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Irrational Shuts Down


Lavindathar
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I'll be sure to check that video out over the weekend when I get some free time, finally. Definitely loved the game and I'm always interested in the creative process that goes into making good narrative-driven pieces (or really any game) like The Last of Us. Thanks for the link :)

 

I would recommend signing into your Amazon account and "buying it" now, I'm not sure how long it will stay free. Then you can watch it whenever you want to.

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I mean, I hated it. But I might not be a very good journalist. The news that Irrational would effectively close, laying off its staff, leaving Levine to start a new endeavor with just 15 former Irrational members and a flat hierarchy, came as a surprise to me -- and that's even though someone told me it could happen, a year ago.

 

...

 

No one talks to the games press officially. I wish they did, but I get it. They want to keep their jobs. Let's just say multiple people within a studio were willing to risk their careers to confirm to me that yes, in fact, if their game didn't sell extremely well, like exponentially more than its predecessor or "well" according to a matrix of time and cost investment and desired profit, that their studio would be closed in a year.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/211139/Irrational_Games_journalism_and_airing_dirty_laundry.php

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This is the unfortunate side effect of mixing business and art. It's pretty discouraging for people who want to make it their career, not to mention scary.

 

It's sounds like Levine might be a bit of a dick, which is fine, it can happen when people are under pressure and their grand vision is at stake. Part of that though could be the bureaucracy of it all as explained in the article, of which the context was a bit confusing at first, haha. True or not, speculation or otherwise, you don't need to be a fly on the wall in the Irrational Games office to infer some of these problems, I'm sure most studios deal with it on a daily basis.

 

I thought this bit was interesting, and pretty much sums up what I was describing about making these massive budget games and probably why Levine is interested in scaling back. It's probably what needs to be done to avoid future situations like this.

 

Someone Who Works In The Industry told me that thanks to Ken Levine's breadth of endless ideas and philosophy of fearlessness and un-planning, Infinite grew far, far over its budget and far, far beyond its scope.

Edited by WalterWhite
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It's sounds like Levine might be a bit of a dick, which is fine, it happens when people are under pressue. Part of that though could be the bureaucracy of it all as explained in the article, of which the context was a bit confusing at first, haha. True or not, speculation or otherwise, you don't need to be a fly on the wall in the Irrational Games office to infer some of these problems, I'm sure most studios deal with it on a daily basis.

 

Rod Fergusson's account of what happened would be amazing to hear.

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This is the unfortunate side effect of mixing business and art. It's pretty discouraging for people who want to make it their career, not to mention scary.

 

It's sounds like Levine might be a bit of a dick, which is fine, it can happen when people are under pressure and their grand vision is at stake. Part of that though could be the bureaucracy of it all as explained in the article, of which the context was a bit confusing at first, haha. True or not, speculation or otherwise, you don't need to be a fly on the wall in the Irrational Games office to infer some of these problems, I'm sure most studios deal with it on a daily basis.

 

I thought this bit was interesting, and pretty much sums up what I was describing about making these massive budget games and probably why Levine is interested in scaling back. It's probably what needs to be done to avoid future situations like this.

 

Someone Who Works In The Industry told me that thanks to Ken Levine's breadth of endless ideas and philosophy of fearlessness and un-planning, Infinite grew far, far over its budget and far, far beyond its scope.

 

I at least try to wait for all the facts which is why I kinda defended Aliens: Colonial Marines. As a major Aliens fan, I WANTED to love that game so much and the initial trailers screamed glorification. After all the smoke cleared about what happened, I find out Randy Pitchford is a massive shithead for not only hiring a sub-developer so he could continue work on(and push funds from ACM to) Borderlands 2 just as well, outsources the DLC dev on the latter.

I loved BL2 but even I could tell the DLC wasn't as catchy. I never even bothered getting to Tiny Tina's DLC.

Point is, I can understand certain constraints when it comes to developing with time and deadlines. You can't expect to know every little detail without being there and not knowing who dropped what ball.

I wasn't even knocking the studio but you don't have to make The Greatest Game Ever Made. Maybe some of his ideas should've been held back for future products if any. To me, for the first half of the 360 gen, Bioshock WAS the Greatest and I'm not a FPS fan in general. But it captivated me and made me want to play more. I probably would've enjoyed 2 had Irrational headlined it.

