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Interview: Ken Levine talks Irrational site, next game announcement and BioShock 2 relationship

Alexander Sliwinski — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:45:00 EST

Irrational Games' head-honcho Ken Levine spoke to us today about the developer's new website and stronger community focus -- but of course, we wanted more. We tried to get an answer on when the studio's new project will finally be announced, asked him what the company's plans are for PAX East, and finally got to the bottom of what his actual involvement is with BioShock 2 -- which isn't much.

Joystiq: Why does a studio that's well-known for focused single-player experiences need such a robust community site?

Ken Levine: I don't think that single player ... I don't think community is just for multiplayer. People like talking about the games. You go to Cult of Rapture, BioShock was a single player game and there's a lot of people on that site. People want to learn about us, they want to learn about other people playing the game, they want to learn what's happening at the studio. They want to know about the the integration behind stuff we did. Maybe I'm high, I just don't make the connection between multiplayer titles and a web page.

We've known this change has been in the works since last March during GDC, where members of your studio were wearing shirts that hinted toward this name change. What was the impetus for putting so much effort into trying to create a community around Irrational with the site? Why was that so important?

We've had a big community, back in the day when we did Freedom Force. We had a huge website that supported them. It kinda broke our heart a little bit when that went away and we converted to 2K Boston. When we took the name back, Take-Two was kind enough to agree and allow us to build our community. ... I really wanted a website that was about interacting with fans. I don't really care about the marketing stuff, that's handled elsewhere. This is not a site where you get five flash videos selling you a product. This is a site about the audience and about the audience getting a better understanding of what it's like to work here, be here and getting us a better understanding of what they like and don't like about our games.

Continue reading Interview: Ken Levine talks Irrational site, next game announcement and BioShock 2 relationship

Interview: Ken Levine talks Irrational site, next game announcement and BioShock 2 relationship originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MIT BiG: Levine talks life before BioShock

Christopher Grant — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:30:00 EST

We're here at the MIT Business in Gaming conference this afternoon to watch Ken Levine - who holds the title trifecta of "co-founder, "president" and "Creative Director" at 2K Boston (née Irrational) - take the hotseat in a Q&A format (that, for some reason, is being billed as a "keynote"). No bother - given an opportunity to hear the BioShock developer discuss the current state of the industry (not to mention regaling us backstage with amusing yarns about Strauss Zelnick's protein-centric diet), we took our spot in the front row, laptops at the ready.

After an introduction by one of the show's sponsors (get off the stage, bub!) the Q&A was handed over to MIT graduate student Dennis Fu, who peppered Levine with a series of questions inspired by the day's panel topics: digital distribution; in-game advertising; MMO business models; and serious games. Fu stepped right into the deep end, asking Levine "What can you tell us about BioShock 2?" As he's said before, he's keeping himself intentionally in the dark so that he can play it "as a fan." "We're sort of keeping ourselves at a distance," he explained.

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MIT BiG: Levine talks life before BioShock originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 08 May 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PAX 2008: Ken Levine keyote talks sex, comics and growing up

Ross Miller — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Retro

Let's destroy your dreams now: Our friend KennyL did not talk about BioShock 2. Instead, Ken Levine kicked off Penny Arcade Expo by talking about his journey from from sex-intrigued comic nerd to Hollywood scribe and back to geekdom (which may in fact be the future plot of BioShock 2, but that is as of now unconfirmed). Regardless, Levine's keynote was a hysterical, vulgar and self-deprecating tribute to puberty and gaming.

Levine broke up into three acts, each different parts of his life. In part one, Levine described how he discoverd the adult with science fiction, from his dream to sleep with The Scarlet Witch to his dream to sleep with Jessica-5 from Logan's Run (both the comic book character and the film version's actress). "I wanted to smoke cigarettes and listen to Deep Purple," he said. "I didn't want to go to bed [thinking about Battlestar Galactica], but I did."

Act 2 was on the discovery of tribes, and how how his Dungeons & Dragons group moved onto girls. "The truth is, my tribal brothers were simply ahead of me in the game." In Act 3, in which our friend is a failed movie scribe, Levine ends up at Looking Glass Studios (System Shock). The rest, as you know, is history.

In his near-final last words, Levine offers a thanks to Tycho and Gabe, "We are united by a common element. Its not the color of our skin or our ideology or where we come from. No it's that we're a giant bunch of fucking nerds," he said to a roaring applause. Listen to it yourself:

Gallery: Penny Arcade Expo 2008

PAX 2008: Ken Levine keyote talks sex, comics and growing up originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ken Levine's favorite games of all time

Alexander Sliwinski — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture

MSNBC asked 2K Boston's Ken Levine, creator of BioShock, what his top five games of all time are. Levine gets double bonus points for picking cult favorite Beyond Good and Evil, which he says "managed to combine whimsy and dystopia in one unforgettable package." Levine's other picks are:

Civilization IV
World of Warcraft
Heroes of Might and Magic 2
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Beyond Good and Evil

The best part of the bite-sized feature is when Levine admits that World of Warcraft is his "always-reliable secret shame." If Ken Levine can admit it, maybe others will find the strength to do it as well.

