
How 2K Killed Irrational Games - MBCook
https://hackernoon.com/how-2k-killed-irrational-games-a09d8865fd8b#.68bjzkfxw
======
jay_kyburz
ugg, how did this make it onto the front page of HN. It's been floating around
the internet for a few days.

I worked at Irrational Games / 2K Australia from Freedom Force right up until
shipping Bioshock 2. I was a team lead, producer, and even ran the Australian
office for about year before I left to make Neptune's Pride.

To me there is nothing really controversial in this article. Running big
studios full of people with big personalities is really hard. People didn't
get along. Things fell apart.

~~~
MBCook
I just saw it tonight on Twitter and thought it was interesting. I know
nothing in it is terribly unique compared to what other studios have gone
through, but I still thought it painted an interesting picture of the inside
of the industry and what happens to the individual parts that make up the
mega-studios we're all used to.

This person is obviously unhappy, but I'm not suggesting there is a major
scandal here.

~~~
jay_kyburz
haha, yeah, I guess in my mind there were major scandals, but none of them are
in the article. ;)

~~~
imdsm
oh you're just gonna put that line out there for us to bite are you? i bet
we're getting nothing

~~~
thecatspaw
of course we're getting nothing, would you risk your career for a few points
on here?

------
gilgoomesh
This article quotes sales numbers in the millions and asserts that this means
games like Bioshock Infinite were "hugely profitable".

That's not necessarily true.

Bioshock Infinite in particular was "disappointing" compared to projections:

[http://www.p4rgaming.com/take-two-in-retrospect-ken-
levines-...](http://www.p4rgaming.com/take-two-in-retrospect-ken-
levines-200m-projected-bioshock-infinite-sales-was-fairly-unrealistic/)

2K posted losses in the hundreds of millions in the year leading up to
Bioshock Infinite's release (Bioshock would have been a significant percentage
of that) and continued to lose money in the year of its release:

[http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-13-bioshock-
in...](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-13-bioshock-infinite-
hits-3-7-million-boosts-take-two-sales)

People often ignore that these games may cost over a $100 million to develop
and the same again to market (Bioshock Infinite ads were _everywhere_ ).
Selling 5 million copies might only net $100 million back again (after taxes
and other distribution costs).

~~~
onli
I'm pretty sure that's a parody.

The market has only a specific size. If you sell as many games as the most
successful games ever you really can't expect more. Besides, Bioshock Infinite
had no special message, it was utterly trivial in that respect. The article is
a joke on both fronts: That the sales projections must have been overblown
since they indeed regarded the millions of copies sold as disappointing, and
that they thought the story with its twist was great writing.

~~~
gilgoomesh
Oops, you're right. In my haste, I really did link to a parody piece. Very
embarassing for me.

I was trying to illustrate the point that Bioshock Infinite's _early_ sales
were disappointing. Early projections had 2K selling 3 million copies in the
first month:

[http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-06-bioshock-
in...](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-06-bioshock-infinite-
forecast-to-ship-3m-in-march)

But it actually sold less than a million:

[http://www.gamespot.com/articles/npd-bioshock-infinite-
march...](http://www.gamespot.com/articles/npd-bioshock-infinite-march-us-
sales-hit-878000/1100-6407267/)

and only hit 3.7 million after 3 months.

HOWEVER... Don't cry a river for 2K. Bioshock Infinite _eventually_ sold 11
million copies, becoming the biggest Bioshock game:

[http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-06-01-bioshock-
in...](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-06-01-bioshock-infinite-has-
sold-11-million-units)

------
NumberCruncher
>> the team was so huge and unwieldy that he (Ken) wanted to go back to basics
and build a game with a skeleton crew like in the old days

That happens not only in the gaming industry. An approach that works on the
small scale may not work on the large scale. If you are small you are forced
to take care about your product, customers and employees (maybe not in this
order). If you are at a big corp you have to deal with people who only care
about company politics and the ego-game, even if you do not care about these
things.

