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[Bartski]

A look inside BioShock Infinite’s troubled development

A new book excerpt investigates what went on behind the scenes of Irrational’s sequel

www.polygon.com

In March 2012 [Infinite was released March 26, 2013], Irrational brought in Don Roy, a veteran game producer, who had some experience closing out games at big publishers like Sony and Microsoft. He was shocked to see just how bad things were. “I get there and there was essentially no game,” Roy said. “A tremendous amount of work had been done. It just hadn’t been stood up as a game in any particular form. To the point where the first thing I did was go, ‘Can I play a build of the game?’ The answer was no. They said, ‘You can play these pieces of things, but there’s not an actual functioning game.’”

What baffled Roy most, he said, was the disorganization. Irrational’s bloat — from a few dozen people in 2008 to nearly two hundred by the end of 2012, plus support studios and outsourcing houses — had led to all sorts of deficiencies in their production pipelines. It was chaos. “We were outsourcing a lot of stuff and it was never making it in the game because the process wasn’t established,” Roy said. “People were asking for things, and they’d eventually get made, but then they moved on, so then the [art] came back and they said, ‘No, I don’t actually need that anymore.’” One of Roy’s tasks was to create a workflow to prevent the company from wasting all that time and money.

 

[Cravis]

 

[Topfuel]

Crunch Jason again,

 

[Upper_Management]

Has he written a single positive piece on the industry? (I realize that wouldn't generate clicks or controversy)

 

[Naked Lunch]

Is there any game that didnt have a troubled development according to this dude?

 

[nightmare-slain]

fuck off jason.

 

[DustQueen]

I remember that time....
I was waiting for the new Bioshock when my grandpa called.
He was working insane hours building Zeppelin replicas to be scanned for the Bioshock infinite when Ken Levine came to the factory n personally raped him.
I liked the game... But is it worth such a troubled development?
Thank you Jason for giving my grandpa hope.

 

[Ogbert]

Stop posting stuff written by this absolutely colossal, throbbing helmet.

 

[Tripolygon]

Excellent read as always. I love investigative journalism.

By 2010, THQ was in trouble. The U.S. economic recession had hit the publisher hard, and it was cutting costs across all of its studios, including Kaos. When a recruiter from Irrational reached out to Dowling and asked if he might be interested in helping make a new BioShock, he didn’t have to give it much thought. There was a phone screener, followed by a design test, then more calls and a day full of interviews at Irrational’s Quincy office, where staff grilled him about his work and career. “I guess I have a stupid amount of confidence so it wasn’t that intimidating for me, even though it should have been,” Dowling said. “I felt like I nailed the design test and felt really good about the work I did, so I felt that put me on good footing with them.”

Before Dowling had even gotten in the car to drive home, lead designer Bill Gardner pulled him aside and told him he’d be getting an offer, which he accepted. Dowling felt awful about quitting Kaos during the final year of Homefront — “It’s not cool to leave a project before it’s done, particularly when people are going into crunch mode on it,” he said — but he knew he had to get out of there. His gut told him something was wrong at Kaos, and that THQ wasn’t going to last much longer. “BioShock was such a humongous game in my mind,” Dowling said. “I loved it so much and I thought it was one of the smartest games of the generation. ... I wasn’t going to say no to that so I could stay on a project on a team where I didn’t think there was a future.” Dowling’s instincts would turn out to be correct. THQ shut down Kaos a year later and eventually went bankrupt.

 

[FranXico]

Talk about necrobump, Jason.

 

[drganon]

Jason schrier can go eat a bag of dicks.

 

[wipeout364]

This was reported years ago, I don't remember if it was Jason that reported it. It actually helps explain why Irrational was shut down, I always thought that 2K closing down the studio was horrible but after reading the report of the mess that was their development process it made sense. Bioshock infinite was arguably a worse game than Bioshock 2, it definitely had worse gameplay. The powerful narrative that people were expecting didn't really come together at the end, although it was certainly a step above what most games try to deliver. I am glad this was reported because Irrational was one of my favorite studios at the time and it gave some closure to them shutting down. I always hoped Ken Levine could get his mojo back but it looks like Bioshock and running a big studio ruined him.

