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The Making of Bioshock
Gamasutra is running a feature from Game Developer magazine in which Bioshock's project leader writes about what went right and what went wrong making last year's award-winning shooter, Bioshock. He talks about what the developers learned from fans and focus groups, how long it took them to firmly define what the game was supposed to be, and how they tried to reconcile their ideas with their capabilities. Quoting:
"...just after the first beta, the entire design team plus a contingent of 2K producers headed off to see how a group that knew nothing about our company or BioShock would react to the first level. It was brutal. The first level, they said, was overly dense, confusing, and not particularly engaging. Players would acquire new powers but not know how to use them, so they stuck to using more traditional weapons and became frustrated. They didn't interact with the Big Daddies, and they didn't understand (or care) how to modify their characters. They were so overwhelmed by dialogue and backstory that they missed key information. A few of the players did start to see the possible depth of the game, but even they were frustrated by the difficulty of actually using the systems we had created."
Here I thought market research died with the invention of mass-advertising.
Great to see them actually test out a product, and further, fix their product before launching it.
Funny. I recently bought Bioshock on Steam (when they were running their $15 special a month or two ago). I only had a chance to play it for a few hours (not much time for games these days). However, in the past week my system's gone completely crazy. Turned out it was due to SecuROM. I found the uninstaller utility and removed it, and now my system is behaving perfectly normally again. I liked what I managed to play of Bioshock, but unfortunately I'm not going to reinstall it again. It's a shame, really, because it seemed like a good game.
This guy's the limit!
I have almost beaten this game on the PC, and I must say that I truly love it. It's creepy, weird and under the ocean, so I've gotta give 2K some props for the concept. Those Big Daddies are horrifying tankers, loved'em to bits! The thing that I find most odd about this game is the text during loading screens. they were supposed to be quotes of various citizens talking about how things of gone down the tubes. I know that they were trying to capture some old-style slangy ways of talkin' , but damn the quoted text was so riddled with bad English that it sort of undermined the whole creepy feel of the game. I didn't let it get to me, but wow, it sure feels nice to share that with ya'll ;) Please reply if you felt the same way about those quotes. Great game IMHO!
SecureROM.
I really want this game. I've wanted it since before release, I've played the demo on an old machine, and it reminds me enough of System Shock (I and II both) that I really really want it!
However, it uses SecureROM. I contacted the company to see if this bug had been fixed yet, and they confirmed that no, it hadn't. As such, they're not getting my money. I can live without this game, if they're going to infect my computer in order to let me play it.
It's very simple:
If you're going to harm my computer, you don't get my money.
If you're going to require internet access/activation for a standalone game, you don't get my money.
If you're going to treat me like a criminal, you don't get my money.
Developers, it really is that simple.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Ah, nothing like developing for the lowest common denominator to screw potential!
--- Do you believe in the day?
Hmm... Game with a lot of back story, depth and complex mechanics, tested poorly with the focus group so they toned it right down to the more or less hand holding game that it was.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the game, and found it really accessible, however I would be interested to find out what got cut for the frustrated test group
I just finished it last week. It looked cool but even that was overrated. After you've seen the basic lighting/color scheme and art-deco look they're going to use, it doesn't vary a whole lot. All those mods and junk you could do to yourself was just boring, there was never a compelling reason to mess with any of it. Beyond that it was just the same game mechanic over and over again until it's over -- not even a good ending to the story they seemed so proud of! just my opinion, but overall in the year I've had an XBox, gears of war and portal have been the best games.
If they're actually paying attention to market research, they would've known that DRM completely kills it for a lot of (otherwise) PAYING customers.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I think of some of the gsmes I have paid good money for, some of which I beta tested, and I couldn't get in contact with anyone on the developmenbt team to give my ideas.
One company that just doesn't get it is Novalogic. Their Black Hawk Down franchise was groundbreaking and had some serious potential, but they just never solicited or even listened to feedback. A potentially great game with some easily-fixed flaws, but they just don't listen.
EA is the same way. All the cheating that still goes on with BF2, and they do nothing. Sad.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
....just after the first beta, the entire design team plus a contingent of 2K producers headed off to see how a group that knew nothing about our company or BioShock would react to the first level.
I think it is safe to say that what they played at that point was not the same game that we played after launch.
