Jimquisition: Irrational Decisions (Or Freedom In Chains)

[shtoops]

I'm GLaD that Ken Levine did what he did However, I'm extremely upset he left Bioshock to 2K, because they're going to TOTALLY FUCK IT UP. I can just imagine the Cannon and everything I love about Bioshock and Bioshock: Infinite totally destroyed, because 2K won't be bothered about writing a good game. So I'm a bit sour that Ken Levine didnt take his IP's with him.

On his point about AAA developers who still can put out creative stuff and not get completely caught in beaurocratic none sense, that basically brings to mind Valve, who haven't let there millions of dollars impede their game making process. No, the things stopping Valve are the Team Fortress 2 hats.

 

[Sanunes]

As much as I want to think Levine did something good, I really don't see it. If he wanted to break away to be an "smaller studio" thats fine, but shuttering his studio and leaving a lot of people out of work just seems wrong to me.

As much as I don't see this as a positive move, I'm curious: what is the solution, then? To prop up a bunch of people for....How long?

If they are making games why not keep them open? From my perspective the studio is just being shutdown because Levine wants to do something different, why not just promote people within the company (or hire people) and let them continue to make games. For they already have talent and work together for they have worked on a game already.

 

[Something Amyss]

As much as I want to think Levine did something good, I really don't see it. If he wanted to break away to be an "smaller studio" thats fine, but shuttering his studio and leaving a lot of people out of work just seems wrong to me.

As much as I don't see this as a positive move, I'm curious: what is the solution, then? To prop up a bunch of people for....How long?

If they are making games why not keep them open? From my perspective the studio is just being shutdown because Levine wants to do something different, why not just promote people within the company (or hire people) and let them continue to make games. For they already have talent and work together for they have worked on a game already.

Levine took people with him. He is aiming at a smaller studio. It looks like he took what he needed, so what more was he supposed to do? Take everyone and bloat the system?

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

Honestly? I am lamenting the decline of narrative driven, single player, AAA games. Many of my favorite titles of the past few years have fallen under this banner and the possibility of losing these deeply worries me. Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoy plenty of indie games with smaller budgets and artistic freedom, the likes of Don't Starve, Limbo, To The Moon etc.

However if the day comes when all the AAA scene pumps out are competitive multiplayer games like Titanfall (even though I seriously enjoyed the beta), and we no longer see big budget blockbusters like Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us and Tomb Raider... I will be immensely disappointed.

Also why would studios not want to make games like these? Yea they cost a lot to make, but the good ones sell like hotcakes and receive massive critical acclaim. Again I point to Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us, these were mega popular titles and I can't see why people wouldn't want to make more in the future.

I agree with your lament. Bioshock, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls (epecially Skyrim), Dragon Age: Origins, Assassin's Creed (except maybe the 5th one:#3), Dishonored, Spec Ops: The Line ... there are plenty of big budget AAA titles with a single player focus, compelling story arcs, character driven narrative, etc. And the world would be lesser for their loss

But I think it's far to early to pronounce such games dead.

Studios are dumb. Or, to borrow from K "dumb, panicky animals." And right now, those panicky animals see spunkgargleweewee games, or anything with "zombie" in the name are making an absolute killing. They see Candy Crush (TM don't sue me for saying candy) earning upwards of a million dollars a day on micro-transactions. And big studios think, naturally, that they should be getting a slice of that pie. Plus, if they throw AAA budgets into the mix, they can conquer the whole pie!

It's why some of the first games for XBONE (Ryse, Forza 5) came with micro-transactions... on a $60 game that requires a $500 console purchase. But you and I (being neither dumb nor panicky) know it's untenable, long term. Sure, people might be willing to drop a couple dollars on that free game for their phone, but on games with over $600 worth of investment? Studios will learn too, eventually.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep playing TF2, Loadout, Octodad and KSP... all of which (combined) cost less than half the price of a single DLC car in Forza.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

No. Just no. I absolutely love Dead Space, but I really don't want it to continued. The Awakened DLC ends the series in a very definitive way, and only the largest and lamest of ass-pulls could continue the series. The only thing that could be made are prequels. In the age of rehashes and remakes, I kind of like the fact a series can end. Granted, it was more murder than suicide, but still.

Eh, everyone has their preference. I think there are still new directions it can go, however.

