Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: bioshock, ken levine

Latest Game From BioShock Creator Is Apparently In "Development Hell"

A new report on BioShock creator Ken Levine's latest game is not too promising as developers say the game is in a perpetual state of development hell. The story comes from Bloomberg who published what reads like a pretty damning report against the developer and his management skills. Several former employees of his studio, Ghost Story Games, have commented that the studio's current project (which was started in 2014) has undergone several changes and reboots, making the still yet-to-be-named video game a consistent problem to work on, let alone actually produce. Here's a snippet from the piece.

A persistent tension at Ghost Story, employees say, is between the type of game they set out to make and the kind Levine was used to directing. He wanted to see every moment of the story unfold on screen and fine-tune each one. But the narrative Lego concept made Levine's cinematic approach impossible to apply because stories would change so much based on player decisions. Levine often assessed aspects of the game when they were not yet finished, decide they weren't good enough and command the team to scrap or change them, employees say. "The type of game being explored does not match well with the creative process being used," says Andres Gonzalez, a founding member who left to start a new company with Snight.

Those who worked with Levine say his mercurial demeanor caused strife. Some who sparred with Levine mysteriously stopped appearing in the office, former staff say. When asked, managers typically described the person as a bad match and said they had been let go, say five people who worked there. Others simply quit. The studio's top producer resigned in 2017 following clashes with Levine. […] Ghost Story employees occasionally asked Levine how long Take-Two would fund their experiments before demanding a product it could sell. Levine told them that their studio is a "rounding error" for the publisher of Grand Theft Auto, according to two former employees. Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, agrees. With enough time, Levine offers Take-Two "a realistic chance of a new franchise" like BioShock, he says. "I expect they will continue to allow Ken to take as long as he needs to make something great."

As of right now, Levine has a 15-year deal with Take-Two Interactive, so at some point in time, the man and his company have to deliver a game. It's either that or they might end up going down as one of the most embarrassing stories of failed video game development history. The game has been in development for 7 1/2 years so far, a good six months longer than Red Dead Redemption 2. The original BioShock only took five, as did BioShock Infinite. Even if game production is ramped up tomorrow, chances are we won't see it for another 18 months at best, meaning this could take nearly a decade to complete.

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