------
lazyjones
A minor issue: Borderlands 2 sold 12 million copies (as of 2015). Borderlands:
the Pre-Sequel was quite disappointing compared to it (both sales and reviews)
and it seems to be mostly based on Borderland 2's code. So at least part of
its short development time and small team can be attributed to it not having
been written from scratch.

~~~
Thimothy
Yeah. I've been a fan of the Borderlands franchise since the first game and I
couldn't believe the guy had the courage of pointing to the pre-sequel as a
success. It felt over-extended, and it should have been cut to a third, at
most, and sold as a DLC for Borderlands 2.

While the Borderlands 2 and most its DLCs have been really fun and great value
for the money, the pre-sequel has left me wary of the 2k shenanigans around
the franchise. Won't make the mistake of pre-ordering again.

------
dogma1138
SWAT 4 didn't sell that well tbh, Tribes Vengeance was pretty bad and Vivendi
stopped supporting the game 6 months after it's release, it was primarily a
multiplayer only game and received only 1 patch, and Freedom Force was a joke.

It's also should be noted that Ken Levine is somewhat known to be hard to work
with, there was a fall out with Vivendi/Sierra and there were issues with
employees leaving Irrational after having fights with him (you can find
various posts on industry forums) which also lead to Nate Wells (Executive Art
Director) leaving Irrational for Naughty Dog.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
_and Freedom Force was a joke_

What was wrong with Freedom Force? City of Heroes, it was not, but it was a
fun little game. It also had a great modding community before the cease-and-
desist orders from Marvel started.

Scored well critically, too: [http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/340353-freedom-
force/index.ht...](http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/340353-freedom-
force/index.html)

~~~
dleslie
Scored well, but of the few people I know who owned it no one finished more
than a few levels. It lacked a compelling goo, for me.

~~~
1123581321
I played through the entire game in 2004 (the original, not Third Reich.) The
ending works pretty well emotionally. There were a few levels that almost got
me to quit, though, particularly the underground/ant levels.

------
programminggeek
NOTE: Don't make the company you work for your life. It will end in sadness.

~~~
jay_kyburz
Terrible advice.

The highs and lows are what make life intresting. Be passionate about what you
do and give it your all. Make it personal. Give a damn. It's the only way to
live.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Terrible advice!

Unless you have equity (and even then it must be a large amount), you are a
cog that can be replaced at will, trading X hours per week of your life that
you won't ever get back for your currency of choice.

Give a damn and make it personal: about _your_ growth, _your_ compensation,
and _your_ career path. If you want passion, work towards financial security
and _then_ work on something fulfilling, where you control your destiny.

No one is looking out for you but you.

Source: 15 years in tech, also watching a friend lose everything (EDIT:
friends from 80+ hour weeks, job and house when let go) when High Voltage
Studios (a game studio in Illinois) started its decent into failure

~~~
icantdrive55
I have seen too many Programmers lose everything. I'm not sure why.

I think part of it's the big money up front, free perks(food & drink), and all
the positive energy that the founder/founders tell the employees. It seems
like family--kinda. It seems like a dream come true.

Then your not. A bigger company buys yours, and heads roll. Then the real
world rears its ugly head. You are being interviewed by a kid.

Since the barrier to entry is not great--there's usually someone to fill your
shoes. The ego is not killed though. You had a really good run. You have
skills. You start to regret all those pep talks you gave people. I seen some
turn to drugs to fill the void.

I have seen twenty somethings go from the fast food industry to pretty good
jobs. Their attitudes changed. They aren't cynical about the "system" anymore.
They have a great time at work. They work hard. Some save that money, but a
lot of it is just blown. The cute girlfriend worships him. It all seems kinda
easy, but hard enough to not worry. "No one can do what I do, or as well."
There's company dinners. The awards. There's trips to Europe, with LDS steeped
into the luggage. Fun times! Life couldn't be better.

The company quietly losses money, and it's back to just getting by. Too many
become homeless.

I really believe unless your the Rock Star Programmer; save your money because
their will be a time when the parties over. In this industry, it seems like
it's in your late thirties.

I hate to be that guy, but I'm tired of hearing, "I used to be a programmer."
from a homeless person. Don't think she will stick by you either. Don't
estrange the people you once knew when you get that shiny job. Don't let the
"haves, or rich kid's father fill your head with stars, and cliches. He has a
huge bank account to fall back upon. He has assets to fall back on. He will
take care of his kid, but you are expendable.

~~~
gspetr
> I hate to be that guy, but I'm tired of hearing, "I used to be a
> programmer." from a homeless person.

Where are all these homeless programmers located?

~~~
vkou
San Francisco.

A few post on Hacker News, occasionally.

------
Pica_soO
I m trying to see the other side of this whole affair. Usually buisness-
leaders, expect a royal household to form around them, who is rewarded on
perceived loyalty.

Now creative personal, can be "unsettling" from that perspective, it might be
not that extreme in the video games industry as on the theater-stage, but from
the CEO-medieval perspective, the constant fluctuation of signals might seem
like betrayal and back-stabbing.

Reaction would be the exactly wrong approach- getting more involved and
keeping a tighter control on everything, resulting in content, where the more
"extreme" fluctuating personal is leashed. Now the resulting product would
miss the extremes, which is exactly what attracts the audience in the first
place.

------
shard972
Why is it so hard to run a tech company in Australia? Some days it feels like
I either need to start my own company to find out or just leave this country
to find job with a career.