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How come everyone thinks Bio 2's multiplayer was sooo bad? Sure, it probably shouldn't have been there in the first place, but for what it was. I found it to be a nice distraction from the campaign. Was it because of the multiplayer achievements maybe? Apart from some occasional host-applied lag, I always had fun with it and couldn't really fault it. Still play it from time to time when someone brings it up in party chat.

 

I'm one of the few that actually defends BioShock 2's Multiplayer. Not that I think it's a great MP experience because it isn't, there are numerous issues that I don't need to go into here. But I do appreciate the fact that they didn't just tack it on to the game.

 

They made the MP canonical by having it be the war between the Splicers that destroyed Rapture in the first place. I thought that was a stroke of genius, honestly.

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I'm one of the few that actually defends BioShock 2's Multiplayer. Not that I think it's a great MP experience because it isn't, there are numerous issues that I don't need to go into here. But I do appreciate the fact that they didn't just tack it on to the game.

 

They made the MP canonical by having it be the war between the Splicers that destroyed Rapture in the first place. I thought that was a stroke of genius, honestly.

 

Agreed. I think a lot of the hate for Bioshock 2's multiplayer comes from the fact that there were achievements involved. That always pisses people off and you hear about it the most on sites like this that are dedicated to the hunt, elsewhere, not as much. Take for example something like Dead Space 2. That had multiplayer and people thought it was tacked on but there was very little moaning because there wasn't any reason to play it unless you wanted to because there were no achievements attached. That's why multiplayer achievements are bad, it gets people that don't actually want to play showing up to boost and mixes them in with people who play to enjoy it and fucks up the community. That was far from the worst multiplayer game I've ever played.

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Agreed. I think a lot of the hate for Bioshock 2's multiplayer comes from the fact that there were achievements involved. That always pisses people off and you hear about it the most on sites like this that are dedicated to the hunt, elsewhere, not as much. Take for example something like Dead Space 2. That had multiplayer and people thought it was tacked on but there was very little moaning because there wasn't any reason to play it unless you wanted to because there were no achievements attached. That's why multiplayer achievements are bad, it gets people that don't actually want to play showing up to boost and mixes them in with people who play to enjoy it and fucks up the community. That was far from the worst multiplayer game I've ever played.

 

Walter, do you ever stop making great points? :p

 

Most of the complaints about the multiplayer I heard from this very site and agree, it's the achievements that cause so many people grief. I had 2 friends that owned it and said way back "let's try it". None of us cared enough about the achievements and we had a blast. Still go back to it from time to time. Dead Space 2's multiplayer is a good example. No achievements, so anyone who didn't like it just turned it off and that was that. Never to be thought about again.

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Agreed. I think a lot of the hate for Bioshock 2's multiplayer comes from the fact that there were achievements involved. That always pisses people off and you hear about it the most on sites like this that are dedicated to the hunt, elsewhere, not as much. Take for example something like Dead Space 2. That had multiplayer and people thought it was tacked on but there was very little moaning because there wasn't any reason to play it unless you wanted to because there were no achievements attached. That's why multiplayer achievements are bad, it gets people that don't actually want to play showing up to boost and mixes them in with people who play to enjoy it and fucks up the community. That was far from the worst multiplayer game I've ever played.

 

While I realize that people tend to bitch about online achievements in general, BioShock 2's MP had some that deserved the bitching.

 

Case in point: Territorial.

 

This tasks the player with winning a public match on each of the 6 new maps that came with the Rapture Metro DLC. Problem is, that even if everyone in the lobby has the DLC, as soon as a single person enters who doesn't, the levels will never come up. And to compound that, even if everyone in the session does have the DLC, the maps come up randomly, mixed in with the standard maps. So it takes forever to even get one to appear - and then you have to win on it.

 

Fuck this achievement. Seriously.

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Agreed. I think a lot of the hate for Bioshock 2's multiplayer comes from the fact that there were achievements involved. That always pisses people off and you hear about it the most on sites like this that are dedicated to the hunt, elsewhere, not as much. Take for example something like Dead Space 2. That had multiplayer and people thought it was tacked on but there was very little moaning because there wasn't any reason to play it unless you wanted to because there were no achievements attached. That's why multiplayer achievements are bad, it gets people that don't actually want to play showing up to boost and mixes them in with people who play to enjoy it and fucks up the community. That was far from the worst multiplayer game I've ever played.

