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  1. #1
    blax n gunz
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    Irrational Games Closes

    http://www.irrationalgames.com/

    A Message From Ken Levine

    When Jon Chey, Rob Fermier and I founded Irrational Games seventeen years ago, our mission was to make visually unique worlds and populate them with singular characters.
    We built Rapture and Columbia, the Von Braun and The Rickenbacker, the Freedom Fortress and some of the nastiest basements a SWAT team ever set foot into. We created Booker and Elizabeth, the Big Daddy and the Little Sister, MidWives and ManBot. In that time, Irrational has grown larger and more successful than we could have conceived when we began our three-person studio in a living room in Cambridge, MA. It’s been the defining project of my professional life.

    Now Irrational Games is about to roll out the last DLC for BioShock Infinite and people are understandably asking: What’s next?

    Seventeen years is a long time to do any job, even the best one. And working with the incredible team at Irrational Games is indeed the best job I’ve ever had. While I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before. 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. In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience.

    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. There’s no great way to lay people off, and our first concern is to make sure that the people who are leaving have as much support as we can give them during this transition.

    Besides financial support, the staff will have access to the studio for a period of time to say their goodbyes and put together their portfolios. Other Take-Two studios will be on hand to discuss opportunities within the company, and we’ll be hosting a recruiting day where we’ll be giving 3rd party studios and publishers a chance to hold interviews with departing Irrational staff.*

    What’s next?

    In time we will announce a new endeavor with a 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.

    When I first contemplated what I wanted to do, it became very clear to me that we were going to need a long period of design. Initially, I thought the only way to build this venture was with a classical startup model, a risk I was prepared to take. But when I talked to Take-Two about the idea, they convinced me that there was no better place to pursue this new chapter than within their walls. After all, they’re the ones who believed in and supported BioShock in the first place.

    Thanks to Irrational and 2K’s passion in developing the games, and the fans who believe in it, BioShock has generated retail revenues of over a half billion dollars and secured an iconic place in gaming. I’m handing the reins of our creation, the BioShock universe, to 2K so our new venture can focus entirely on replayable narrative. If we’re lucky, we’ll build something half as memorable as BioShock.

    We do our best to update an FAQ in this space as questions come in.

    -Ken Levine
    @iglevine

    *If you’re a 3rd party interested in interviewing some of the best game developers in the world, please contact [email protected]
    http://i.minus.com/ibstVGkLZrkSiv.jpg

  2. #2
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    So... after they create a blockbuster franchise, the best thing to do is to lay off most of your team? WAT. W/e, just hope a next gen Bioshock game pops up a few years down the road. Seriously my favorite franchise of this past gen. Kinda worried how 2k will handle the franchise though. Bioshock 2 was "ok" compared to 1 and Infinite, and it was the only non-Irrational game of the series.

  3. #3
    okay guy I guess
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    they died as they lived, irrationally

  4. #4
    blax n gunz
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dominico View Post
    So... after they create a blockbuster franchise, the best thing to do is to lay off most of your team? WAT. W/e, just hope a next gen Bioshock game pops up a few years down the road. Seriously my favorite franchise of this past gen. Kinda worried how 2k will handle the franchise though. Bioshock 2 was "ok" compared to 1 and Infinite, and it was the only non-Irrational game of the series.
    We aren't getting a 'next gen' Bioshock the way you are thinking of a next-gen Bioshock. Irrational is dead because of Infinite's 6 year dev cycle and enormous costs, weighed against what were clearly underwhelming sales. The 'formula' that made the 3 games what they are is untenable on that scale. If Bioshock as a franchise has a future at Take Two, expect the monetization model to change (think EA), or the type of game it is to get heavily modified so it can be made annually at much lower costs (think Ubisoft).

  5. #5
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    Well if I wasn't depressed by reading the first post, I was definitely depressed after reading your second one, Correction.

  6. #6
    THOU THOU THOU THOU THOU THOU THOU THOU
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    Quote Originally Posted by Qalbert View Post
    they died as they lived, irrationally
    fuck

  7. #7
    wotg torrent kitty :3
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    Sounds like Levine wasn't that happy about the development process of B:I either and probably became too big for their own good.

  8. #8
    blax n gunz
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aevis View Post
    Sounds like Take Two wasn't that happy about the development process of B:I either and probably became too big for their own good.
    Fixed that for you. Levine was probably unhappy with Infinite but the decision to spin off with 15 and let everyone else go was Take Two's. The letter was likely part of the deal Levine had to take to keep his job.

  9. #9
    Banned.

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    So I hear Ken Levine is fucking nuts.

  10. #10

    Game devas, so funny. Hopefully next Bioshock has better gameplay, cuz I don't think they're bringing Infinite levels of character and story.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Correction View Post
    Fixed that for you. Levine was probably unhappy with Infinite but the decision to spin off with 15 and let everyone else go was Take Two's. The letter was likely part of the deal Levine had to take to keep his job.
    http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...ty_laundry.php
    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.

  12. #12
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    Capitalism hooooo

  13. #13
    Ridill
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    This thread makes me sad