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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Irrational Games are "winding down"; all but 15 staff laid off [edit: Gamasutra - Bioshock Infinite didn't sell enough]

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osed125 on 18 February 2014
badgenome said:
Soleron said:
I think he is lying by omission.

Sure, Ken wants to leave. Fine. But Ken does not own Irrational. Take-Two does. By their own admission, Irrational are some of the best devs in the world, and seemingly financially successful.

Why are Take-Two shutting down Irrational?

My hypothesis: Infinite flopped and they can't keep it open.

Yeah, this announcement seems like a face saving gesture. After spending more than half a decade in development, Infinite turns up on PS+ in less than a year. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what happened here.

I still don't get it. I mean if we trust VGC numbers the game sold 3.34 million copies (without counting PC digital)...

I guess this rumor (although a bit exaggerated) might have been true after all: http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/13584/article/ken-levine-quashes-rumor-bioshock-infinite-cost-200-million/



Nintendo and PC gamer

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Slimebeast on 18 February 2014
Soleron said:
I think he is lying by omission.

Sure, Ken wants to leave. Fine. But Ken does not own Irrational. Take-Two does. By their own admission, Irrational are some of the best devs in the world, and seemingly financially successful.

Why are Take-Two shutting down Irrational?

My hypothesis: Infinite flopped and they can't keep it open.

Good thinking.



whatever on 18 February 2014
DJEVOLVE said:
whatever said:
 


What a tired argument that has no basis in reality.  You clearly don't understand how markets work.


Nope all Gamestop profits are also fake. My god this site.

Gamestop profits because they provide a service that customers want.  Not that I'd expect you to understand...



Fusioncode on 18 February 2014

I guess Bioshock Infinite flopped, 5 years in development for barely 3m in sales. Infinite was fantastic, screw people for not buying it.



Sigs are dumb. And so are you!

kumagawa on 18 February 2014

So what's the big deal?

Irrational games has been owned by Take-Two Interactive since 2006.

Levine and 15 others are starting a new studio also owned by Take-Two.

This is merely the normal downsizing of a studio after shipping a big game.

Irrational has released only 2 Bioshock games in the 8 years they have been owned by Take-Two.

Now that they are going to start a new IP they are starting a new studio to get that whole "fresh start" feeling.



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Slimebeast on 18 February 2014
osed125 said:
badgenome said:
Soleron said:
I think he is lying by omission.

Sure, Ken wants to leave. Fine. But Ken does not own Irrational. Take-Two does. By their own admission, Irrational are some of the best devs in the world, and seemingly financially successful.

Why are Take-Two shutting down Irrational?

My hypothesis: Infinite flopped and they can't keep it open.

Yeah, this announcement seems like a face saving gesture. After spending more than half a decade in development, Infinite turns up on PS+ in less than a year. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what happened here.

I still don't get it. I mean if we trust VGC numbers the game sold 3.34 million copies (without counting PC digital)...

I guess this rumor (although a bit exaggerated) might have been true after all: http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/13584/article/ken-levine-quashes-rumor-bioshock-infinite-cost-200-million/

3.34 million copies is a big flop for a costly, highly praised AAA game like Biochock Infinite. $200 million it definitely dit not cost, but including marketing it could have well been +$100 million and that means +4 million copies sold to just break even (since for a multplat game it's very hard to get more than $25 in revenue per copy, especially if the game was over-shipped).



Proxy-Pie on 18 February 2014

One of the only devs with unique shooters. Damn



Soleron on 18 February 2014
kumagawa said:

This is merely the normal downsizing of a studio after shipping a big game.

No, it isn't. They're shutting the studio as a whole. Does IW disband after each CoD? Does Rockstar disband after each GTA?

If Bioshock DID lose money, I can't imagine how bad the state of the industry is behind the scenes.



jamesmarkus87 on 18 February 2014

It pisses me off that BioShock Infinite was such a poor seller.



kumagawa on 18 February 2014
Soleron said:
kumagawa said:

This is merely the normal downsizing of a studio after shipping a big game.

No, it isn't. They're shutting the studio as a whole. Does IW disband after each CoD? Does Rockstar disband after each GTA?

If Bioshock DID lose money, I can't imagine how bad the state of the industry is behind the scenes.


And yet the key people are staying while the rest go and remember the CoD studio's get a game out every two years while Irrational took 6 years for a single game and it's not exactly a GTA or Elder Scrolls in size to justify that development time.

This is the easiest way to clear out what is obviously a lot of dead wood.