 

[NullZ3r0]

Excellent read as always. I love investigative journalism.

You spelled "activist" wrong. There are very few investigative journalists left. Everyone else are activists with pens instead of bricks and molotov cocktails.

 

[Tripolygon]

You spelled "activist" wrong. There are very few investigative journalists left. Everyone else are activists with pens instead of bricks and molotov cocktails.

Investigative journalism and activism are not mutually exclusive. The point of investigative journalism is to uncover things being hidden. Crunch being one of the open secretes people don't like to talk about openly. Jason Schreier has focused on uncovering the working conditions game developers endure to create some of the critically acclaimed blockbuster games we enjoy.

 

[Dane]

Jason isn't wrong on this one, Bioshock Infinite was reported to be a mess and the game was rebooted like 3 times.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Jason isn't wrong on this one, Bioshock Infinite was reported to be a mess and the game was rebooted like 3 times.

Yeah, well, you do not really have to be genius to figure out that the game went off rails at some point when you look at the first showings and then compare it with the final product.

 

[Spukc]

Y'all should read his book i heard it's great!

 

[Abriael_GN]

Oh boy.

This is a literal advertisement poorly disguised as an article.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Just curious, has Jason S ever wrote a big piece about something positive in gaming?

Or is every article about interviewing 6 people he could get hold of, and all of them somehow say the company or game they work at is crap?

 

[Abriael_GN]

Just curious, has Jason S ever wrote a big piece about something positive in gaming?

Can't say I remember a single positive article in many, many years.

Once upon a time, many years ago, he had some decent passion for JRPGs, but there's nothing left of that, pretty much since he started doing stuff like publicly insulting the creator of Dragon's Crown.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Woke journalists have turned on Ken Levine, in part, because of this Tweet...



I'm not sure if he's classified as alt right or a Nazi at the moment.

Hopefully we see his next game soon. Sounds ambitious AF.

 

[Astral Dog]

Bioshock is old news

Honestly if things were THAT bad at least the game itself turned out fine.

 

[balls of snow]

Holy 2013 batman.

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

Ya'll really love this dude huh

 

[Retinoid]

Just curious, has Jason S ever wrote a big piece about something positive in gaming?

Or is every article about interviewing 6 people he could get hold of, and all of them somehow say the company or game they work at is crap?

Negative news always garners more attention than positive news. He has created an entire career for himself by scraping up random ex-employees from company X for the sole purpose of stirring the pot and generating outrage among the social media drones. Those are the only type of people who give him any attention at all.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Has he written a single positive piece on the industry?

Just curious, has Jason S ever wrote a big piece about something positive in gaming?

No. At least nothing that gets posted here.

But that's the thing -- the existence of this thread alone is proof that his approach works. Because people click on it.

 

[THEAP99]

Excellent read as always. I love investigative journalism.

Idk why people are getting so mad at this. I think the behind the scenes drama is interesting.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

David Jaffe is better at Games Journalism than Jason Shreier and Jaffe isn't a Games Journalist.

Shreiers formula is so stale.

 

[TexMex]

Cutting edge stuff.

 

[Tripolygon]

Idk why people are getting so mad at this. I think the behind the scenes drama is interesting.

Me too, i enjoy reading a lot of his writings because he goes behind the scene. I think some people hate the him personally so anything he writes is attacked.

 

[Maxwell Jacob Friedman]

I mean.....how they showed the game originally never panned out to what it was, I would have preferred to have the original concept of the game.

 

[Larlight]

Yawwwwnnnnn, shut up dweeb

 

[TVexperto]

Crunch Jason again,

love how schrier (a guy that probably writes one article every other week and therefore barely works more than 2 hours) talks about crunch and how bad it is while he never even experienced hard work in his life

 

[Abriael_GN]

Me too, i enjoy reading a lot of his writings because he goes behind the scene. I think some people hate the him personally so anything he writes is attacked.

Nah. What he's like personally is irrelevant. The problem is in his methods. IE: throw around x anonymous sources (which he has no responsibility to support in any shape or form, so he can say basically whatever he wants) cherry-picked to all agree with a predefined narrative manufactured to support the point convenient to the author's views. It's not called "investigative journalism." It's called "Propaganda."

