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[infinityBCRT]

No, Take-Two told him he couldn't keep the studio going as is and offered him this as the only option to keep anyone on board, but obviously he's not going to say that publicly.

They didn't mention BioShock Infinite in their recent fiscal report. It's pretty obvious it was not up to expectations sales wise and they're unwilling to keep going with Irrational's cost structure and dev lengths.

I think a better option would've been to give this team to someone who can manage a game... Obviously Fergusson bolted but they should've found someone with a similar pedigree and given them the studio and then let Levine do his own thing under a new name.

 

[Jonboy]

What?! Wow. Never expected this one.

 

[Plywood]

Pretty damn ridiculous.

 

[gdt]

Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Thats crazy. Infinite's dev cycle must've really burned him out.

 

[JDSN]

That AAA publisher model more than 4million copies sold and still hidden from their fiscal reports, enjoy your season passes!. I hope Shawn Elliott can find work doing what he loves, and podcasts.

 

[sirris]

That's sad but maybe he'll do some great things in the new studio.

 

[Oersted]

This is confusing.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Holy shit, talk about unexpected! I think this has got to be partly down to Infinite having a horrible development period of, what, well over four years.

Hopefully Ken starts up his own indie. The influence of big publishers have hurt his games IMO.

It sounds like he basically is starting up an 'indie' team, but staying in the employ of 2K.

 

[Neuromancer]

I'm so confused right now.

 

[Nzyme32]

- I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers

- I’ll be starting a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two

- parting ways with all but about fifteen members of the Irrational team

- new goal: To make narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable.

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

This is both super sad but also super exciting as a direction.

I have no idea what the small group's next project is but digital delivery only, "as part of fostering a relationship with fans", could be an indication of regular update cycles. For a narrative driven games, that could get quite interesting. I'm in! Best of luck to all of them on their transition

 

[Sparse]

Just whoa

 

[LazerRanger]

R.I,P. Irrational and best wishes to everyone that was a part of the team.

Bioshock and Infinite are two of my fave games of last gen so it's a real shame to think they won't be putting out something of that scale on this new gen of consoles. I assume Levine is planning to work on something Telltale sized which I'm sure will be decent and satisfying in it's own way but I loved the ambition of the Bioshock's, they felt like the world building of a Cameron or Del Toro mixed with the commentary of a great novel.

 

[Hasney]

The Irrational staff will no doubt find work, but best of luck to them to find something that is a good fit for them and their family. I hope Take-Two makes a sequel to Infinite a la Bioshock 2. They invested way too much time and money into the concept to let it die after the ambitious yet only somewhat good Bioshock Infinite.

As for Levine, I don't know what to think about the guy. I'll of course, keep an eye on his new endeavors with the 15 Irrational staff but even with Bioshock, which I loved, he needs to get his head out of his own self indulgent ass and be a little more efficient.

Well don't you think the whole point of scaling down to a very small team is to be more efficient and get his ideas across better than you can on a large team?

 

[kmg90]

Come Irrational, April 1st isn't even less than a month away...

Spoiler

Trying to make a little humor in light of such sad news

 

[markom58]

what? noooo

 

[McLovin]

Wow WTF!

 

[Vico]

Wait, what?

...

My body WAS NOT ready.

 

[kiguel182]

What?

I was not expecting this. No more AAA games from Levine then.

Awful news. I loved Bioshock Infinite and it's a shame his next game isn't going to be as big as his previous works.

That said, I'll be very excited for his next project as he is one of the best writers/designers in the industry. It will surely be great.

 

[kirblar]

This could well be the reason. Don't forget that Bioshock Infinite took six years to make. The development costs of a six year project with a huge team must be enormous.

Definitely. This really does make sense for everyone involved, given Infinite's problematic development history. It doesn't mean we're not getting another Levine game - it just means it's going to be developed differently.

 

[entremet]

Something is wrong with this industry when selling 4 million copies is under performing.

 

[kurahador]

Damn....

I'm soo sad right now.

 

[ButchCat]

This is what you get gaffers for hating on BS:I so much.

Spoiler

Joke

I can't believe this is happenong, their games were inspirational for me.

 

[cpp_is_king]

I thought they were doing well?

Did you read the announcement? It has nothing to do with how they were doing.

 

[Dead]

Wow...

Clearly BI didn't perform like 2K hoped...

 

[Opiate]

Starting to hate this industry... Quality dev's getting killed off, so often now.

It's important to point out that this is actually part of an ongoing process that people didn't really complain about until it started hitting studios they personally enjoyed.

When the shovelware started getting culled from consoles, very few complained. Less trouble separating the wheat from the chaff.

When the B titles started getting culled, people lamented a bit but chalked it up to survival of the fittest.

Then AA developers like Insomniac or Silicon Knights started feeling the crunch, and the laments got louder but again survival of the fittest was a common refrain.

Now the AAA developers are beginning to fall, and the laments will likely hit a crescendo. I will only state that this is a consequence of the relentless, constant demand for higher and higher production values from bother gamers and publishers alike. Within a few years, only a small handful of games will able to keep up with the AAA Joneses.