The Long Now Foundation
It's not about whether cracks are available. It's about whether cracks are necessary at all. I will not buy a game with draconian DRM, period. Purchasing the game then applying the crack to make the game playable just validates the habit of releasing defective products. Don't give them money for defective products.
It's really evident if you've played System Shock 2 beforehand. Bioshock is basically SS2: Simple Underwater Edition With Shit-Hot Graphics.
Every feature they didn't remove is taken straight from it, except easier and with more limited options. The hacking, research, vending machines, character customisation, one-time upgrade points, upgradeable weapons, psychic powers, the ghosts, the logs, the plot... It's all basically the same, but simpler. Even the big plot revelation is the same.
The whole thing stood to gain a lot from a little more sophistication in the gameplay; I think SS2 is the better game despite its dated graphics. I know what you're thinking - I'm some old fogey gamer with rose-tinted glasses - but I only got SS2 about six months before Bioshock.
Maybe the reviewers just had a different opinion from yours. Mine is about 180 degrees different from yours. I thought it was a fantastic game.
I just wish all the manufacturers would make demos available for all their games so we could each sort out what game we were probably going to enjoy or not before the purchase. You could have played the demo and known it wasn't the game for you, and I would have known it was well worth my money to go ahead and buy it.
It's pedantic, but their labeling this as "Machine Gun" kind of bummed me out. It gave me the Hollywood vibe of "any fully automatic weapon is a machine gun."
Machine Gun
Assault Rifle
Submachine Gun
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
This is probably what went wrong with it. The fact that they went to a group with 0 knowledge about them probably meant they also had 0 interest in games. They didn't even develop for LCD, they made up a whole new denomination to develop for!
This is becoming an increasing problem for games and movies. Early 90s when it just cost a few hundred grand to put out a game (if that), you could stick to how you liked it, shoot it through Q&A, and have at it. They didn't put games in front of large groups and ask "How would you make this?" (At least, to my knowledge.) That's exactly why the company is making the game--because these other guys aren't. So you get these awesome games that were awesome because it was just the company, not the masses, making the decision.
I'm not familiar with the authoring process, but if someone writes a book I don't think they send it to some "random" group (and by random, we mean people walking by who were willing to spend 15 minutes in exchange for ten bucks). They'll send it to a few trusted friends, people who's opinion they trust. They'll send it to their publisher, who will ship it between a few people, also in the know. They, people who have a trusted opinion or experience, will help make decisions.
Who here has played Portal? And have you played through in Commentary mode? If not, I highly recommend it. You get a lot of insight as to the development and planning phases. What you also get is a lot of comments about how they took this puzzle or that puzzle to a group and made changes based on that group. Most of these pieces of commentary talk about how they dumbed down the game because of feedback. Now, Portal was an amazing game. I also enjoyed Bioshock, though it had no replayability. But I often wonder how much more fun I would have had in Portal, had I been given the harder challenges.
Rather than ask "What can we cut from this", it should be "How can we better explain/show this". Other Portal comments talked about how the puzzles were changed to draw the player's focus to certain portions in order to make them more aware of how to complete a puzzle. This is what focus groups should be about. They should be with gamers of all ranges (yes, even some without experience), but responses shouldn't cut anything, just change the length, instructions, or other things to make it work.
I remember this big story about how you would physically change depending on choices, plasmids used, and more.
I hope the "hacking" portion was based off of focus groups, at least. Some idiot says "You know, this technobutt stuff is confusing. Can't it be something similar, like plumbing?" Letting focus groups make your decisions can only make a game worse, not better.
When you have a ton of money to spend on making a piece of media which needs to sell a lot of copies in a very short time to break even, then you spend a portion of that ton of money making sure everybody is jumping up and down with anticipation about it.
It's not always strictly true, but in general you won't go too far wrong following this rule of thumb: The bigger the hype, the more middling the game/movie/whatever will be, because BIG money doesn't like to take BIG risks, and so it doesn't. It's that simple. And the hype for Bioshock was VERY bought and paid for. You could see that from a mile away. It's too bad, because, as you say, there were some really excellent ideas bubbling in the stew of the marketing which could have been exploited but apparently, from what I've read about it, (I'm not a gamer anymore), were simply not and the few ideas which were followed were nothing particularly special. A middling, safe, high eye-candy game.
