Company News Ken Levine shuts down Irrational Games

[Azrael the cat]

...the fuck?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause

Biodocs probably have it too.

Non-compete clauses are tricky as hell, if you want to actually enforce them (because they brush up against the edge of anti-competition laws, for obvious reasons). They work, sure, but they get very readily struck down unless you can show that you've paid market value for that non-competition clause. ESPECIALLY when there's no geographical limit - it's hard as hell to make a non-compete clause stand up post-sale if it covers an entire nation, let alone having it work internationally.

It's why it's standard to bring the previous owner onto the payroll of the company that's buying it. That's the only 'easy' way of making it work - because you can say that you're actively, currently, paying the guy (in part) not to compete with you. Folding it into the sale contract is theoretically possible (and doable enough if you're just saying the guy can't open a shop with 5km of you), but it's generally deemed a bad risk. Much safer to just hire the damn guy for a couple of years - the clause won't be enforceable beyond than anyway, unless you're paying him way above market value.

The biodocs would have certainly signed non-competes has part of the sale to EA, but they're likely limited to the period in which they on EA's payroll - maybe a couple of years beyond at most (assuming EA likes its contracts to do what they say on the box - which is a pretty dubious assumption, admittedly).

 

[Azrael the cat]

You've buried the lead on this story. The issue isn't that Ken Levine is winding down Irrational - it's that he's chosen to do this instead of SELLING it bio-doc style to a larger public company and making himself absurdly so-rich-that-even-though-he's-already-rich-the-post-sale-Levine-could-hire-the-pre-sale-Levine-as-his-butler. Really goddamn amazingly rich. Biodocs rich.

Usually that's the 'I win' button for any start up - once you're bought out, you get to stay on as manager of your old place, often on an even larger salary than what you used to pay yourself. You get what you were earning already PLUS a truckload of money for selling your company AND the best part is that now you're completely insulated from any risk. It's why the Bio-docs won bigtime - like they fucking gave a shit whether the ME or TOR were going to work out for EA, they'd made their $$$ by selling Bioware at its peak-IP value, and were justing waiting down the clock for their 2-year contracts to finish up so they could get a golden handshake on top of it all.

It sounds like you aren't at all aware that all of this already happened back in 2006 when Levine & co sold Irrational to Take-Two/2K Games?

Nope, I wasn't:-( I took the article at its word when it said 'Levine winding up Irrational'. Which, on the Codex, was pretty retarded of me (I don't mean the newsposts; I mean the general idea of taking anything at the Codex at its word).

 

[Rake]

If Alpha Protocol is an RPG then so are visual novels.
Must be THAT standard you're talking about.

Well, PS:T is the best RPG ever created, is it not?

 

[muds_animal_friend]

I'm pretty sure Cleve was being facetious about the Levine thing.

It is actually an Irish name too though (pronounced differently I think)

Probably of Norman origin. And then there's Coen, which sounds as Jewish as litigation, but is also an anglicisation of some Gaelic surnames. All of which makes choosing the right ethic slur for the occasion difficult when in New York.

 

[Dexter]

You've buried the lead on this story. The issue isn't that Ken Levine is winding down Irrational - it's that he's chosen to do this instead of SELLING it bio-doc style to a larger public company and making himself absurdly so-rich-that-even-though-he's-already-rich-the-post-sale-Levine-could-hire-the-pre-sale-Levine-as-his-butler. Really goddamn amazingly rich. Biodocs rich.

Usually that's the 'I win' button for any start up - once you're bought out, you get to stay on as manager of your old place, often on an even larger salary than what you used to pay yourself. You get what you were earning already PLUS a truckload of money for selling your company AND the best part is that now you're completely insulated from any risk. It's why the Bio-docs won bigtime - like they fucking gave a shit whether the ME or TOR were going to work out for EA, they'd made their $$$ by selling Bioware at its peak-IP value, and were justing waiting down the clock for their 2-year contracts to finish up so they could get a golden handshake on top of it all.

Not sure what you people are talking about, Irrational Games was a wholly owned subsidiary of Take Two under their 2K Games label: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_Games

Levine and the other co-founders had sold the company to Take Two back in 2006: http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=86428&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=802174 upon which it was renamed to 2K Boston for a while.

In 2007 they also split 2K Boston to create 2K Marin, which did Bioshock 2 and they also closed recently: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-10-18-2k-marin-shut-down-entirely-reports

A third studio, 2K Marin, was split off from 2K Boston in 2007, with five former Irrational Games employees leaving to join the new company. 2K Marin worked with 2K Australia on BioShock 2.

Ken Levine has shit all to say in regards with what happens to the studio, for all anyone knows Take Two decided to close down the studio and he managed to convince them to keep himself and a minimal team on board. There could have been many reasons and catalysts for this.

Regarding the BioWare doctors, they didn't really sell out to EA, I explained this back here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/bioware-is-still-alive.76180/page-7#post-2288683

 

[racofer]

Woah, for a moment there I thought she was in a bathtub with only foam covering her breasts. Would hire.

you would hire somebody who designed those shitty bioshock infinite levels just because of tits? you're what's wrong with the gaming industry

Hey man, I just like some tits.