 

I would've brought up DS2 but it seems making a comparison = off topic to the sensitive types ;) With that, I enjoy an innovative MP that gives each side a unique sense of gameplay. While the Necro's were clunky as hell and seemingly weak, a lot of their strategies were great ideas. I enjoyed it but it did have that "tacked on" feeling. Also, the shining star for DS2 was the SP opening up a bit more than DS1. Bioshock 2 tried to push for it's MP more while the SP honestly did remain "more of the same".

While I thought BS's MP was bad, I also never said it was the worst. It's presentation was fine, it's execution was not. Online achievements weren't the bother for me. It was the splicers. One of the modes I enjoyed was where one person eventually becomes the Big Daddy. But again, it wasn't good enough that I would be willing to go back to it for any reason. It just wasn't innovative enough.

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Wow.

 

Not surprised, and I find that quite…I don't know the word, annoying? Eh.

 

I don't know, I already commented earlier in the thread that I thought Bioshock 2 came out quite well for being outsourced and I think 2K does a great job with games in general. I guess I like knowing that some passion went in to a game that I like rather than churning out sequels to cash in on a name. Until they announce something and I can form an opinion, I'll remain skeptical. I also felt like Infinite wrapped it up enough for a very long time, if not entirely. I get it, it's an infinite universe and the series could go anywhere. Doesn't mean it should.

Edited by WalterWhite
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I don't know, I already commented earlier in the thread that I thought Bioshock 2 came out quite well for being outsourced and I think 2K does a great job with games in general. I guess I like knowing that some passion went in to a game that I like rather than churning out sequels to cash in on a name. Until they announce something and I can form an opinion, I'll remain skeptical. I also felt like Infinite wrapped it up enough for a very long time, if not entirely. I get it, it's an infinite universe and the series could go anywhere. Doesn't mean it should.

 

Eh, I personally skipped over BioShock 2 for the fact that is was outsourced, resorted to watching a walkthrough online and didn't think too much of it :/

 

But I'm of the same mindset as you, just because the series can be expanded on, doesn't mean it should.

 

Bummer. Was hoping for HD remake for the X1.

 

The game was already in HD, lol.

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Eh, I personally skipped over BioShock 2 for the fact that is was outsourced, resorted to watching a walkthrough online and didn't think too much of it :/

 

But I'm of the same mindset as you, just because the series can be expanded on, doesn't mean it should.

 

 

The game was already in HD, lol.

 

While I know I'd play another Bioshock game, it wouldn't hurt to leave it at Infinite. At least for a while..

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@Flibbity floid.

 

Gears of war wasn't the only series Epic made. It's predecessor Unreal tournament pushed xbox live further then ever at the time. I hope Ken follows the motto If you love something when the time comes set it free. In the same way the main epic masterminds said good bye to unreal tournament then gears of war to go and make a new ip. I hope ken finds something new he can create with joy.

 

From what I read ken doesn't seem like a dick. He said the reason mp wasn't in Bioshock or infinite was because people would play it for a week then go back to battlefield, Cod, and Halo. That took honesty an balls to say that

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I wonder if Microsoft will make an approach to buy the studio, then decide not to and in a few years end up regretting it? They've done it a few times in the last couple of years, so it wouldn't surprise me.

 

You know, I was thinking earlier about them buying companies. You know what would have been a good one for Microsoft to acquire? Telltale Games. Their games are hugely popular right now and the style of games that they make could actually utilize Kinect for something that doesn't suck. It'd be great to play The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us just using voice commands.

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You know, I was thinking earlier about them buying companies. You know what would have been a good one for Microsoft to acquire? Telltale Games. Their games are hugely popular right now and the style of games that they make could actually utilize Kinect for something that doesn't suck. It'd be great to play The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us just using voice commands.

 

That's a great idea. But Microsoft is still taking shit for Fighter Within, and the reason that failed so hard is because MS said themselves that the Kinect was now twice as powerful and all that shit, but it still sucked. The Kinect works with the console, but not with the games.

 

Honestly, the fact that we automatically expect Kinect games to suck is the nail in Kinect games' coffins.

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