How in that scenario would Levine stay behind? Even more so when he wrote that he thought of embracing the start up model before 2K talk him out of it.
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Irrational Games shutting down, 2K takes over BioShock, KL in new 15 person DD studio
- Thread starter Quentyn
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How in that scenario would Levine stay behind? Even more so when he wrote that he thought of embracing the start up model before 2K talk him out of it.
ClivePwned
Member
layoff bingo is too mean, even for GAF.
What a shocking turn of events.
Admittedly I do not know about all of the circumstances that led up to this, and I can only speak about the situation as I perceive it given the information that is available, but my spontaneous reaction is two-fold; On the one hand, I get the impression that this move was not directly economically motivated, and as such I feel like this is an incredibly selfish move considering the amount of people employed at Irrational that will have to look for a new job.
On the other hand, I have grand hopes that we might see something very special come out of this, both with regards to the games that will be produced, and with regards to impact on the industry as a whole. More game studios will follow Irrational's lead and will see the long-term economic and artistic benefit of developing several smaller games in tandem rather than betting the farm on one big triple-A debacle. I also hope that this will restructure the industry to (ironically) become a more stable one to work in.
Admittedly I do not know about all of the circumstances that led up to this, and I can only speak about the situation as I perceive it given the information that is available, but my spontaneous reaction is two-fold; On the one hand, I get the impression that this move was not directly economically motivated, and as such I feel like this is an incredibly selfish move considering the amount of people employed at Irrational that will have to look for a new job.
On the other hand, I have grand hopes that we might see something very special come out of this, both with regards to the games that will be produced, and with regards to impact on the industry as a whole. More game studios will follow Irrational's lead and will see the long-term economic and artistic benefit of developing several smaller games in tandem rather than betting the farm on one big triple-A debacle. I also hope that this will restructure the industry to (ironically) become a more stable one to work in.
Mr.Monitor
Member
I just believe smaller teams, deflated budgets, expanded development cycles, and a greater focus on creative freedom is a good thing for the industry. I'd love if more studios followed suit.
I'm not surprised. For as well as the game did sales wise, it sounds like Levine didn't really like the long development cycle with all it's delays and hardships it took to make this game. Cutting down to a smaller team sounds more sustainable in the long run; hopefully things work out for not only Levine but for the rest of the Irrational members.
MichaelFassbender
Member
Since I was not fond of Infinite, I suppose I should be relieved. Not much of a big deal overall, though.
Teletraan1
Banned
To all the people blaming the AAA model, sure this model sucks but take a look at the particulars of this game. How about blaming the studio that took like 5-6 years to release a rote shooter with waves of enemies that I rushed to finish for a bad story over a weekend. It had zero re playability for me. I never wanted to play this game again and didn't even feel like finishing it the first time. This game would have had to sell a lot more than it did to recover the extra 2-3 years of development time that I have a hard time trying to figure out where it went after playing the game. These development hell situations simply cannot happen and this is the result and should be the result for any fiscally responsible company. Yes it sucks that people are losing their jobs, except for the person who drove this bus off the cliff. He gets to go start a smaller team with less risk. We see so often that the industry is full of creative people who have no fucking clue how to manage projects that are as large as they are now or the publishers dont support the project with people who can.
endresults
Member
Well yeah, even the worst Bioshock game is still a great game.
QuantumBro
Banned
The series has generated half a billion in sales. Infinite alone did not do well enough to make up for its huge budget.
That doesn't mean that the series clears the company's own metrics for a successful project such as ROI.
Sanctuary
Member
The non stop shooting gallery that Infinite quickly devolved into felt just like some of the 90s shooters where there was nothing but mindless fodder walking in a straight line towards you. They couldn't come up with interesing AI, so they just played the numbers game. Until the inevitable bullet sponges make a brief appearance. Infinite just felt so terribly backwards compared to the first Bioshock.
Mister Wilhelm
Member
Over three titles. Dev costs vs expected profit. Not that good.
Vire
Member
200+ people lost their job and will have to uproot their families and you are relieved?
Angry Fork
Member
And instead of extremely detailed, open environments to explore in 3d we get to play 2d left/right scrolling or top down camera bs that can be played on a phone.
Not saying it has to be one or the other but I'm not that into the indie stuff except ones you can play in 3d environments like Gone Home which I loved. All the side scrolling stuff is boring to me, they feel like pick up and play handheld games that I can't be entertained by for more than 5-10 minutes.
BurnOutBrighter
Banned
Sad but not unexpected. Infinite was in development for way too long and didn't sell high enough to make it worthwhile for 2k.
Man.... if budgets and dev costs still remain an issue, or become a bigger one this gen.... I dunno. Last gen was a freaking massacre. Felt like we were attending a wake for yet another studio every 3 months.
Willy Wanka
my god this avatar owns
I'm a big fan of their output so this is very sad to read. Hopefully all those people that have been made redundant find jobs in the very near future but I expect the majority of them will as they are a talented bunch.
dragonbane
Member
Yeah, perhaps you are right
Take-Two: "Well, we're going to shut down your studio as it's not really working out. 5+ year development cycles versus your team size and sales isn't profitable."