~~~
jay_kyburz
What makes you think it's any harder than anywhere else?

Part of 2K Australia's problem was that we grew very big when the Aussie
dollar was low, then when it came back up we were a very expensive studio. We
had very little turnover and a lot of well paid, senior developers made us
look even more expensive per head.

We were working closely with 2K China who were a lot cheaper per head.

~~~
femto
Given this direct experience, in this instance do you personally think that
the well paid senior developers provided value compared to the cheaper her
head talent?

~~~
jay_kyburz
Err, in this instance I don't think they were directly comparable.

We always had the impression somebody far up the chain would be looking at the
spreadsheet and thinking about where they want to invest further. It may have
been our imagination.

In fact, now that I think about it, probably the opposite was happening
because a lot of effort when into growing the Marin Studio in California which
I'm sure would have been even more expensive per head than us.

~~~
chris_wot
Meh. This is what overseas management do to Australian subsidiaries all the
time. They don't worry about the profits made by the employees, what they tend
to believe is "It's Australia, we get tax incentives to work here, there's no
way Australia workers could be as productive as U.S. workers."

Then they try to introduce business practices that only work in the U.S. and
consequently fail. I've seen it time and time again.

~~~
teej
What is a business practice that only works in the US?

~~~
soulnothing
While I'm a US worker, I managed a team in Bulgaria. Initially I synchronized
via email, chat with each team mate. Met once a month for architectural review
over video.

Management hoisted that we had to do stand ups over video chat daily. It was
done 9PM EST, and 5AM their time. The time was picked to match my managers PST
schedule. There was also the weekly backlog grooming, biweekly poker
plannning, etc.

Working with that team, a European Sales team and on site European vendors.
The two things I've seen is our meeting culture grates on them. Secondly my
American team mates, I don't want to say looked down. But consistently
commented, on lack of devotion and effort of other counterparts.

------
skizm
This was written 4 days ago and says Bioshock Infinite sold 4.3 million units,
yet the Wikipedia page says it has sold 11 million copies. Where is the
disconnect? Seems like a huge discrepancy.

Is "units" normalized to full price or something where "copies" just total
games sold even at sale price? That is the only guess I could come up with.

~~~
Kurimo
The number cited in the article is probably limited to a certain release-based
window.

------
gspetr
Funny how the article mentions Bureau as the point where it all came crashing
down.

I actually quite liked the game. The problem I think is that there was a
market mismatch with that title.

XCOM 2012 caught a lot of flak for it being too different from the 1994
original. Only brilliant execution made it possible for it to succeed.

An XCOM TPS (Which is what Bureau is, to a degree) is just too much of a
stretch, most of XCOM's audience are not that open minded unfortunately.

I believe that ultimately the aforementioned market mismatch was too difficult
to overcome, even without the publisher's interference and micromanagement.

~~~
eksemplar
I grew up with the original x-com and terror from the deep, and regularly play
them to this day. I personally didn't mind the FPS/third person shooter bit,
and I think it even felt a lot more "under invasion" and scary than the x-com
remakes.

So I actually liked it, but because it was so poorly made technically I never
bothered to Finnish it. Maybe I'll force my way through it one day, because of
the story and atmosphere, but it's frankly one of the worst pieces of gameplay
I've ever tried.

~~~
violentvinyl
> So I actually liked it, but because it was so poorly made technically I
> never bothered to Finnish it. Maybe I'll force my way through it one day,
> because of the story and atmosphere, but it's frankly one of the worst
> pieces of gameplay I've ever tried.

I'm a bit late to the party here, but this is where "Let's Play" videos on
YouTube are really great. You can get all the bits you want without any of the
frustrating gameplay. The trick is just to find a YouTuber you can stand for
the duration of the video (Nerd Cubed is one of my favourites, but he would be
an acquired taste).

------
shmerl
Still waiting for Bioshock Infinite to come out on GOG (or any Bioshock games
for that matter). But 2K aren't interested in more sales it seems.

~~~
gruez
How much extra sales can you really get from DRM-free sales years after the
fact?

~~~
shmerl
Any amount means profit. Is there any sensible reason not to release them DRM-
free? Besides psychological / political ones (like 2K being scared of DRM-free
conceptually), I don't see any reasons.

~~~
bitwize
You don't matter to 2K. The number of people who would ttly pay for a DRM free
version is way smaller than the number of people who would be stopped from
just pirating the thing by the DRM.

This is why DRM is a fact of life. Adjust or do without.

~~~
sesqu
I just had a look, and found Infinite + all DLC very easily in a torrent
index. Dozens of seeds, too.

