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The final years (and days) of Irrational Games [Polygon]

U

ultron87

Member
http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/6/5474722/why-did-irrational-close-bioshock-infinite

Looks like they got quite a few employees to talk about how it all went down.

Has some interesting stuff I hadn't seen before like the fact that 2K Marin was originally working on the first piece of DLC for Infinite but it was totally scrapped which gave Irrational 9 weeks to make something which eventually become Clash in the Clouds. Also pretty clearly describes how the day the closure was announced went.
 
I

IronRinn

Member
Was just about to post this. Pretty interesting article.

Everyone gathered in the kitchen slash common area where team meetings were regularly held, sitting on stools and fold-out chairs from the kitchen.

Levine, standing before the group, read from a piece of a paper. In most meetings, he spoke from memory or improvised. A pre-planned speech was atypical.

He transitioned from the introduction about the company's history into details about the company's closure. The room was quiet; there were no outbursts.

"There was a willful disbelief," says one source. "Some submitted to the idea that the company would live forever because they had shipped BioShock."

According to sources, Levine's hands were shaking while he read the announcement. He offered one-on-one time with employees and said he would write recommendations. "It was really nice and really sympathetic," says a source. "They gave us as much info as we could really handle at the time."

When Levine finished the speech, he quietly left and the operations team took over the meeting, explaining the logistics behind the closure.
Click to expand...
 
Oppo

Oppo

Member
Kinda wish Geoff Keighley did this. His "Final Hours of Portal 2" app and feature were really exceptional.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
According to sources, Levine's hands were shaking while he read the announcement. He offered one-on-one time with employees and said he would write recommendations. "It was really nice and really sympathetic," says a source. "They gave us as much info as we could really handle at the time."
Click to expand...
Yep totally sounds like a guy who wanted to shut down the studio and 2K didn't at all force him to make that letter.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
ultron87 said:
Has some interesting stuff I hadn't seen before like the fact that 2K Marin was originally working on the first piece of DLC for Infinite but it was totally scrapped which gave Irrational 9 weeks to make something which eventually become Clash in the Clouds.
Click to expand...

This aligns with my estimation a while back that Clash in the Clouds happened because Burial at Sea was taking longer than expected.
 
C

Cat Party

Member
Brutal story. Sucks how Levine gets trashed for this when it looks pretty clear that he tried all he could to help his team.
 
T

TheOddOne

Member
Wow.
The studio had, according to a former employee, about nine weeks to finish Clash in the Clouds, the first add-on to Infinite. It was a wholly new project — 2K Marin's work, which one source says could have seen Infinite's floating city crashing in some capacity into the ocean, was scrapped entirely.
Click to expand...
 
D

Dead

well not really...yet
Interviewees pointed to Levine's eagerness to iterate as his most brilliant and most frustrating quality: It's an expensive and time-consuming creative method but, at its best, it could produce astonishing results. Former employees say it sometimes brought people to the company and other times drove them away,

One source recalls how Levine would challenge the historical accuracy of a design, down to the tiniest of details. If something wasn't perfect — if it didn't fit in the context of the world — then it needed to be done again. "I realized that he's not someone you bullshit," says the source, "because he cares about that detail so much and really loves it when other people do too."
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Sounds a lot like James Cameron. heh
 
E

EmCeeGramr

Member
The first of the two modes was Border Control, a tower-defense game with an old-fashioned political cartoon art style, replete with racist stereotypes. The mode was itself a game set in the world of BioShock Infinite, meant to indoctrinate the fictional children of its bigoted universe.
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what

the

fuck
 
D

DrFunk

not licensed in your state
The first of the two modes was Border Control, a tower-defense game with an old-fashioned political cartoon art style, replete with racist stereotypes. The mode was itself a game set in the world of BioShock Infinite, meant to indoctrinate the fictional children of its bigoted universe.
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What the fuck
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
OmahaG8 said:
Have you ever left a job on your own volition? I have. It is still sad.
Click to expand...

Having finished the article, I think he wanted to work with a smaller team, but I don't think he expected the rest of the studio to get shuttered for that to happen.
 
S

Sylas

Member
Just to comment on the article itself... Did it strike anyone else as somewhat poorly written, repeating itself in several places and being kinda hard to follow overall?

That said, it's still an interesting piece. Definitely sounds like Levine wanted to move on from AAA-huge development and focus on something much smaller as opposed to feeling a lot of pressure to shut the studio down from 2K.
 
S

Sola Scriptura

Member
Nirolak said:
Having finished the article, I think he wanted to work with a smaller team, but I don't think he expected the rest of the studio to get shuttered for that to happen.
Click to expand...

Exactly the impression I got. I seriously doubt Levine anticipated the plug getting pulled on Irrational.
 
C

Curufinwe

Member
ultron87 said:
2K Marin was originally working on the first piece of DLC for Infinite but it was totally scrapped which gave Irrational 9 weeks to make something which eventually become Clash in the Clouds. Also pretty clearly describes how the day the closure was announced went.
Click to expand...

I really liked CitC. That's pretty amazing.
 
T

Toa TAK

Banned
That article is really depressing, but gave great insight to the studio's final years. It seemed like there was some kind of Irrational Trinity going on with Levine, Thomas and Fergusson, which was really cool to see.

