Ken Levine says BioShock nearly went nowhere and was almost canceled: "We can't make those games because they don't sell"

Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world to Games@lemmy.world – 246 points – Ken Levine says BioShock nearly went nowhere and was almost canceled: "We can't make those games because they don't sell"
gamesradar.com

What's interesting to me is of course how cheaply Bioshock got made compared to today's blockbuster hits. Somewhere, we took the wrong turn in regards to modern game development, truly.

Too many managers to pay and as a result too high personel costs, I would assume. :<

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We overpay executives, who overpay consultants, who tell companies to churn out cash grabs that test well.

This doesn't pain me. I have enough indie games to occupy my time.

The cancellation of Deus Ex Mankind Divided Part 2, pained me quite a lot.

But I'm sure the executives that got a fat bonus were happier than I was upset. (insert meme happiness comic)

I contend that the next great Deus Ex game will not come out of Ubi, and it won't be under the name Deus Ex, but it will be a new kind of immersive sim made with love by developers who grew up on the originals.

I contend this for a lot of the classic franchises tbh

This is what should happen. You like the game, make one that’s inspired by it, grow the concept and give it new life.

No. We get franchises and wallowing in profits of milked IPs

Worse, you've even got some copyrighting gameplay concepts, Shadow of Mordor with their "nemesis system."

Imagine if the concept of the "first person shooter" was locked down by Atari after their employees made Battlezone.

Whoh there mate, you are forgetting shareholders. They are the ones you truly need to please as they are the ones that can actually fire a board.

Skyrim was made with a staff of around 100 people.

Starfield was made with a staff of around 450. It's worse in almost every way.

Too many cooks.

Also too many mouths to feed. When you've got so many people (including admin) to keep paying, then you can't "afford" to make a cute little experiment. You've got to go huge production, latest fads, cutting edge, and super broad appeal.

What kind of identity can a game like that even hope to have?

One that appeals to a mindless horde of idiots that need the newest shiny.

So, a hit...?

No, a game crammed with psychological tricks to keep players addicted while milking them dry through microtransactions.

You're forgetting all the labor by mod authors to fix Skyrim.

/s kinda

We can’t make art because of capitalism. Fucking sad.

They don’t sell because no fucking company wants to market a product that they can’t milk every fucking cent from. They aren’t producing anything of value, only subscriptions, game passes and addictive gambling loot boxes.

Games as a service is a scam. Stop preordering the latest AAA wank and support indie devs.

More standalone experiences that are unique and creative instead of factory produced sludge.

There are still good AAA games. The trick is to wait for reviews with gameplay videos and only buy the good ones.

Yeah, buy them two years later once the bugs have been finally patched and the DRM is ripped out and gameplay doesn’t stutter anymore.

Or just 🏴‍☠️ AAA and give that money to indie devs that are actually trying to produce a unique and creative experience.

Bro, most of the games I've been playing are ports of older titles, Indie Games, or straight up non-profit fan games (Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers is the kart game of the ever btw)

I only buy games which are 5 years or older at this point.

Valid, gotta know which games won't run on FOMO and if it's going to be a case like Overwatch where it starts out as a good game and quickly devolves.

Marketing is a big money drain for a lot of games too. Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V are two games with marketing budgets big enough to finance a dozen other games. I guess a new title like cyberpunk would need more marketing (still not $142 million worth of marketing) but GTA was already a well established franchise that probably didn't need as much marketing as it had.

Even games like call of duty and assassins creed which have a core fan base that can expect a new game on a regular basis don't need to market as much as they do.

I think marketing is always important no matter how established you are. Coca Cola aren’t skimping on their marketing budget even if they’re the most recognizable brand in the world.

It’s about constantly reminding everybody “hey, I exist! Don’t you want to buy me?”.

I was just talking about this the other day. I think Coke and some companies have reached a saturation point that makes advertisements useless.

I dont know if we have any data to model off of, but I'd love to see if their profits dip by any meaningful amount if they stopped advertising for 3 months straight. Let the movie theaters, and the restaurants, and the culturally embedded soft drink preferences do their thing and see if the dial moves.

I don’t think they would keep investing in marketing if they didn’t know if it worked. I’m just guessing, but I believe there’s a noticeable bump in sales after a successful marketing campaign.

