New Report Details BioShock Creator’s New Game And The Rocky Development, Employee Burnout, And Numerous Content Cuts Surrounding It

Ken Levine (the creator of BioShock) released his final game in 2013, BioShock: Infinite. Soon after, Ken Levine closed Irrational Game Studios, which he founded in 1997. The majority of staff were let go on short notice, however, a few developers were selected to join Ghost Story Games, his smaller startup studio. 

That new studio, still under the helm of 2K and parent company Take-Two Interactive, began work on a new game – it’s that narrative Legos one Levine talked about years and years ago – in 2014. Eight years later, no trace of the game is left by the public. A new report was also issued from BloombergThis is why. 

Ghost Story Games

Sadly, what’s revealed in the report is not at all uncommon in video game development: poor leadership, employee burnout and frustration, and the dogmatic pursuit of one person’s vision for a game, in spite of what said pursuit could do to others at the studio. Game Informer A collection of stories from development hell has been compiled by Mark, which you can find here: Video Games Stuck Inside Development Hell Part 1 Part 2 and Part 3. 

Bloomberg spoke to multiple Ghost Story employees, both current and former, and the publication reports that many blame Levine for the “tortured project,” citing that he’s a “flawed manager who often struggles to communicate his vision and alienates or browbeats subordinates who challenge him or fail to meet his expectations.” 

One joke that occurred around the office was called “Kenception.” Alluding to Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film, Inception, former and current anonymous employees at Ghost Story said that persuading Levine was so difficult that it might have been easier to infiltrate his dreams and plant an idea so that when Levine woke up, he’d think it was something he came up with himself. 

These BloombergThe flaws of allowing Levine so much control over Ghost Story’s creations were also highlighted by the people I spoke with. Levine may create BioShock 2K or Take-Two’s next BioShock, but many who have worked alongside him wonder at the cost. Mike Snight, who helped start Ghost Story with Levine, ended up leaving the studio due to his unhappiness with the seemingly endless cycles of create-cut-create-cut-and-repeat Levine is known for. 

“Ken is a very hard person to work for,” Snight said. “I think he tried a lot to change, and he really excels better at this company than Irrational because it is a smaller group of people.” 

However, Levine’s creative process led to Snight’s departure from Ghost Story. 

“When it continuously goes in cycles and you don’t align anymore, you kind of get tired of being part of that,” he said. “I wasn’t really happy anymore.” 

Levine’s control seems to be a hindrance in part of this creative process. BloombergLevine wrote that, in his negotiations with Take-Two Levine was successful in getting him to answer directly to Take-Two rather than 2K. 2K will be the publisher that (maybe) will publish his next title. Ghost Story’s employees claimed that Take-Two executives occasionally would visit Ghost Story, but otherwise it was Levine that made the decisions. 

He would do anything to reduce the amount of work for which he wasn’t happy, to the dismay all the employees who were working on the project. It’s not surprising, though, considering Levine has publicly discussed how okay he is with cutting content. 

According to Bloomberg, Levine told AusGamers in a 2012 interview that he “probably cut two games worth of stuff” while developing BioShock Infinite. Then, a couple of years later, Levin said, “in almost every game I’ve worked on, you realize you’re running out of time, and then you make the game.”

“You sort of dick around for years, and then you’re like, ‘Oh my god, we’re almost out of time’ and it forces you to make these decisions.” 

With no hard deadline due to the amount of autonomy Levin has been given at Ghost Story, time seemingly doesn’t run out, so he reportedly continues to cut and gut as he pleases, leaving employees at Ghost Story to wonder when their game will ever see the light of day. As a result, there are some who stay while others go. Bloomberg’sReport, but sadly contracts frequently stipulate that work must not be publicly shown before it is available. Many end up in an awkward situation where their Ghost Story experience has been years and they don’t have a portfolio to prove it. 

Speaking of games to show for, or rather, games that haven’t yet seen the light of day, Blomberg reports that Levine’s “narrative Lego” proof-of-concept game was supposed to come in the form of a Fall 2017 sci-fi shooter set on a mysterious space station inhabited (and fought over) by three factions. The factions could shift to allies or enemies depending on how players built and moved the narrative Legos.

Despite Levine’s goal of making Ghost Story feel like an indie studio (in terms of creativity and pace) with a AAA budget (courtesy of Take-Two Interactive), his vision for this game was big and as ambitious as BioShock. According to early staff at the studio, Bloomberg that they recalled a 2016 version of this game with “elaborate levels and rich, three-dimensional graphics.” They wondered how the team, which was fewer than three dozen developers, would finish the game. 

“Others remembered a complicated dialogue system that would morph based on player choices, requiring a tremendous amount of writing that couldn’t have possibly been completed within a year,” Bloomberg writes.

One former Ghost Story employee, Giovanni Pasteris, said “the ideas and ambitions were great,” but that “the scope just grew and grew without concern for the team’s ability to get it done by our Fall 2017 deadline.” Pasteris said Levine wanted to make a AAA game with a “budget” team size, something he said would simply never happen. Missing the deadline was a problem further hampered by Levine’s ever-changing tastes, according to Bloomberg’s report. 

Ken Levine

He’d play Dead Cells or Void Bastards, and then return to Ghost Story to request features that were in the games. The Fall 2017 release date was moved to 2018, and 2019 to accommodate this. Ghost Story’s employee says that although the goal release date for Fall 2017 has been moved to 2018 and then 2019, Ghost Story is optimistic about the game’s progress, but it may still take two more years. 

This ever-changing deadline has one positive. It seems that there is no crunch or minimal crunch time. Employees told the truth. BloombergIt is a challenge to work on a game that has no ending in sight. Add in that Levine wanted to retain the cinematic direction and focus of BioShock and BioShock Infinite in this new project that was specifically designed to present a different experience to every player, and the development tension at Ghost Story only continues to grow. 

Further alluding to Levine’s my-way-or-the-highway style of running a studio, Bloomberg’sAccording to reports, those who sparred against Levine at Ghost Story will be mysteriously fired. The managers will simply state that their employee is not a good match for Ghost Story. 

“[Levine] can be quite charming and charismatic,” Pasteris said. “[Levine]Sometimes, people can get moody, and they may lash out at others, while also berating their coworkers. [too].” 

Bloomberg paints an even more full picture of the rocky development this forthcoming Ghost Story title has gone through and the toll it’s taken on developers currently there and those that used to work at the studio. It’s worth reading the full report here. For more, check out our thoughts on Levine’s last game in Game Informer’s BioShock Infinite review and then read what we thought of 2016’s BioShock: The Collection. Find out what you want from the next BioShock title. 

[Source: Bloomberg]