It's a shame what happened, yeah, Levine wanted a smaller team, but I don't think he expected everyone else at Irrational to get laid off like that. I didn't even know that there were gradual layoffs like that during the DLC's development. Sad, I actually enjoyed CitC, since I do enjoy Infinite's combat.

Now, we just wait for part 2 of BaS. Thanks for sharing the article, OP.
 
V

Vizzeh

Banned
Good article, After reading it, Levine seems more suited to a smaller indie studio, rather than managing a massive one, his perfectionist attitude while good creatively, sounds like it needed to be toned back, or goals changed, to continuously have to re-do work puts the 5-6 years development into perspective.

Also, to have to hire a team to try and analyse the works culture and enviroment, try work with Levine to change his attitude and couldn't, therefore forcing the staff to change around him is ridiculous.

After reading the article, I feel sorry for Irrational even more so, given their working conditions and expectations. Good luck to Levine, he maybe doing his job but sounds like he belongs working with smaller numbers with less of a budget, 2k Should have accepted responsibility and restructured long ago.
 
C

codhand

Member
as good an article as were likely to get, am i the only one mean enough to wonder if Levine "shaking" and offering one-on-one meetings was an admission of culpubility?

ive worked for some extremely demanding bosses, so thos parts dont bother me.
 
L

Liha

Banned
"There was a willful disbelief," says one source. "Some submitted to the idea that the company would live forever because they had shipped BioShock."
Click to expand...

I thought the same

trz3mi2fgdh5.gif
Click to expand...
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
That was a good article. I kinda thought Jason would get this scoop first.

I hope this dispels anyone thinking that Ken was actually directly responsible for the closing of the studio.

I hope that Ken is able to do great games while being limited. It's such a shame that this happened in the first place. But still, I respect that they lay offs were done in such a sympathetic way.
 
P

pa22word

Member
Another source claims that, at one point in Infinite's development, an external firm was brought in to improve the studio's culture. They held a workshop and, after some analysis, they reached a conclusion: Levine wasn't going to change, so the employees would need to change around him.
Click to expand...

=\
 
T

Tripon

Member
JaseC said:
This aligns with my estimation a while back that Clash in the Clouds happened because Burial at Sea was taking longer than expected.
Click to expand...

Clash in the Clouds were always meant to happen, but the mess that was 2K Marin at the time made Irrational pick up that as well, which resulted in a battle rush mode, pretty much the only thing they could ship in under 3 months.
 
P

Pakkidis

Member
The general impression I got was that Ken was a difficult man to work for but they respected him enough because he made great games.
 
A

Ace Harding

Member
Seems like a passionate creative dude who probably hated having to manage a large company of people and was very aware he sucked at it. I look forward to seeing what he does with a smaller team.
 
P

pa22word

Member
Juan29.zapata said:
I hope this dispels anyone thinking that Ken was actually directly responsible for the closing of the studio.
Click to expand...



Did we read the same article?

Despite the positive spin in the article, it seems to me now more than ever that Levine's inability to properly manage the studio is the main reason it's closing. Just because he wanted out too doesn't mean that 2K wasn't just as happy to oblige him by knocking him down a peg after Infinite's horrible development and subsequent financial failure.
 
M

Mumford

Member
So where does Bioshock go from here? While I was never a fan of it it's obviously a huge IP and it seems like it could have gone in many interesting directions. Really sad to hear about Irrational.
 
Raptomex

Raptomex

Member
This article informed me of some new stuff but I still find the closure shady or at least stupid. Levine previously stated it was the best job he ever had. If it's the best job you ever had, you have some great IPs and have been releasing some successful games, you decide to shut it all down to start from the ground up?
To meet the challenge ahead, I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers.
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Makes no sense to me.
 
P

pa22word

Member
En Ex said:
Fascinating read. Irrational really needs its own Masters of Doom.
Click to expand...

In today's world of NDA's and corporate cockblocking something like Master's of Doom will never happen again, unless it's over something like THQ's downfall or something, and even then the current holders of the ip might block it over not wanting to dirty up their new purchases.
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
pa22word said:
Did we read the same article?

Despite the positive spin in the article, it seems to me now more than ever that Levine's inability to properly manage the studio is the main reason it's closing. Just because he wanted out too doesn't mean that 2K wasn't just as happy to oblige him by knocking him down a peg after Infinite's horrible development and subsequent financial failure.
Click to expand...

Of course we did. And I never said that it wasn't Levine's fault, hence the word "directly" as in said that he wanted to close the studio because it wasn't working out.

Never said he was a good manager of the studio's resources either, as it was mentioned in the article.
 
Z

zhorkat

Member
"Studio leadership spent time with significant others of employees to explain why the long hours and extra effort was extraordinary, and how appreciated it was."
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Ugh. Stuff like this shouldn't need to happen.
 
S

soultron

Banned
Really engrossing read, although I wish it hadn't have fallen off a cliff abruptly at the end. I mean that in that the ending to the article felt very sudden.

Irrational not having a new game lined up before finishing the Infinite DLCs is still the biggest indication that something was up, if you ask me. Finding a new office location before you have a new project seems to be strange prioritisation.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Tripon said:
Clash in the Clouds were always meant to happen, but the mess that was 2K Marin at the time made Irrational pick up that as well, which resulted in a battle rush mode, pretty much the only thing they could ship in under 3 months.
Click to expand...

You're not the first to assert as much but every time this comes up a source is lacking.
 
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