. I mean, The Docs at BioWare had had it, and they're both out, but that place isn't going anywhere on EA's watch. I don't have any theories, but I definitely believe the publisher gets to make the finance decisions. i.e. we aren't paying all these people after this day. 

But Levine definitely became aware at some point of the consequences of his leaving, at minimum.

 

If he were leaving for reasons other than "I'm bored," I wouldn't expect him to stick around for the sake of other peoples' jobs. I.E. if he was feeling pushed around or restricted or treated unfairly by his employer. But I mean... he just said he's bored. What? Jobs are boring, even making video games. Look at Jake!

[Twig]

"Keeping your job while everybody under you gets fired" is not being a fall guy.

It sure is! Just not in the way you like.

[Gormongous]

It sure is! Just not in the way you like.

 

I agree with Twig? "We want to close Irrational, release a press statement that you're forming a new studio out of creative boredom so that it looks like your doing" isn't exactly as far of a fall as some, but it's still a fall. Like many people have said, Levine doesn't have the power to close a company he doesn't own, so this isn't his decision, even if the way he passes it off as his decision comes off as increasingly callous and out of touch the more I think about it.

[Frenetic Pony]

Thinking about it.

 

My guess now is that Levine wanted to go indie a while ago, like after (or even before) Infinite finally shipped. They've probably spent the last year trying to suss out whether someone else could take over as Irrational's studio head, and after a year of failing finally called it quits.

 

It's too easy to get all collective thought and blame Levine with zero evidence. Too easy to speculate and assume a corporation like Take-Two is just evil minded and hasn't thought things out the best they can.

 

I hope we'll get the full story, if only because it's potentially interesting. But I'm not going to start pointing fingers just because its fun. People do that to much, and it can ruin others lives who are guilty of nothing.

[gregbrown]

It's too easy to get all collective thought and blame Levine with zero evidence. Too easy to speculate and assume a corporation like Take-Two is just evil minded and hasn't thought things out the best they can.

There's plenty of evidence that:

 

A ) Levine was a Really Bad Boss, and allowed or even enabled(!) a toxic culture to take over Irrational Games, and

B )The game was delayed (by that very same culture) to the point that it was impossible to recoup the money, making it impossible to justify keeping the studio open.

 

Both those points strongly weigh in favor of the theory bandied about—and certainly give plenty of reason to doubt the sold line that Ken Levine was the one thing holding the studio together.

[Stuart]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/211139/Irrational_Games_journalism_and_airing_dirty_laundry.php

 

Great op-ed by Leigh Alexander on the whole situation.

[Frenetic Pony]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/211139/Irrational_Games_journalism_and_airing_dirty_laundry.php

 

Great op-ed by Leigh Alexander on the whole situation.

 

Direct evidence! Well, ces't la vie. Was willing, and trying, to give the benefit of the doubt. But $200 million for Bioshock Infinite? I could see $40 million, a fifth of that. But 200? Geeze.

 

At least it supports my hypothesis that the infinite cycle of "it's done when it's done" and "repeatedly prototype and change everything" isn't a good way for a huge triple A studio to work on a game. I remember reading about Deus Ex: Human Revolution's development. Apparently it had a relatively small budget and short development time for what it was, and they managed that by saying "Ok, this is the game were going to build" and then going out to build that and only that.

 

I get that you have to make sure ideas actually work and being adaptive is good. But games have both nigh unlimited potential for ideas and yet have to be built in a reality where they actually ship in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe if you're making Nidhogg, by yourself, you can take years to make a small little game. A hundred+ person team can't do that though.

[Zeusthecat]

This may sound harsh but based on some of these accounts, Levine comes across as more of an idiot than a creative genius. It's great that he has all these awesome creative ideas but the fact that he is so apparently clueless on how his practices impact the potential profitability of the game he is creating is baffling. He may prefer to eschew standard development processes and do things in his own unproductive way but that is extremely shortsighted when you are working under a budget and are counting on your game to be profitable. And in my mind, anyone who thinks a development process that involves regular "crunching" is a superior process should never be in charge of a project team.

[osmosisch]

It's possible to be both a creative, smart guy and a bad project lead at the same time, unfortunately.

[Zeusthecat]

It's possible to be both a creative, smart guy and a bad project lead at the same time, unfortunately.

 

This is true. But I contend that it is also possible to be a creative, smart guy and an idiot at the same time. That is, assuming that the term 'idiot' is still recognized as distinct and different from the term 'stupid'.

[osmosisch]

Of course, but you almost always end up needing to specify the domain in which someone's being an idiot, at which point it's just as easy to say 'bad at X' and clearer plus less offensive.

[Zeusthecat]

I agree and I hope the contents of my post clearly indicated why I find him to be an idiot. To be clear, I think being a competent game developer goes far beyond just being a 'creative genius' and Levine comes across as completely ignorant when it comes to anything beyond hatching his video game ideas.

[osmosisch]

Yeah, we're not disagreeing about anything, just some semantical meandering.

[Zeusthecat]

Well, I guess we're all good then. I'll just go over here now.

[mikemariano]

Four years ago I was surprised that Ken Levine showed so little interest in how his games were played.  I'm curious about the small team that will work with him—will there be any wonky, systems-driven designers?  Or just whippable yes-men?

[sclpls]

This probably makes me a horrible person, but given the ruthless turn Take 2's corporate culture has taken the thing I hate the most about the situation is thinking what happens if the next game from Firaxis isn't wildly successful? Because I don't want to live in a world where that studio isn't making strategy games!

[mikemariano]

The last Take 2 studio left standing will be Cat Daddy Games, makers of Turd Birds.

[pkirkner]

This probably makes me a horrible person, but given the ruthless turn Take 2's corporate culture has taken the thing I hate the most about the situation is thinking what happens if the next game from Firaxis isn't wildly successful? Because I don't want to live in a world where that studio isn't making strategy games!

Sid's been through that process before during the big Microprose exodus. I'd imagine he could find financial backing to create a landing pad for most of the Firaxis devs were it to happen again.