Ken Levine: Next project will cost 'a fair amount of money'
by Christopher Grant 
{ May 8th 2009 at 7:00PM }
"Freedom Force was $2 million; System Shock 2 was $600K, it was nothing. BioShock, I think it's been published, was $15 million," Levine said. When we asked how much, on that scale, his new project would cost, Levine teased, "It's more than System Shock 2."
He elaborated, "It's a fair amount of money. Our goal is to build experiences." Referring to the craft of building experiences, Levine noted that BioShock "didn't have the best shooting compared to Call of Duty" and "it didn't have the most revolutionary AI." What it did have was an "experience [gamers] couldn't get anywhere else." It was something "that people can look at it and say, 'I can't have this experience anywhere else.'"
Here's the thing: "Generally those experiences cost a fair amount of money to make," Levine says. Of course, he can't say how much – "because I would probably get fired before I walked out the door" – but he assures us "It won't be the cheapest product ever made." So we've got a ballpark here: Somewhere between $600K and infinity.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
FraGNeM @ May 8th 2009 7:23PM
Duke Nukem Forever tried the infinity budget, and look where it got them.
RudyHuxtable @ May 8th 2009 7:33PM
You beat me to it, and for that: +2
Purple Haze @ May 8th 2009 7:38PM
It seems like Ken's always been a really clever developer, but Bioshock was the first time he was given the funding to fulfil his vision. I have no doubt that with similar backing he can do something just as incredible.
MarioSpitza @ May 11th 2009 10:48PM
Ken Levine has always been a notable developer. I still remember the first time I became aware of him: when, during an interview, he says unskippable cutscenes in games were akin to date rape. From then on, I was in love.
It's too bad the PC industry doesn't have developer relationships like Japanese gaming companies do. You hear of all the Japanese game companies and their great visionaries (Hironobu Sakaguchi, Shinji Mikami, Hideo Kojima, and etc), but you don't see that in the PC games industry. All of the well known people (Cliffy B, Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, etc) became well known because they were active in gaming events and opinionated to the point where they became controversial.
It's really a shame, in my opinion. If Ken Levine had the same status in Take-Two as Shigeru Miyamoto in Nintendo, I would bet we would see amazing games.
Crusty Magic @ May 8th 2009 7:59PM
Ken is the man.
This video proves it: http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/21378
Pimliconite @ May 8th 2009 10:06PM
So...
For what Bioshock, the graphically superior, otherwise inferior, "spiritual successor" to System Shock 2, cost
We could have had 25 System Shock 2's
birthday is 1990 @ May 9th 2009 3:02AM
Minus inflation, hardware costs, increased pricing for the writing. Also, royalties. That's like saying we could have had 10 thousand Tetris's...
Kevin @ May 9th 2009 8:13AM
"teris's" isn't a word... It would be Tetri. Learn Grammar.
Jason @ May 9th 2009 10:02AM
Is there any source out there that lists development costs for games that have come out? and i don't just mean big AAA games cuz those end up ballooning.
ck @ May 9th 2009 6:13PM
I'd have to say that's not a high number for game development (well, at least a blockbuster-type game). I don't know what the exact sales figures for the game, but even if it sold 5 million copies (a conservative estimate) at $60 that equals $300 million. But obviously you take out the budget, marketing and revenue sharing with retailers and misc. costs, that still would at least equal $200 million in profit. That's astounding.
Jason @ May 9th 2009 11:02PM
Also taxes to i think its 30-35% corporate tax on profits damn FICA,but yea it doesn't really sound like alot but yet it looked amazing. Even if games cost say 40-50 million to make and another 25mill for advertising they still have nuthing on films bcuz even sum smaller films could cost more then that. just sayin