 

[Roguey]

No worries. Neither are Alpha Protocol or DS3.

Those are both games with role-playing (i.e. you can make personality choices through your character that result in scripted changes to the narrative) whereas SS2 doesn't have any. "Role-playing" in SS2 would be LARPing.

 

[Azrael the cat]

You've buried the lead on this story. The issue isn't that Ken Levine is winding down Irrational - it's that he's chosen to do this instead of SELLING it bio-doc style to a larger public company and making himself absurdly so-rich-that-even-though-he's-already-rich-the-post-sale-Levine-could-hire-the-pre-sale-Levine-as-his-butler. Really goddamn amazingly rich. Biodocs rich.

Usually that's the 'I win' button for any start up - once you're bought out, you get to stay on as manager of your old place, often on an even larger salary than what you used to pay yourself. You get what you were earning already PLUS a truckload of money for selling your company AND the best part is that now you're completely insulated from any risk. It's why the Bio-docs won bigtime - like they fucking gave a shit whether the ME or TOR were going to work out for EA, they'd made their $$$ by selling Bioware at its peak-IP value, and were justing waiting down the clock for their 2-year contracts to finish up so they could get a golden handshake on top of it all.

Not sure what you people are talking about, Irrational Games was a wholly owned subsidiary of Take Two under their 2K Games label: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_Games

Levine and the other co-founders had sold the company to Take Two back in 2006: http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=86428&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=802174 upon which it was renamed to 2K Boston for a while.

In 2007 they also split 2K Boston to create 2K Marin, which did Bioshock 2 and they also closed recently: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-10-18-2k-marin-shut-down-entirely-reports

A third studio, 2K Marin, was split off from 2K Boston in 2007, with five former Irrational Games employees leaving to join the new company. 2K Marin worked with 2K Australia on BioShock 2.

Ken Levine has shit all to say in regards with what happens to the studio, for all anyone knows Take Two decided to close down the studio and he managed to convince them to keep himself and a minimal team on board. There could have been many reasons and catalysts for this.

Regarding the BioWare doctors, they didn't really sell out to EA, I explained this back here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/bioware-is-still-alive.76180/page-7#post-2288683

Already addressed and apologised about not realising he'd already sold Irrational a few posts back

Re Bioware - still don't see in that how that wasn't hitting the 'I win' button. In fact, it would have been BETTER for them if they didn't get a say in the sale: in that scenario there's nothing at all, contractually or otherwise, stopping them from taking the stock and cash, then turning around and telling all their fans that they're producing a new IP under their new studio Cioware.

Which in itself makes it rather unlikely that they were going into that unwillingly. EA wouldn't have touched it with a barge-pole if that was the case. Sure, EA doesn't understand that area of gaming, but they aren't going to face-plant standard mergers+aquisitions (and their lawyers wouldn't LET them faceplant it that badly) by buying a creative company without a legal mechanism for ensuring they aren't just handing a chunk of their stock plus $$$ to guys who will be competing against them.

 

[Monty]

Already addressed and apologised for a few posts back

By apologised I guess you mean blaming 'the Codex'?

 

[SuicideBunny]

speaking of which... Infinitron, how about an update with a clarification like prestigious magazines do all the time...?

 

[Infinitron]

speaking of which... Infinitron, how about an update with a clarification like prestigious magazines do all the time...?

What needs to be clarified?

 

[SuicideBunny]

speaking of which... Infinitron, how about an update with a clarification like prestigious magazines do all the time...?

What needs to be clarified?

"Ken Levine is tired of making AAA games. You're all fired." sounds as if levine had gotten up one day and decided to fire everybody for shit'n giggles, while in truth he might have had no say or choice in that matter.

 

[Duraframe300]

speaking of which... Infinitron, how about an update with a clarification like prestigious magazines do all the time...?

What needs to be clarified?

"Ken Levine is tired of making AAA games. You're all fired." sounds as if levine had gotten up one day and decided to fire everybody for shit'n giggles, while in truth he might have had no say or choice in that matter.

That is how the letter reads. It might as well have been different (though I doubt Levine is/was blameless even indirectly as he is the reason infinite took so long), but I don't see what Infintron did wrong here.

 

[Infinitron]

speaking of which... Infinitron, how about an update with a clarification like prestigious magazines do all the time...?

What needs to be clarified?

"Ken Levine is tired of making AAA games. You're all fired." sounds as if levine had gotten up one day and decided to fire everybody for shit'n giggles, while in truth he might have had no say or choice in that matter.

Oh, that's just me being funny. I thought the "tl;dr" quip made it obvious.

 

[SuicideBunny]

That is how the letter reads. It might as well have been different (though I doubt Levine is/was blameless even indirectly as he is the reason infinite took so long), but I don't see what Infintron did wrong here.

levine might have gotten tired and fired everybody after getting the consent of his reptile overlords or he might have gotten wind of a restructuring in the making and just brokered the best deal for himself and his best buddies or he might have been told to suck it up and not even written that letter himself (see ncsoft and garriot) or any combination of those. point is, we have no fucking clue until somebody spills the beans. the contents of corporate pr letters are and always were meaningless.