And that's what I think they're failing to measure. I think they're unable to accurately divorce the increase in sales from other incentives/market forces, and so they're just doing what they've been doing regardless of actual merit, or the merit is being improperly evaluated

Coke keeps running ads because that's how they keep the brand as a cultural staple. They aren't trying to sell more coke right now, they're making sure that people in 50 years will still be buying it.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be marketing at all. Just that marketing budgets for many AAA blockbusters have become so bloated, they can account for nearly half of the development cost. As someone with very little knowledge as to how games get made, it seems like some of that money could be better used

It must be some mismanagement issue going on in the games industry. Wrong stakeholders who have no idea of game development influencing the wrong decisions.

"We can't make those games because they don't sell"

"We" as in Irrational Games? Or "We" as a industry?

Small 20 ppl studios are cranking out some really cool games that don't need AAA budgets. They will be the ones making the next BioShock.

And AAA budgets could crank out fantastic games if they put all their money into think-tanks full of designers instead of thinking graphics hit as hard as they did 10 years ago.

The companies that made your favorite games aren't privately owned anymore, they're publicly traded now. That's why it all sucks.

Yeah it's amazing what you can accomplish when you're not blowing millions of dollars on the salaries & golden parachutes of completely worthless executives.

Netflix is also working on a live-action film adaptation

This totally won't be a disaster.

I would argue that Bioshock is one of the few video game franchises that would probably do well in a non-interactive story medium. It's a very story driven video game. As long as they trust the writers to respect the source material and come up with a compelling story, I think it could be great. There's always a chance that it's a disaster though.

As long as they trust the writers to respect the source material

Witcher flashbacks...

The book was really good. Unfortunately Infinite made it non Canon

Interesting. How did Infinite do that? Or was it Burial at Sea?

It was specifically Burial at Sea. Some of the gaps it filled in cant coexist with the gaps that the book filled in

Luckily Infinite is the worst game of the series and I have no problem discounting its lore.

People say that, though it's my favorite. And I am not alone.

I feel like the DLCs were much rougher, though.

Tbf we can have both. The book hasnt stopped existing just because Infinite came out

They're going to hyperfocus on the shades and the armblades, and totally miss the whole point of the series, I guarantee it.

There have been quite a few great video game adaptations lately. Last of Us and Fallout come to mind

Neither of which were Netflix series. They just have a way of ruining franchises

Castlevania and Edgerunners were good but I recognize those aren’t live action.

I have so many beautiful memories of playing BioShock. What a game. BioShock 2 was exciting, although not as good as the first one (to me), but very cool that I got to play as a Big Daddy. BioShock Infinite was just great - elements of the base game, but a genuinely fresh story that didn't feel forced (ahem Bioshock 2...).

All that to say that this hurts to read. BioShock meant/means so much to me. I hate the current state of the gaming industry.

Reminder that Arkane was on bad waters before Red Fall, immersive sims just aren't that popular with a lot of people, and these companies want to do AAA with everything.

Nah modern game development is fantastic. Y'all just dont remember getting 2 good titles a year and the rest being garbage. There are more great games out there than ever before.

I actually agree. If you don't just focus on the tippy-top AAA/AAAA live service / gambling simulators / hi-fi vapid adventure, then there are some incredible games coming out all the time.

Arguably, the "triple-I" Indies and AA mid studios have taken over the culture/price-range/innovation niche vacated by the big studios climbing over each other to impress shareholders.

You are totally right. We are living in a golden age of not only video games, but entertainment in general, thanks to ridiculously powerful computers and the internet. People with video game nostalgia remember how those old games made them feel, because the games were new and exciting and they were young. But video games (and board games) have done nothing but improve over the years as developers figure what works and what doesn't.

Nowadays there is just of ton of...everything. We are spoiled for choice. There are so many excellent games at every price point, and also tons of crap, and yes, too much shovelware and too many rehashed franchise games. But here's the thing: these things aren't mutually exclusive. We have all of it, all at once, and reviews and advice are everywhere. If someone is tired of rehashed AAA franchise games, they can spend the rest of their lives playing clever indie games and they'll still barely scratch the surface of what's available.

Name a year that only had two AAA games come out that were any good.

Now, we just have great access to a bunch of lower budget indie games that put gameplay over graphics, so they can take more risks and some of those games are fantastic. But there hasn't been "just two" good games a year in the past 30 years.