Dear God, I've finally talked with someone about Dead Space...and they're not utterly bitter about it/hate it. I suppose I was a bit too strong in my opinion though. If there's going to be more Dead Space, I'd sort of prefer it if they rebooted the series with a whole new main character in a different timeline/reality because the series from the motion coming to Awakened feels complete to me, and I'd prefer they didn't try to squeeze more into it.

 

[Flunk]

It's nice to see you being mature and respectable for once Jim. Keep up the good work!

P.S. Ken Levine can rot in hell for getting all those people fired. I suspect this is the last we hear of him.

 

[deathmothon]

It's nice to see you being mature and respectable for once Jim. Keep up the good work!

P.S. Ken Levine can rot in hell for getting all those people fired. I suspect this is the last we hear of him.

You don't get jobs for life. For reasons that haven't been clarified yet, Levine left and 2k decided to shut down the studio. People will move on with their lives, just like everyone else who works in any industry will.

 

[Drummodino]

Its like art or craftsmanship, you can't force it. You can't just have cookie cutter effort. Its what the AAA is doing now.

Look at Arcanum, that had a story that blew the biggest hole in the idea of an afterlife and made suicide seem like a good idea. The kind of game that plainly insults your religion at its basic level. That had meaning. Same as planescape and other games.

None of them cost that much. Hell, even the TLOU and Bioshock infinite are shallow compared to what other mature mediums like books can do and even these older games can convey.

Good craftsmanship =/= expensive to make.

AAA merely means a lot of money being spent, and good stories and good art doesn't have to cost that much to make.

Or are you going to ask Picasso how much his "million dollar" paint costs? Because it isn't the paint or money that makes the art.

TLOU and Bioshock are not praised for graphics or even gameplay, they were praised for their story. And other games with even more complicated stories show that a good story doesn't cost a thing.

Its only the graphics and gameplay that costs money, story doesn't. Stanley Parable kinda proved that too.

I agree that you can't force art. However, there are plenty of people out there with ideas that would make for great games and great stories. If these people had a AAA budget, I'm sure we'd see some fantastic games come out of it. Problems occur when AAA titles are not made with that in mind, when publishers and investors demand the inclusion of whatever is popular at the time. See the inclusion of multiplayer in Spec Ops: The Line - a work of art if I ever saw one.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/29/spec-ops-the-line-dev-brands-games-multiplayer-a-waste-of-mon/

I also agree that games can have great, deep and/or meaningful stories without a million dollar budget. Bastion, Limbo, To the Moon, The Walking Dead, Katawa Shoujo - these are all examples of that. What is more difficult however, is creating a game with a good story, impressive graphics and terrific gameplay. It is possible (Portal), but very difficult. Striking aesthetics can mitigate the lack of graphical power, yet that is not an easy feat to accomplish either.

Also I have to disagree that Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us were shallow - that is a subjective opinion. They may have felt that way to you, but for many people (myself included) they had great and interesting stories. Personally, I found The Last of Us's story fantastic, and while it didn't really do anything new, it did everything so damn well, I rank it up there with my favorite stories of all time (not just games).

They also were praised for their graphics and visuals, not just their stories. Both games are beautiful and this was reflected in many reviews:

http://au.ign.com/articles/2013/06/05/the-last-of-us-review
http://au.ign.com/articles/2013/03/22/bioshock-infinite-xbox-360ps3-review

Their gameplay received less universal praise, opinions tend to polarize quite a bit on that. Some people loved them, some people hated them, some people found them only okay. I enjoyed both (although for different reasons respectively).

All in all, I agree you don't need massive budgets to make great games, and many AAA are indeed crap. Publishers and investors can ruin games with their demands, and sometimes things just don't work out. In contrast, many smaller titles can be stellar, even when they're made on a shoestring budget. However, I definitely don't want to see AAA single player titles disappear, that would sadden me greatly. I love titles like TLoU, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider etc, etc, and I hope that we continue to see similar quality of them in the future.

 

[daxterx2005]

Look at all those emotions! I'm blown away.

 

[weirdee]

I can kind of get where you were going with that joke, but I can't even believe that you passed up that opportunity to mention David Cage was getting a freaking medal from France for whatever the hell he's doing.