Ken Levine's favorite games of all time originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joystiq interviews BioShock's Ken Levine about success and harvesting Little Sisters

Alexander Sliwinski — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:15:00 EST

Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, First Person Shooters, Interviews

Earlier we posted some choice moments from our interview with BioShock's Lead Designer Ken Levine. Below is the full interview. There's more depth on the tech issues Irrational experienced, Levine's ability (or lack of) to harvest Little Sisters, their experience with the Unreal Engine 3 and an awkward moment about BioShock 2.

OK, so what did you want to talk about today in regards to these PC issues on BioShock?

Given the internets and what they are -- with their tubes and all -- I want to sort of talk about the concerns people have. We take the concerns people have very seriously. There's been some concern like, "What happens if it's three years from now, or ten years from now, when I want to play this game. And, you know, Irrational Games has been hit by a meteor?" We will unset the online activation at some point in the future -- we're not talking about when. If people have concern about that they shouldn't be worried about that. This activation is for the early period of the game when it's really hot and there are people really trying to find ways to play the game without buying it. Of course, there are a lot of people who are legitimately trying to play it. We're not trying to be Draconian, we're trying to find a balance.

Now, let's see if we can put this in the simplest terms, this screen thing has taken on a whole life of its own. The game was designed for widescreen. Instead of doing the normal thing and just chopping off the sides for full screen, you actually added more to the top and bottom so full screen people wouldn't lose anything from the sides -- a very nice thing to do actually. Thus, infuriating the PC owners and almost anyone else with widescreen because how dare you not give them more to see like they're used to. So, now this patch will add in the stuff to the side of the full screen. So, in essence, to use a visual term, this patch just zooms the camera out a little bit to appease PC widescreen owners to give the option of increased field of vision?

We started the game widescreen. We primarily designed it for widescreen. Then we had to ask, "How do we make it full screen." Your options are to put black bars at the top and bottom, keep same width perspective. Or you allow to ... add pixels to the top and the bottom if you can afford the frame rate -- we could. So the call was made to show those few more pixels. Now this is one of those things when you're making a game -- like I was making a game -- honestly, if somebody came from the future and told me this was an issue I would have laughed at them. I would have said, "Are you kidding me?" But that's what's interesting about gamers, they're an interesting and diverse group. Now that I know that there's this huge contingent out there that actually really cares about this, I wouldn't have laughed at them because they're stupid, I would have laughed because I couldn't have imagined that people are passionate about this. And now that we know they're passionate, we have a responsibility to respond to those people and give them what they want. It's their game, they paid money for it, they should be able to play in the way they want to play. We may disagree with them aesthetically, but sure, we'll make a patch and make if work for them.

Continue reading Joystiq interviews BioShock's Ken Levine about success and harvesting Little Sisters

Joystiq interviews BioShock's Ken Levine about success and harvesting Little Sisters originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Levine confirms no PS3 BioShock and does mea culpa on PC issues -- success hurts

Alexander Sliwinski — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:15:00 EST

Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360

Joystiq just got off the phone with Ken Levine, lead designer for BioShock, and was told that the PC version's issues are overblown because the game's high profile has placed it under a microscope. He fully admits they "screwed up" and notes that patches are most definitely in the works. Furthermore, there is no PS3 version of BioShock in development or planned.

Levine admits there were "real screw-ups" and he "understands why people are pissed off" about the online copy protection verification for the game and it comes down to a classic victim of their own success story. They couldn't have planned the game would be such an insta-hit and they weren't prepared, so when all those people tried to verify their PC versions online during installation the server crashed. He also reiterated patches are in the works for the FOV issues and that the copy protection limit locked in for PCs will be raised. He also says at some point they will remove the online verification. He says there is nothing "insidious" in their copy-protection, it's the same as any other game that uses the same protection program.

Then there is the lingering question of the rumored PS3 version of BioShock found in the PC code. Levine responds quite clearly, "I promise you, there is no secret plan about the PS3 that we're keeping from people. There's no PS3 development going on that we're hiding. There's lots of stuff that gets into game code, plans change over time and we got an exclusive deal with Microsoft ... that's not a Rosetta Stone discovery."

Update: Full interview with Ken Levine is up.

Levine confirms no PS3 BioShock and does mea culpa on PC issues -- success hurts originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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