 

[darkside31337]

They should have let Irrational make WWE 2K games.

 

[firehawk12]

After Bioshock 1, he sounded tired of making big games. That Infinite was apparently some kind of clusterfuck probably didn't help things, so I can see him wanting to just scale down. Weird that it's happening this way though - that someone couldn't take over Irrational and have them keep churning out Bioshock games or something.

 

[FTF]

Holy shit, what?!?

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Thats crazy. Infinite's dev cycle must've really burned him out.

His ridiculously long development cycles are of his own doing. BI wasn't the first time he took 5+ years to make a game.

 

[Shalashaska161]

Wow that's surprising. I wonder what this means for Burial at Sea Part 2.

 

[Ferrio]

So who bought season passes? What have we learned?

 

[Kintaro]

AAA is the 250lb muscle bound meat head of gaming. I guess Ken wants to slim down and be the leaner, more ripped part of gaming.

 

[Blueblur1]

But I liked Irrational... That was a talented group of folks and I'd hate to see them disperse to different places. What a bummer.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Well that came out of nowhere.

It seems this is Ken's decision mainly rather then financial one, hopefully he has some type of vision going forward.

In general, small dev teams with a cohesive vision is a good thing to me.

 

[moltonasty]

Wow, if a prestigious studio like Irrational is not even safe from closure, what does that say for the state of the industry? Of course, this could be a creative/personal decision made by Ken, as he wants to do something new and different. But if that were the case, wouldn't he just move on, while Irrational stays active with a new head? This is shocking though, to say the least.

 

[Chavelo]

Oh man... horrible news. What about Shawn Elliott?

 

[Flarin]

I feel like the title is misleading. Irrational isn't shutting down, they're downsizing to a smaller core team. As Ken said in his statement:

"I am winding down Irrational Games as you know it. I’ll be starting a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two. That is going to mean parting ways with all but about fifteen members of the Irrational team."

None the less, a sad state of events. This certainly won't be the last we hear of AAA studios shutting down/ downsizing this coming generation.

 

[Rickenslacker]

I'd be alright with no more Bioshock games.

Still, this comes as a complete surprise to me, I hope the best for those laid off.

 

[DSmalls84]

Disappointment...I got nothing else.

 

[AppleMIX]

Crazy but I'm excited for the new direction.

 

[gofreak]

So.... he closed down Irrational, took some employees with him and opened a new studio inside the same publisher?

Isn't this a bit.....irrational?

Take2 decided to shutter his baby but offer a few people some jobs.

Levine is understandably enough too concerned about his relationship with his employer to call it like it is. This PR was probably written by Take2 people and Levine asked to sign it off.

 

[Tesseract]

isn't mr. levine the problem?

 

[Fatbody]

Is this the new, PR-friendly way to do layoffs now?

 

[MrCompletely]

probably a good thing in terms of levine's output. being constrained by AAA-style development really hurt infinite.

This is what I was thinking, of course it sucks for the employees who are being let go, however, it sounds like it's giving Ken the room he needs to grow and alleviate himself from the pressures and constraints of delivering products that the investors account toward the bottom line.

 

[zackmorris]

Well it's sad to lose a great studio, but at the same time I'm excited to see whats next, both from the core guys and from the rest of employees as well. I've always thought the bioshock games were very well executed, and it takes an entire team of talented individuals to pull that off.

 

[Enchanted]

Is there a TL;DR version of what happened?

 

[Coffee Dog]

It's important to point out that this is actually part of an ongoing process that people didn't really complain about until it started hitting studios they personally enjoyed.

When the shovelware started getting culled from consoles, very few complained. Less trouble separating the wheat from the chaff.

When the B titles started getting culled, people lamented a bit but chalked it up to survival of the fittest.

Then AA developers like Insomniac or Silicon Knights started feeling the crunch, and the laments got louder but again survival of the fittest was a common refrain.

Now the AAA developers are beginning to fall, and the laments will likely hit a crescendo. I will only state that this is a consequence of the relentless, constant demand for higher and higher production values from bother gamers and publishers alike. Within a few years, only a small handful of games will able to keep up with the AAA Joneses.

Yup. Enthusiasts were crying foul for years because it was hitting the smaller niche studios, but the average core gamer is kinda selfish. Unless it's directly affecting them it's not a problem.

 

[Artea]

Maybe they'll finally make good games now.

 

[Off-Kilter]

Wait time out.

If Levine wanted to work on something new with a smaller team why didn't he just leave Irrational and form a new studio? Those fine folks at the company have no business losing their jobs after creating some critically and commercially successful titles.

I hope there's more to this story because at first glance it seems unbelievably selfish on Levine's part.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

Unexpected but comprehensible.

The "AAA model" is literally killing the industry with such insane budgets.
The "indy model" that is flourishing on Steam represents the future, and a solid base for a AA or A model industry.


Goodbye Irrational, and thanks for all the fun I had with your games
I hope all your people get employed soon enough.