 

[maximara]

Well, you can blame AAA publishing as much as you like for wanting to make money, but all in all, it is us, as a gaming community that continues to support them by purchasing clone after clone after clone. Unfortunately, game theory teaches us that we will never make the choice that would benefit everyone, instead choosing the selfish choice that actually hurts us.

There is that mentality of going off chasing what you *think* sales which is how you get MP shoved into a game where it makes little to no sense.

IMHO, it is chasing after the next big thing some one thinks will sale that is more responsible for the clone-o-rama then what actually sales; one only has to look at the MMO market and marvel at all the Warcraft-want-a-bes that have gone F2P to see an example of that.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Honestly? I am lamenting the decline of narrative driven, single player, AAA games. Many of my favorite titles of the past few years have fallen under this banner and the possibility of losing these deeply worries me. Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoy plenty of indie games with smaller budgets and artistic freedom, the likes of Don't Starve, Limbo, To The Moon etc.

However if the day comes when all the AAA scene pumps out are competitive multiplayer games like Titanfall (even though I seriously enjoyed the beta), and we no longer see big budget blockbusters like Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us and Tomb Raider... I will be immensely disappointed.

Also why would studios not want to make games like these? Yea they cost a lot to make, but the good ones sell like hotcakes and receive massive critical acclaim. Again I point to Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us, these were mega popular titles and I can't see why people wouldn't want to make more in the future.

Now there we disagree... to me, "Bioshock Infinite", "The Last of Us" and "Tomb Raider" are symptoms of exactly what's WRONG with the industry. I mean, I can ignore "Call of Duty" if I don't want it - and I don't. But when my favorite developer makes a game like "Bioshock Infinite" then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong.

These are games that I felt treated me like a child. Scripted event after scripted event after scripted event. No exploration possible, every experience you will have will be pretty much the same, and they cost as much as a game like "Fallout: New Vegas" or "Skyrim". Which, whatever their faults, are games that you can pretty much do whatever you want with.

Now I'm not saying that every game needs to be open-world, or that following a specific storyline is "bad". "Bastion" absolutely nailed how to do a narrative-driven story but give the player control over the pacing of it, have the narrator refer directly to the player's actions, and give the player enough choices that the player has freedom of HOW to play the game - all of which mean it has a lot of replayability. "Tomb Raider" and "Infinite" and "The Last of Us" DIDN'T DO THIS.

They put you in charge of unlikeable characters following scripted events that you couldn't alter. Your decisions are meaningless in those games. It's like they're saying to you: "We have a vast well-designed world, but we're not going to allow you to alter it in any way! It's ours! All we're going to allow you to do is fight stuff! And stuff that has no bearing whatsoever on the plot of the game!"

No. No. No.

We need less of this crap, not more. And we need reviewers to be honest about what's going on with these games, because honestly the love-in for "Bioshock Infinite" - with all apologies to Jim here - made me feel a little ill. Not that it's a BAD game, but it sure as hell ain't a great one and it's Ken Levine's weakest (I will once again reiterate, as if I haven't done so enough already, that Levine made my all-time favorite game). THAT'S why I'm excited to see Levine set sail for pastures new, so to speak.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

If all of the creative blood keeps disappearing from the aaa market then it?s going to crash, nothing can survive without innovation and evolution.

Or new blood comes in to replace it. If the old guard leave, I suspect there are plenty of new designers who'd be quite happy to take their place. The best-case scenario is that the publishers realise that working under "marketing constraints" might be unfeasible and give the new bunch a bit more freedom and creative control. Leave the marketers out of the creative process, and let 'em do what they're good at instead: working out how to publicise a game when they have more of an idea of what the developer's vision is and who it should be sold to.

The abolition of some "big-name" game designers doesn't mean that the AAA games industry is heading for meltdown. Hell, I think it would probably be a bad thing if it did. D'you think I want to miss out on the next big single-player "Fallout" or "Elder Scrolls" game just because somebody dropped the ball with "Call of Duty"? To get games like "Skyrim" made, you NEED the big investors, you NEED the money and the voice actors and the rest.

Problem is that "new blood" is only making mobile games. The crash is coming, and thank god when it does.

That's a bit of a generalisation! I doubt that ALL of the new developers want to only create content for mobile for the rest of their lives. Some might be satisfied with that, but others won't.

