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[Mr.Monitor]

Great, so the future of video games is 2D side-scrollers, 2D top-down nonsense and "3D" games with Minecraft graphics.

Awesome.

You do realize you're talking about something entirely different, right? You're talking about games with teams in the single digits, with largely inexperienced staff. We're talking about a fifteen person team, with financial backing and employees who have been in the industry for years. Your argument is invalid, regardless of whether or not you think indie games are good.

 

[foxtrot3d]

What other possible, realistic reasons could there possibly be?

Ken Levine is a big meanie head...

Stay with the publisher that killed your team of 230 people when there's the start up opportunity open...

Well part of the reason Ken sold Irrational to 2K in the first place is because he hated the business side of things, with 2K they just let him make games and gave him free reign as far as control went so he was happy. I'm sure when 2K offered him that opportunity again with a smaller team he couldn't resist.

 

[Sorcerer]

Ken Levine: "To foster the most direct relationship with our fans possible, we will focus exclusively on content delivered digitally".


CliffyB: "I'll never make another disc based game"


Cliffy and Ken teamup?

 

[Yopis]

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.

Alright then.....Super Monaco GP.

 

[FyreWulff]

Not surprised at this at all. Irrational was competing with Borderlands internally; Borderlands is a much more reliable sales wise and is a much more well monetized franchise, selling tons of DLC. What do you think is going to get more attention from a publically traded company?

 

[NoPiece]

Gotcha well Gears 1 then.

There is a reason development is going places with subsidies (Canada) or cheap labor (China).

 

[doctorblurg]

Well shit... hope Ken still makes some good titles in the future along with the rest of the irrational team. Goodnight sweet prince

 

[ShinMaruku]

I think with this on their resumes the people let go will find work. Hopefully this spread of talent can raise the collective bar of developers. That said how that team was working was not going to keep going like that.

 

[Biker19]

Great, so the future of video games is 2D side-scrollers, 2D top-down nonsense and "3D" games with Minecraft graphics.

Awesome.

I hope that you & everyone else are prepared to see a lot less AAA games this gen.

The AAA gaming market is collapsing. Too many publishers/developers have been losing a lot of money & closing a lot of studios last gen due to outrageous development costs of making & advertising those kind of games, & it's only going to get even worse this gen.

 

[dyergram]

Gutted I loved their games I can't really understand it to be honest.

 

[molnizzle]

I hope that you & everyone else are prepared to see a lot less AAA games this gen.

The AAA gaming market is collapsing. Too many publishers/developers have been losing a lot of money & closing a lot of studios last gen due to outrageous development costs of making & advertising those kind of games, & it's only going to get even worse this gen.

I know, and it makes me sad.

 

[Kimppis]

Infinite's budget was $100 million or something. The game sold 4-5 million, right? My math sucks, but doesn't that mean they did somewhat decently? No massive losses, that is. Did they seriously expect to sell 10+ million copies? Why the hell was the budget so high?

It's like Tomb Raider. $100 million budget, 4-5 million sales -> disappointment.

 

[Yopis]

There is a reason development is going places with subsidies (Canada) or cheap labor (China).

Hey I live in Raleigh. Yeah cost add up.

 

[Gannd]

I think in the long run what is happening will be good for the industry. The current unsustainable model of doing business needs to go. I think when we see the PS4 is going to level out its sales in the next few months we'll see a lot of companies reevaluate what the industry is going to look like. This just further cements in my mind that the console space is shrinking. There isn't a lot of growth there. If Take2 thought there was growth they'd continued down the path. There isn't. We are going to see more of this.

 

[NoPiece]

Hey I live in Raleigh. Yeah cost add up.

Don't move to Boston! It just reminded me of THQ shutting down Kaos which was in NYC. Publishers are so cost sensitive that trying to be a studio in a city like Boston, NY, or SF is a big handicap.

 

[Mr.Monitor]

I know, and it makes me sad.

Why are you convinced it needs to be either/or? You are aware of the massive mid tier market that was present in previous generations (and has been more or less absent for a good while), right?

 

[KHarvey16]

I can imagine scenarios where this isn't simply a dick move by inconsiderate or uncaring people, so it might be best not to jump to that conclusion immediately without all the background.

What I can say for sure though is it's always nice to see the industry trying to help out their colleagues when things like this happen. Irrational was full of talented people so with any luck they'll be employed again quickly.

 

[Grisby]

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...

The more celebration of Irrationals achievements and the people who made them the better I say.

*everyone stacks up on door*
*I throw flash bang that hits the top of it, rebounding back*
Yep, even the accidental trolling was the awesome sauce.

And pepper spray. Oh, the pepper spray.

 

[dragonbane]

200+ people lost their job and will have to uproot their families and you are relieved?

LinkedIn has them at 103 employees. Not everyone is on there most likely, but they are definitely not even close to 200+ employees right now. Most likely a lot of them left or were laid off already after Infinite shipped.
~120 people still sucks though. Just wanted to make sure we have the right number here.