 

[SF Kosmo]

People get big mad at Jason for being one of the only gaming journalists that actually backdoors PR channels to do original research instead of just printing marketing fluff as fact.

 

[AJUMP23]

All that effort and I didn't even finish the game.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

David Jaffe is better at Games Journalism than Jason Shreier and Jaffe isn't a Games Journalist.

Shreiers formula is so stale.

I ended up watching some of that Jaffe + Days Gone guy interview. Not all of it as it went on forever. But from what I saw, I think Jaffe got more good info about game making than Schreier has in many dirt digging articles.

 

[Spukc]

Woke journalists have turned on Ken Levine, in part, because of this Tweet...



I'm not sure if he's classified as alt right or a Nazi at the moment.

Hopefully we see his next game soon. Sounds ambitious AF.

jesus that tweet he might as well be adolf hitlers great grand son

BANNED4LIFE

 

[NickFire]

The anti-crunch dude has a book out about what went wrong in 2012-2013?????



I don't know if there's more context to it or not. Doesn't matter, will always be hilarious.

 

[SafeOrAlone]

People get mad a Jason because he is pompous and annoying. It's his personality. That's mostly it.
Same with most people who get "cancelled". They always have a stinky personality first and foremost.

 

[SF Kosmo]

love how schrier (a guy that probably writes one article every other week and therefore barely works more than 2 hours) talks about crunch and how bad it is while he never even experienced hard work in his life

You really think an article like this takes 2 hours? I don't think you understand how research works.

 

[Abriael_GN]

People get big mad at Jason for being one of the only gaming journalists that actually backdoors PR channels to do original research instead of just printing marketing fluff as fact.

Anyone can do that when you don't need to present any evidence of your claims. Most simply don't believe it's right to do so.

 

[Tripolygon]

Nah. What he's like personally is irrelevant. The problem is in his methods. IE: throw around x anonymous sources (which he has no responsibility to support in any shape or form, so he can say basically whatever he wants) cherry-picked to all agree with a predefined narrative manufactured to support the point convenient to the author's views. It's not called "investigative journalism." It's called "Propaganda."

Disagree with all of that.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The anti-crunch dude has a book out about what went wrong in 2012-2013?????



I don't know if there's more context to it or not. Doesn't matter, will always be hilarious.

Anyone who works in finance knows the department works extra time to close off months, quarter and years.

One year, our department couldn't even go to an offsite corporate getaway because we had to sit there for days ensuring the financials are good.

We got a pizza lunch instead

I wonder if that's worth putting in his book.

 

[clarky]

What a massive bell slap.

 

[Abriael_GN]

Disagree with all of that.

You can disagree with it all you want. Everyone is entitled to be wrong. Of course, you haven't presented a single argument to counter it, which tells me you're simply simping.

 

[jakinov]

Has he written a single positive piece on the industry? (I realize that wouldn't generate clicks or controversy)

If there was something positive people would openly brag about it. But if he had sources giving him dirt I don’t see problems with him only writing about that.

 

[cormack12]

The anti-crunch dude has a book out about what went wrong in 2012-2013?????

Would have been sooner but anything over 200 words per day is crunch territory. Jason Schreier doesn't make Jason Schreier crunch.

 

[NickFire]

Anyone who works in finance knows the department works extra time to close off months, quarter and years.

One year, our department couldn't even go to an offsite corporate getaway because we had to sit there for days ensuring the financials are good.

We got a pizza lunch instead

I wonder if that's worth putting in his book.

If you're in the finance department for a console manufacturer, publisher, or developer, then of course you need to call him right away. It's 2021 man, and giving employees a pizza lunch is not acceptable.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If you're in the finance department for a console manufacturer, publisher, or developer, then of course you need to call him right away. It's 2021 man, and giving employees a pizza lunch is not acceptable.

May not be tempting enough for him. If he ever called me for info, I'll say we got no food at all and were so pissed we were all thinking of quitting. And I'll stress through heresay I represent everyone in finance.