My point is, there's a trade-off involved with AAA development. As Jim correctly points out, it's a particularly bad trade-off now, driving some of the talent out of that part of the industry. That doesn't mean that it'll stay that way.

If the AAA industry practices don't change at all then I'd agree with you - AAA is doomed. The question is whether or not it has the flexibility to do that. This is an open question, I feel. They've certainly displayed a lot of flexibility in SOME ways (as the recent "Dungeon Keeper Mobile", published by EA, proves), but probably not the ways that'll do them any good in the long-term!

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

So, back on topic, the industry NEEDS to crash. It'll clear out these dude-bro Halo/CoD casual gamers that've been hanging around like a wet fart, dismantle the big, billion dollar method in place now, and leave the more indie studios, the ones more interested in making games than making billions. (I'm not saying designers SHOULDN'T be interested in making money, but not to the point of killing their games over it (*COUGHFFXIIICOUGH*)) I, for one, welcome the inevitable flaming doom of the industry. I'll bring the marshmallows.

Nah. Don't agree with this.

I have no problems with the CoDs and Battlefields, even though I'm not into them myself. If people enjoy them and want to keep playing them, what's the harm? Where I agree with you is that their success shouldn't stop other interesting projects from being made and sold by the AAA games industry.

But do they? Maybe to an extent, but the last time I checked, there was plenty of competition to the likes of "Call of Duty" that I could choose instead if I wanted an interesting gaming experience.

I agree, there is no problem with the CoD's and Battlefields, if the industry existed in a vacuum.
It's the games themselves I have an issue with, it's the fact that "These are lower cost to make games, that pull in a wide market." The industry sees that, and floods the market with online FPS games, focusing far to much on that, leaving those of us who don't like online FPS', or even just don't like unimaginative FPS's to sit on the wayside with our thumbs up our ass.

Again, no problem with the games themselves. I don't even dislike CoD (I've played a free weekend or two, it's...adequate, Not good, not bad.) But the fact is that the market sees this success and wants to copy it, instead of taking the risk of going into a market that hasn't been tapped since the late ninties/early aughts, due to the big budget nature of the industry now-a-days.

The problem with the industry isn't the "flooding of the market" with multiplayer games. It's that the so-called "risky" games have become more and more simplistic. See my writing a couple of posts ago about "Bioshock Infinite", "Tomb Raider" and "The Last of Us".

I mean, everybody sees the problems with CoD. But a lot of people don't seem to understand what's happening with the other titles, and why the trend that they display is a very very bad thing indeed.

 

[Drummodino]

Now there we disagree... to me, "Bioshock Infinite", "The Last of Us" and "Tomb Raider" are symptoms of exactly what's WRONG with the industry. I mean, I can ignore "Call of Duty" if I don't want it - and I don't. But when my favorite developer makes a game like "Bioshock Infinite" then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong.

These are games that I felt treated me like a child. Scripted event after scripted event after scripted event. No exploration possible, every experience you will have will be pretty much the same, and they cost as much as a game like "Fallout: New Vegas" or "Skyrim". Which, whatever their faults, are games that you can pretty much do whatever you want with.

Now I'm not saying that every game needs to be open-world, or that following a specific storyline is "bad". "Bastion" absolutely nailed how to do a narrative-driven story but give the player control over the pacing of it, have the narrator refer directly to the player's actions, and give the player enough choices that the player has freedom of HOW to play the game - all of which mean it has a lot of replayability. "Tomb Raider" and "Infinite" and "The Last of Us" DIDN'T DO THIS.

They put you in charge of unlikeable characters following scripted events that you couldn't alter. Your decisions are meaningless in those games. It's like they're saying to you: "We have a vast well-designed world, but we're not going to allow you to alter it in any way! It's ours! All we're going to allow you to do is fight stuff! And stuff that has no bearing whatsoever on the plot of the game!"

No. No. No.

We need less of this crap, not more. And we need reviewers to be honest about what's going on with these games, because honestly the love-in for "Bioshock Infinite" - with all apologies to Jim here - made me feel a little ill. Not that it's a BAD game, but it sure as hell ain't a great one and it's Ken Levine's weakest (I will once again reiterate, as if I haven't done so enough already, that Levine made my all-time favorite game). THAT'S why I'm excited to see Levine set sail for pastures new, so to speak.