The number of people stopped from pirating the thing is effectively zero. The
number of people willing to pay for a DRM free version demonstrably exceeds
that.

------
partycoder
Usually acquired studios pay for the mistakes of their parent companies. I
don't know to which point it is a good idea to acquire a profitable company
for millions of dollars, to set it for failure and then close it.

------
yen223
Starting a studio in Canberra seems like a peculiar choice. Canberra doesn't
have the population, nor the standards of living needed to attract tech
talent. It isn't even a cheap city to live in.

~~~
Pica_soO
Hipster on the faultline Hills, you pay so much for so little, at least you
can look down on the rest of us, whose existence is worthless and brittle.

------
Paul_S
List of studios bought by ea. Orange ones are the ones they closed down
officially but a lot of them exist only in name.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electronic_Arts)

Buying a studio 9/10 is the end of its existence in any meaningful way.

~~~
SXX
Large publishers like EA and Ubisoft always operated differently compared to
other companies. Smaller companies usually just hire contractors or use 3rd
party companies to work on their projects since they can't afford to employ
someone to work on concept art, audio or voice over full time.

Large publishers able to keep employees even if they have months between
different projects. Still they move people around their subsidiaries and
projects a lot since in game development most of staff only work on certain
part of project for limited time.

So closing isn't always mean someone was fired at all and in same time any
acquired studio might be soon only exist on paper since all people might be
working in different studios on different projects.

------
alias_neo
As much as I love the Bioshock series, I take all of the figures with a pinch
of salt considering I, presumably not alone in this, own at least 3 copies of
each on various platforms. I'm also about to buy the remastered for PC, just
because.

The sad part is that the real people who made these great games will see none
of this continued income.

~~~
ebbv
Why would that make you take the numbers with a pinch of salt? It doesn't
matter that you bought 3 copies, they sold 3 copies. The numbers are still
accurate for copies sold, they aren't claiming active players or something,
there's no subscription fees here.

------
fuqted
From the comments:

"...Now to correct one thing, what keeps 2k and Take 2 afloat is Rockstar
Games. They produce multimillion dollar games that go on to produce over 700
million dollars from their online mode alone. Their games are the top sellers
in their years and even decades. Firaxis Games as of now is a failure of a
studio. Years back yes they did develop the wildly successful Civilization 5
which went on to sell over 9 million units and Xcom Enemy Unknown that went on
to sell over 3.4 million units. [1] Then they developed Beyond Earth which
tanked at 1.4 million and Xcom 2 at .8 million, a game so bad by even it’s
supporters admission it needs mods to be playable. Civlization VI is off to a
rough start and will probably match Beyond Earth. It hasn’t even broken its
first million yet.

Given how poorly they are doing, my money on the next studio closure is going
to be them if they are not overhauled instead. I have no clue how their
capacity to develop has declined so fiercely but sadly it has. On to your
question as to how a game can sell 1.7 million units and not be profitable.
I’m going to break this down for you, on console sales the publisher only gets
on average $27 for every $60 sold. Digital is more profitable at 70% of total
sales. For that 1.7 it turned out $45.9 million, give or take a few million.
After development and marketing the fact it sold significantly less than
Borderlands 2 is why it is considered a failure. You sold 14% of what
Borderlands 2 did.

Worse and I am going to give you the consumers perspective on this, the game
is god awful. For starters it story is loaded with virtue signaling, but
that’s only a minor annoyance. What truly cans it is the fact it is either the
Pre Sequel is canon or 2 and the books are canon. That’s how atrociously
written the presequel was. Even the voice actor of Handsome jack sounded
miserable spewing out those out of character lines. The game was received so
poorly that within months it was being bundled with Borderlands 2 to
desperately sell units.

While I understand that development on The bureau wasn’t your fault it also
was atrocious. I must say I loved their original version of the game that was
first shown off. The final red flag for the games low quality should have been
the YOLO trailer, but sadly I still purchased it, much to my regret.

Autralias other projects aren’t exactly well recieved. At best they are
controversial, Bioshock 2 is hated by half the community at least, CodShock
was an embarassment that alienated the entire original audience for the game
and came with a story only the greatest of idiots thought was intelligent that
ultimately damage the continuity of any future Bioshock games going forward in
the manner of public perception. It sold well on the hype of Bioshock in the
Sky, instead it was Call of Duty with color. I understand that people put a
lot of passion and work into those games, but that doesn’t make them by
default good or profitable.

Thanks for giving us insights into what transpired though. Even if they are
through tinted lenses it is always great to see insights into what transpires
behind closed doors inside the industry."

~~~
ben0x539
"virtue signalling" is the politically correct way to say "political
correctness" these days, right?

~~~
adiabatty
Not really.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling)