Oh, that's just me being funny. I thought the "tl;dr" quip made it obvious.

it does, i'm just being overly nitpicky, i think.

 

[Mastermind]

That being said, one could argue quite rightly Baldur's Gate and it's spawn are not RPGs either, but RTS-RPG hybrids, and the only RPGs are those with turn-based/phase-based combat based off dice rolls with stat modifiers, or at least a system which is derived or directly adapted from a tabletop RPG.

Those aren't pure RPGs either, they're TBS/RPG hybrids.

 

[Roguey]

Yah, some former Irrational employees at that one paywall-forum-where-devs-speak-perhaps-a-bit-too-openly-because-of-the-semi-security-of-the-paywall are kind of suggesting that Bioshock Infinite bombed, the delays and bloated budget are 100% the result of Levine's bad managerial decisions, but he gets to keep his job because of his Name Value.

 

[Infinitron]

Yah, some former Irrational employees at that one paywall-forum-where-devs-speak-perhaps-a-bit-too-openly-because-of-the-semi-security-of-the-paywall are kind of suggesting that Bioshock Infinite bombed, the delays and bloated budget are 100% the result of Levine's bad managerial decisions, but he gets to keep his job because of his Name Value.

Links.

 

[Roguey]

Yah, some former Irrational employees at that one paywall-forum-where-devs-speak-perhaps-a-bit-too-openly-because-of-the-semi-security-of-the-paywall are kind of suggesting that Bioshock Infinite bombed, the delays and bloated budget are 100% the result of Levine's bad managerial decisions, but he gets to keep his job because of his Name Value.

Links.

You have an account there, just find the thread. I don't want them to get all scared and clam up.

 

[Infinitron]

Yah, some former Irrational employees at that one paywall-forum-where-devs-speak-perhaps-a-bit-too-openly-because-of-the-semi-security-of-the-paywall are kind of suggesting that Bioshock Infinite bombed, the delays and bloated budget are 100% the result of Levine's bad managerial decisions, but he gets to keep his job because of his Name Value.

Links.

You have an account there, just find the thread. I don't want them to get all scared and clam up.

Oh, Something Awful.

I thought you were talking about something more exclusive than that. Do they really believe their posts are hidden there?

 

[Azrael the cat]

Already addressed and apologised for a few posts back

By apologised I guess you mean blaming 'the Codex'?

Yes, it's called a Codex apology, and by the standards of these forums that's the equivalent of me prostrating myself before the lord and asking for forgiveness.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Yah, some former Irrational employees at that one paywall-forum-where-devs-speak-perhaps-a-bit-too-openly-because-of-the-semi-security-of-the-paywall are kind of suggesting that Bioshock Infinite bombed, the delays and bloated budget are 100% the result of Levine's bad managerial decisions, but he gets to keep his job because of his Name Value.

hasn't t2 been bleeding money ever since they went overboard with AAA developer acquisitions? considering that and the delay between b1 and infinite, a restructuring wasn't that hard to foresee.

 

[Castanova]

Yah, some former Irrational employees at that one paywall-forum-where-devs-speak-perhaps-a-bit-too-openly-because-of-the-semi-security-of-the-paywall are kind of suggesting that Bioshock Infinite bombed, the delays and bloated budget are 100% the result of Levine's bad managerial decisions, but he gets to keep his job because of his Name Value.

This is the only explanation of these events that make any sense. Zero chance Irrational would close down after the press jizzed all over Infinite unless they lost money and lots of it.

 

[Decado]

Something weird happens to developers when they hit rock star status. It seems to have happened to Levine. It happened to Todd Howard. It happened to the guys at BioWare. Shit, it even happened to John SUCK IT DOWN Carmack after Doom. It is like they start believing their own press.

 

[Decado]

Anyway, this can only be a good thing. For the last few years the market has been glutted with AAA budget games with DEEP STORYLINES and VISCERAL COMBAT and REACTIVE ENVIRONMENTS! What the industry has failed to understand is that the average age of a gamer (at least in the US) is lower-to-mid 30s, which dictates a different taste in games. As someone who falls in that age range, I can say wholeheartedly that I am tired of all this same old shit. I never cared much about these things to begin with, but as I get older I can tell you that I really don't give a shit about graphics, million dollar voice acting, over-the-top kill animations, operatic scores, and reams of shitty CGI. I just don't care. They are not why I play games.

And I am not alone. There are millions of dudes just like me who are getting older, and looking for something more in their hobby. These AAA companies going under really doesn't affect me. They are not making games that I play anyway -- or if I do play them, I buy them a year or two after release and don't play full price for them. And I usually only cave in if I feel like I'm missing out on some larger conversation in the gaming community, or if I feel like I'm missing some big event that should interest me because it concerns my hobby. But I don't get excited for the next Call of Duty. I can go online and read about the fantastic sales of CoD but I don't know a single person who plays it, and I know a lot of gamers. So who is the audience? 14 year olds? That's all well and good, but what happens when they grow up?