The best games I ever played, (back when I still played games), were sleeper hits or Part II's riding on the coat tails of previous sleeper hits. --Or they were not even hits at all, but just games I personally enjoyed. And such is life, and no complaints. People worked and learned and played and another day went by with something interesting to do. Not every experience is going to be stand-out amazing, otherwise nothing would stand out or amaze. Still, it's nice to know that around some future corner, right when you think you've seen it all, there will be another mind-blowing surprise you completely failed to anticipate. Life is infinitely complex and wonderful this way. It's why I love being alive so much!
-FL
If you're going to complain about the graphics, point out how the view out the windows should not be visibly wavering. Water doesn't work like that; you'd think with all the effort they put into the game they could have taken the time to see how large underwater windows at the local aquarium behave.
I assumed it was because Rapture was a seriously old and leaky underwater city. The water was actually streaming down the insides of the windows through cracks in the seals?
I might be wrong, It's prolly just in there coz "it looks coooooool".
Even if a DRM was magically unobtrusive, you'll still have lots of complex corner cases.
What if two different persons own the same computer (the family's computer) should they both be allowed to play (DRM restricts per computer) or should only the owner of the game ? But then how should it function for people with several computers (laptops on the move, desktop at home) ? And what about two kids who pool money to be able to buy together an otherwise too expensive game ? (I've actually done it when I was younger) etc...
And none of the above examples involved someone selling copies burned on DVD in some street black-market (which arguably is a more definite example of pirating).
You see, the question of who is an "evil pirate" and who is not isn't straigh-forward. Once you go in detail you either have to put arbitrary limitations and/or use a byzantine complex licensing scheme.
So even with a magic DRM, the DRM won't satisfy everybody.
And currently we don't have "magic" technology so good DRM are even more difficult to achieve.
Whereas, *not* using DRM doesn't require any skill that we don't posses already.
No, as I've often said before, DRM isn't the magic bullet that solve everything from piracy specially when getting the pirated software is only a torrent away.
Other models have to be found.
- If you manage to create enough dedicated fans some of them will be willing to pay for the game just because they like it.
- If you manage to create an incentive to buy the game maybe more people will do it (with proper packaging for exemple. The games I remember from when I was a kid always came with lots of things like maps, useful books, etc... - currently a game is just a CD/DVD slapped inside a soft plastic case along with a leaflet telling you to read or print the PDF on the disc if you really want some documentation - no added value between a bought game and a CD-R one burns oneself)
Or maybe some other means to get the revenue to the game maker have to be found. ... there's much success to be made if people would start thinking about better scheme to finance development.
- Ad-sponsored game may indeed have some future-
- Or donation supported development could maybe be feasible for some indie developper.
- Or resurect the shareware model like used by ID software back in the days (episode 1 of the game is free for everyone to share. Only pay it if you like it. And then you can buy the commercial episode 2 and 3 if the game is good and you're hooked to it).
Sadly, there are much more ressources dedicated to finding "better" DRMs (and often buying more "snake oil" in fact) than trying to find more efficient ways to get the money to the developers.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I bought Bioshock about a week after it was first released (largely because I found a $10 off sale on it at a local Circuit City, and figured all the hype plus the discount made it worth grabbing).
I have to agree that it could have been more compelling. To this day, I've never finished the game. I enjoyed it for a few hours, but ultimately, I felt like the mechanics made it too similar to many other 3D shooter type games I've played before. The graphics and sound f/x are outstanding. The concepts in the game like the plasmids, the little sisters, and the Big Daddies are great. But I spent too much time walking around the same rooms, trying to get to where I could unlock one lousy opening to see the next set of interesting things.
And honestly? I think the theme itself annoyed me, too. Initially, I was really thrilled that someone was making a game revolving around objectivism and Ayn Rand's beliefs. But then, it became clear it was trying to illustrate why such concepts were "bad" things, and would only lead to utter failure and despair.
I guess somehow, I'm just not buying the idea that all these great scientists *really* just wanted to escape the laws of the land so they could start injecting each other with substances that would cause permanent mutations, but giving them "super powers", etc. etc. Just because you're for progress and minimal government interference doesn't imply you've tossed ethics and morality aside.