 

[RubberJohnny]

Gotcha well Gears 1 then.

Gears 1 is 7 years old and its costs were hidden in the development budget of Unreal Engine 3.

 

[yellow submarine]

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...

They probably threw enough stock options at him to make him stay for a year. I doubt he'll be there once they vest, unless his new game is super profitable.

 

[Biker19]

Why are you convinced it needs to be either/or? You are aware of the massive mid tier market that was present in previous generations (and has been more or less absent for a good while), right?

Exactly. I feel that smaller games, indie games, & mid-tier gaming is going to be huge this gen, & why the mid-tier market needs to be brought back.

I'm more of a fan of all three of those type of games.

 

[Tankallex]

I'm more than a little worried to see how future Bioshock games turn out.

 

[Neuromancer]

What other developers are in Boston? All I can think of is Harmonix.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Great, so the future of video games is 2D side-scrollers, 2D top-down nonsense and "3D" games with Minecraft graphics.

Awesome.

Cryengine has become pretty affordable for indies lately.

 

[Showaddy]

I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner to be honest. So many key employees left during the latter stages of Infinite's development that I was sure the studio would shut down the moment the game shipped.

Seem's like they kept the team around just about long enough to get some DLC out the door.

 

[Danne-Danger]

LinkedIn has them at 103 employees. Not everyone is on there most likely, but they are definitely not even close to 200+ employees right now. Most likely a lot of them left or were laid off already after Infinite shipped.

~120 people still sucks though. Just wanted to make sure we have the right number.

Still, doing this now, after Infinite, if it wasn't a massive failure for them sales wise, is probably the best thing in the long run. I'm sure Ken has the proper insight to make that decision.

If they'd started on another game with Ken on the ropes who knows what would've happened, it could've been a big risk. At least now, they can do the lay-offs with resources to back it up, aid people in finding work, wind the machine down slowly, and not have to resort to just shutting down further ahead when the pool of money is dry.

Perhaps that's what he saw coming and took it down preemptively. But who knows! There are arguments to be made for doing a thing such as this at a time when the employer can take proper care of it's employees during the shutdown, though.

Still, going to suck for some people regardless, and that's bad no matter how you spin it.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

Great, so the future of video games is 2D side-scrollers, 2D top-down nonsense and "3D" games with Minecraft graphics.

Awesome.

Shut up. Its not doomsday, theres gonna be lots of lighting effects and reflections in the future.
Just wait until James Cameron starts developing for the occulus rift. BIG GAMES have only just begun.

 

[Cornbread78]

Damn, DD titles only? Wow...

 

[dmr87]

Sucks for the people involved and losing their job, but at the same time I'm excited to see what Ken Levine and a smaller team can come up with.

 

[KHarvey16]

And to Shawn Elliott, congrats on the news of your child, but sorry about the timing of all this :/

 

[BlackBuzzard]

Shut up. Its not doomsday, theres gonna be lots of lighting effects and reflections in the future.
Just wait until James Cameron starts developing for the occulus rift. BIG GAMES have only just begun.

He will raise the bar.

His name is James, James Cameron
The bravest pioneer
No budget too steep, no sea too deep
Who's that?
It's him, James Cameron
James, James Cameron explorer of the sea
With a dying thirst to be the first
Could it be? Yeah that's him!
James Cameron

 

[Mr.Monitor]

Damn, DD titles only? Wow...

Less money wasted on distribution? That's a good thing. And besides, if they're trying to bring back the magic of old Irrational, they'll be targeting PC development. In that case, DD is the standard anyways.

 

[FartOfWar]

The implications of this are huge and need proper address, but let me merely say: everyone, sorry. Shawn Elliott: very sorry.

Again, thank you all. And thank you Ghaleon.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

He will raise the bar.

If not him, someone else. I don't know why, but I really see cutting edge filmmakers jumping into helming Rift experiences. Anyway, general point being technology has never been more exciting.

 

[dragonbane]

The more celebration of Irrationals achievements and the people who made them the better I say.

*everyone stacks up on door*
*I throw flash bang that hits the top of it, rebounding back*
Yep, even the accidental trolling was the awesome sauce.

And pepper spray. Oh, the pepper spray.

Yup. I accidentally killed a team mate by blasting a door open with C4 while he was on the other side. Oops. And then trolling people really was awesome. I even loved playing as the VIP just to see how other players would try to troll or torture me. I even managed to escape multiple times when the timer was up and ended up crawling somewhere completely cuffed until a terrorist found and shot me haha

Even the SP was awesome. I played that creepy house mission way too many times. The AI is so great in fact I actually replayed that mission not doing anything besides directing the NPCs over the helmet cameras and helping out with the snipers. That was really fun that they actually managed to beat the mission without my help and you can literally give them any command you can do as well and they act pretty smartly on their own too. Even coordinated room breaching is possible while you are somewhere else in the level, just awesome. I remember being really impressed at the time that they had like a million different dialogue options for the optical device to check under doors too e.g. "I can see 3 terrorists and 2 civilians"

I even created a custom mission using the Night Club map and put the maximum number of aggressive terrorists on the map. Damn the insanity.