Um... I hate to break it to you buddy, but there is nothing wrong with a linear game. There's nothing wrong with scripted events. There is nothing wrong with a game that sets out to tell a story that you have no say over. Not every game needs player choices, not every game is about YOU as the player. Skryim, Fallout etc... they are about YOU. YOU are the protagonist and that is great, I love some of those games. But I also love some linear games that are not YOUR story, they are the character's story. The Last of Us is Joel and Ellie's story, Bioshock Infinite is Booker and Elizabeth's story. Tomb Raider is Lara's story. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

If those are not the kind of games you enjoy, that is perfectly fine. They just don't suit your tastes. But just because you don't like that style, it doesn't make it something "WRONG" with the industry. They're just a different style of game which many people enjoy. If you don't like them, don't buy them. But don't begrudge other people for liking them just because you happen not to. Video games are subjective, I for one think Bioshock Infinite is a great game. You don't. Neither of us are wrong, it's just our personal experiences and enjoyment were different.

 

[hermes]

Sorry, but no.

I agree with your assessment of the AAA industry, but while I think Levine has every right to leave in search of greener pastures, I think you and many people are missing the point of his actions and forgetting the other side; the real victims of personalities closing mega-studios in search to narrow their reach are not the gamers that want more high budget RPG and less modern shooters, its the hundreds of talented people that busted their asses to give us one of the best games of last year, and collaborated a whole lot to its success, even when not in the spotlight, finding themselves without a job one day because their master and commander decided to jump ship and left them with nothing but an empty office and a few lines in a resume.

I don't see how arguing that one side of the coin is a good thing means that Jim or others are missing the fact that a lot of people lost their jobs. Thing is, the video isn't really about Ken Levine. It's about him and other big names moving to smaller studios so they can be more creative.

It is a shame that he didn't mention this because, let's face it, Levine did this in the dumbest and most insensitive way possible. But it's also not really relevant to the points Jim is making. And is it even a point that needs making? Are there really a ton of people out there that don't realize that when you cut a major studio down to 10-15 people it means everyone else lost their job? I'd think that's pretty obvious.

I don't really share that perspective. The video is in great part about Levine, and his actions and consequences in the industry. During a big part of the video Jim defends the guy that left, and stands to justify his actions and (presumed) reasoning for leaving. At the very least, Levine is the trigger for the subject and the most prominent example used. Jim only goes to name further examples later on as if they were analogous.

And my point is, that they aren't. There is a world of difference between them... I understand the reasoning and even celebrate the cases of Bleszynski, Carmack and Jaffe, that left their (relatively secure) jobs in search of new, more personal challenges, while they were not in a crunch, and the world just kept spinning. However, the way Levine and 2K handled the situation was insensitive, impersonal, selfish and destructive; and while I can think of more political ways for 2K to handle it, can't fairly put those labels in a faceless corporation (because 2K is a corporation, so it is faceless, impersonal and selfish by nature) that probably reasoned that without Levine there was no point keeping the studio open instead of putting it under new management, rename it or even merge it with other studios, I sure can put those adjectives on a person that took the decision of closing it without considering or informing the people that implicitly trusted him with their future and where left behind.

It is cool when Carmack decides to resign Id in order to help a few garage geeks with a low level project. It is cool when Jaffe leaves a secure job to create small downloadable games on his own. I can applaud that. I can not put on the same level the decision of Levine to leave hundreds of dedicated and talented people on the street without much further notice (right after finishing the final DLC for BI, I might add) because he wanted to pursue a different venue. On a personal level I can understand his motivation, but I still think the way he handled it makes a world of difference. In most cases where someone prominent leaves a job and takes some people with him, they don't close the building, they put it under new management, they may change the name or split the workforce among other studios, and they definitely notify the employees. I can't know all the particulars, but I am fairly sure the decision of Levine was not impulsive, so the consequences were a shared responsibility between him and 2K.

So I can't really celebrate the indie scene for "scoring one more for our side" just yet. And while I am curious to see what games come out of this situation by the hundreds of people that were forced into it and the handful that weren't, if that was the point Jim was trying to make, he made a disservice of it by going with that example.

 

[hexFrank202]

I stopped caring about AAA games way back in 2011! It was when I played Modnation racers and was so bored I could barely think straight all week.