Levine: "Okay. That sucks. Well, I'll go the indie route since no other publisher is going to fund something like this anyway and at that scale I can still spend a long time working on games."
Take-Two: "Wait! We would love to fund your indie studio as a digital only team with low costs. That could have good ROI for us and you can spend more than you would be able to otherwise."
This actually happened not long ago with Take-Two for two other studios. Senior staff from both 2K Marin and 2K Czech Prague were moved from their studios to 2K's new Bay Area studio to work on Mafia when the studios were shuttered for financial reasons. I really doubt both studios decided to shut down themselves and only send a few people over to a new location.
I think Irrational is the first major, critically acclaimed AAA developer to be consumed by this process, but it's important to note that this process has been slowly creeping its way up the ladder. First the shovelware developers were culled; then the B developers; then the AA ones; now AAA studios are starting to feel the pinch.
Mr.Monitor
Member
You really believe that Ken Levine is going to make a 2D side scroller? You must be kidding. And 15 people is a sizable team in comparison to the miniscule teams putting stuff out like Routine or Reset, which rival AAA games in terms of visual fidelity. Gone Home was made by four people. On top of that, this new studio will still have the financial backing of 2K, and they have years of experience among them (making some of the best games ever created). This is more along the lines of the mid tier studios of earlier eras, rather than the indie studios you're referring to. Also, some of the best games of the past few years have been presented with simplistic visuals. Check out Dustforce, Hotline Miami, and Kentucky Route Zero.
Thank you.
Poimandres
Member
The Ps3/360 gen takes its final scalp. What a brutal set of studio closures we've seen in the last few years.
In the last couple of years of Bio Infinites development Irrational lost a whole lot of great talent. I wonder if we will ever truly know what happened behind the scenes? I do think a smaller team with smaller projects might be good for Ken, but considering how much I loved Irrationals games this is heart breaking stuff.
In the last couple of years of Bio Infinites development Irrational lost a whole lot of great talent. I wonder if we will ever truly know what happened behind the scenes? I do think a smaller team with smaller projects might be good for Ken, but considering how much I loved Irrationals games this is heart breaking stuff.
Witcher 2 and Gears 1 also.
This game took a long time. AAA is not all bad but people are conditioned not to buy full price. Hope we get a better balance and the cream rises to the top.
Good read on this. If a studio has issues, then leadership should be the first to go, not the talent, so I suppose it follows that these are more likely routine layoffs.
Or maybe they're just crazy!
Once again, this is a bad example because of CDP's location in lower-cost Poland.
MrSilentGuy
Member
Well, it seams that you can't have Infinite development... Their last dev cycle was probably a last straw for 2K. Usually in AAA development you don't have to bring external product director to help push game through the door. Still another sad day in games industry...
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Whaaaaa damn.
RIP Irrational.
RIP Irrational.
dragonbane
Member
Oh god the VIP mode was so much fun as a terrorist. Tazing him over and over again. Letting him crawl for 5 seconds and giving him a chance to escape before closing the door in front of him, tazing him or shooting him in the leg. Shit I was a real asshole on MP, but damn was it a lot of fun too. Too many times when we got mad at each other and tried to taze ourselves haha
Man, the memories...
Gotcha well Gears 1 then.
What other possible, realistic reasons could there possibly be?
molnizzle
Member
Great, so the future of video games is 2D side-scrollers, 2D top-down nonsense and "3D" games with Minecraft graphics.
Awesome.
The weirdest thing to me is how eager so many companies were to kick the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era into the grave. It is ancient history now, but I've always questioned the wisdom of it.
ChrisMahoney
Banned
By this, do you mean the heads of Irrational Games took all best people to make a small-cost, high-profit studio?
This is probably why Microsoft let Bungie go independent. If they refused, the top people would have left anyway.
Maybe because game was in limbo spinning tires for years. Maybe they were deemed inefficient. Maybe the new direction forward was at odds with KL. Again do we know for sure that the decision was purely sales related?
Fallout-with-swords
Banned
I don't think this means that Infinite performed poorly; and, I still feel what Ken said might have been the case. I mean if Levine and 15 other top people left Irrational, what's left of the studio isn't exactly worth all that much to 2K. Especially, if the new Irrational is going to be in the planning stages for awhile. 2K is keeping the Bioshock franchise likely giving it to a established team, which I think makes sense, instead of leaving it with the old irrational and a group of people trying to fill Ken Levine and the other assumingly important 15's shoes.
Hardcore RPG's seem to be making a comeback too.
Maybe... Stay with the publisher that killed your team of 230 people when there's the start up opportunity open or even some other big publisher eager to snatch your talent just seems odd to me. But it's an odd situation by itself. So...
The $10M budget didn't include engine development costs. I'm not smart enough to tell you what the actual budget of Gears would be, other than it's north of the quoted number.
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