 

[brian577]

I think in the long run what is happening will be good for the industry. The current unsustainable model of doing business needs to go. I think when we see the PS4 is going to level out its sales in the next few months we'll see a lot of companies reevaluate what the industry is going to look like. This just further cements in my mind that the console space is shrinking. There isn't a lot of growth there. If Take2 thought there was growth they'd continued down the path. There isn't. We are going to see more of this.

I suppose it's good for the industry to put 100+ talented individuals in limbo as well?

 

[KHarvey16]

What other developers are in Boston? All I can think of is Harmonix.

Turbine is down in Westwood I think. I see their guys out at lunch occasionally.

Edit

Wikipedia says Needham.

 

[Amir0x]

Ah, even though some people had issue with the Bioshock games, I thought they were quite good, and I'll miss them. I'll still keep an eye out for the new Bioshock games though. I ended up liking Bioshock 2 well enough.

 

[KillerDark]

This is definitely a surprise. It will be interesting to see what kind of game they make.

 

[Principate]

How about Naughty Dog then? Aren't their budgets under control for the most part?

Good management goes a loooong way and it is probably rare in this industry.

It's probably because gamers expect a certain levl of triple (of course that expectation comes down often due to publishers), If after a a year or two has passed and that standard isn't met then it's a wasted investment, so the company invests more in order to reach that quality, or surpass this.

If mid tier games actually sold well we wouldn't have this problem to such a degree.

 

[Brainfreeze]

I saw this earlier. Bioshock is my favorite game of all time and Irrational is easily one of my favorite developers. I'm truly heartbroken for the team over there, I can only hope that all of them land on their feet and get the chance to keep doing what they love on a game they're really passionate about.

From an artistic perspective though, I've been secretly hoping Burial at Sea 2 would be the end of the Bioshock series. Infinite just seemed like a perfect ending before things go off the rails, and I think the trilogy pretty much said everything it wanted to. I guess Courtnee Draper saying that it would be the finale for the whole franchise makes all the more sense now.

I'm worried about where 2K will take the series, but I'm way more excited about what Ken Levine and the layed off team members do next (plus at least I can pass any possible missteps off as noncanon, right?). Saddened and shocked, but still optimistic about the future.

It's been a good run, I'm gonna miss 'em.

Thanks for the memories, Irrational!

 

[Authority]

The issue is really simple.

2K wanted to cut down costs because for them,

• Bioshock as a franchise was too expensive/costly to continue having Irrational Games control and vision over it.
  
• They wanted a smaller team to take control over that franchise with less expense/cost and capitalize on the forthcoming years on the brand value itself and gain as much cash possible before the name runs dry.
  
• They wanted Ken Levine, the head of the snake, to repeat the same success with a smaller team and thus less expense/cost.
  
• Bioshock's life cycle for them has ended because their risk assessment pint pointed them not to carry on and risk a year with a great or negative loss.

Ken Levine stating that it was solely his decision to shut down the department is bull, capital bull. The allegedly fact that he decided to shut down the operation and start all fresh and new, and miraculously Take-Two was again the savior of his calls only reaffirms that. Definitely, there was a behind-the-doors deal between Levine and Take-Two and today was that day that he was obliged to announce it.

The truth can be told by the employees who got lay off and I can guarantee we shall see cannot_be_named confessions the following days.

Anyway, that is my Take-Down on that.

 

[That Brown Guy]

JP from Platinum just tweeted this:

https://twitter.com/PG_jp/status/435905181251690496

 

[Kocolino67]

33 minutes by Giantbomb on Youtube - Let's Talk About Irrational Games Closing

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

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.

Ive BEEN questioning the wisdom of that generation.

 

[Night_Trekker]

Truly a sign of a healthy, thriving industry model.

 

[Tookay]

Ive BEEN questioning the wisdom of that generation.

For the big publishers (EA, Ubisoft, Acti), they couldn't wait because it meant that mid-tier publishers and developers wouldn't be able to follow. They raised the budget ceiling so high that it lead to a whole bunch of developers dying, and with them in control of the market.

Problem is, now this big budget arms race and gamer expectations have spiraled out of their control and it's affecting them too. And it's mostly their fault.

 

[molnizzle]

Why are you convinced it needs to be either/or? You are aware of the massive mid tier market that was present in previous generations (and has been more or less absent for a good while), right?

Sure, but it's been more or less absent for a good while.

What would a mid-tier game even look like these days? Strider? Outlast? Oddworld New 'N Tasty? Because while those games do look interesting, they definitely fall into the "snack" category for me. Fun little distractions while I wait for Watch Dogs, Destiny and The Witcher 3 to come out.

This whole situation just sucks.

 

[FyreWulff]

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.

Much different conditions. Microsoft essentially 86'd the OXbox the day the 360 came out because it was so expensive to keep going with it. Nintendo had the Wii explode and they could safely wind down the GameCube.