The Develop Conference mentioned Monday is over in about 50 minutes; one of the likely more anticipated parts of the expo was BioShock creator 2K's presentation, titled "BioShock and Awe: Immersing the Gamer in an Alternate World Without Drowning Out the Gameplay."
The dudes involved were Ken Levine (studio founder and creative director), Nate Wells (lead technical artist), Chris Kline (technical director and lead programmer) and Bill Gardner (level designer) 2K Boston Studio.
Among the topics covered were the design of the game, the company's hiring policy, and the BioShock film. So first up, Levine commented on the difficulties a game like BioShock had in making it through the rounds:
"In BioShock we tried to make the most engaging horror movie of all time. But two years before release, it would never make it through a focus group. I mean, try asking people if they want to play a first-person shooter in an objectivist art deco dystopia."
Regarding the lack of multiplayer, he feels there was essentially just no point. Just as well, I figure, BioShock is such a singular and satisfying experience in itself, even thinking about it as a multiplayer-supported title seems absurd (though the plasmid system would probably lend itself very well in the context of another game):
"If you're not going to come to the ball ready to compete with Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 then just don't do it. Every marketing dept always says 'what about multiplayer?'...Take Two was a unique company because they'd been through the wars and they understood the artistic importance of something. The audience is not a bunch of mouth-breathing Neanderthals. The audience is ready for this sort of thing."
"Social, game and film literacy is really important. At the end of the day, extruding a polygon will only get you so far. Going art deco was not an obvious choice. You have to be more interested in the visual style of the game rather than satisfying gamers."
This I respect, and is in keeping with his choice to apparently go with creative control over salary, as discussed before.
The film: "Those guys are going to be respectful of what we did, but it's going to be a movie. Gore and John go for walks and they talk about things, it's an integrated process. It's amazing to see a guy like Gore who has an amazing vision and John who's got experience writing The Aviator... it's interesting to see people who aren't gamers see what they do with it. It's not like 'someone threw me this game to make into a movie. So much of BioShock was inspired by movies... the twist was inspired by Fight Club."
Levine also seems wise to the relationship between the gaming and film industries:
"The junior [movie] execs and agents are hardcore gamers, but to old Hollywood it's like 'we're going to get into games now.' It's the easiest thing to do for us to assume it's easy for them to make a good movie, and for them to assume it's easy for us to make a good game. It's like having kids, you have to forget about the pain you went through the first time. A healthy respect for each other's challenges will make for better games and better movies."
The aftermath of the whole thing, however: not so pretty. Regarding some rumours about members of the 2K BioShock team leaving due to personal dislike for him, in summary Levine said (in interviews), "I'm kind of a pretentious twat and maybe an asshole." You can find the interviews via the alt. source below and judge for yourself if you wish, as I'm staying far, far away from that one.
