Q&A: Irrational's Ken Levine on the Take-Two takeover

This has to be one of the most humorous interviews I've read of a game developer! Funny chap. Not very detailed though, or perhaps thats intentional.

This is very unlikely to be a positive turn of events. As others have commented, Large Companies tend to stifle 'creative' and 'original' in favor of 'formulaic' and 'mainstream', and end up making 'repetitive' and 'boring'. Right on the heels of this comes the announcement that Disney bought Pixar. It's looking like 2006 is going to be "The Year the Independent Developer Died".

i cant see much going rong with this deal as take 2 are pretty dependable and irrational are a good developer. I think ur rong about deus ex 2 as i felt it rocked much harder then the original

Zippy, I understand what you are saying, but I think you have misinterpreted what I was saying. Certainly, I would never state emphatically that a larger company buying up a smaller company always leads to both being better off. EA ultimately paid the price for not giving those developers their autonomy. EA would have been better off simply lending its expertise in marketing and distribution; that is what they do in Japan. With regards to risk; every game, even a sequel, is a risk. Even EA's coveted sports game have a risk associated with them. Of course, EA (or any game company) has to take a number of factors that have an impact on risk into consideration when it makes a sequel to one of its games. For example, how do they get people who have never played Madden Football to try it for the first time? And, how do they do this without alienating the hard-core fans? It has to be a tough thing to try to meet the whims and fancies of every player. And, yes, EA will probably go with things that present the least of amount of risk for their long running franchises--if that is what gamers demand. Besides, it is not true that EA doesn't take big risks. The James Bond game Everything or Nothing was a big risk for a company like EA in my opinion. The almost completely re-did the concept of a James Bond game. Granted their other JB games weren't well received, but the FPS genre was popular (still is) at that time. It would have been far safer to stay in that genre in my opinion. Also, EA recently formed a publishing deal with Valve (Half Life 2). Do you think Valve was stupid enough to enter into an agreement with EA that didn't let them maintain 100% creative control? With the success that Valve has had, EA would be stupid to tamper with Valve's products. Sorry, this has gotten to be longer than I intended. In summary, I was just arguing against the notion that a smaller company being bought by a larger company is ALWAYS bad.

kaito2 I disagree with you disagreeing,most of the time larger companies pave over everythign everyone like about a game ,they either kill game lines like EA( Dungeon Keeper and CLive barkers undieing) or make piss poor seaqules like Dues ex 2.....(Quake 4 coems to mind but raven is a middel company) *L* mabye is the misconseption. BTW how many comapnies take calculated risks it seems most US based games are a clone of soemthign and the japanase made ones are so off the wall not that many pll can stand them >

I disagree with the notion that a larger company buying up a smaller company is always a bad thing. Many times, smaller companies make some really cool games, but don't have the marketing muscle of a larger company. Think of it this way: you can make the greatest game in the world, but if nobody knows it exists your out of luck. Further, putting all your eggs into one basket, so to speak, for a small company could be sucide. Bigger companies generally have bigger budgets, allowing them to take calculated risks on games more often than a smaller company can. Larger companies generally buy up smaller companies because they like what they do, not to change them into something completely different. It doesn't make sense to acquire an even somewhat successful smaller company, replace the staff, and change the types of games they make. The larger company would be better off hiring additional staff instead of purchasing another company. I really see this as a win-win for the companies involved, as well as gamers.

Generally speaking, it does hurt the innovation of small developers to be bought up by a larger one, but it isn't always bad. Bigger budgets and an increased staff are always a good thing. Oh, Firefly is rad.

hoprfully they will continue to make some good games

"I don't, as a rule, kiss and tell" If I recall correctly, that's a quote from the TV series Firefly. Heheh. "Kiss and tell" is a saying that goes WAY back dude!!!

It's quite possible that Take-Two recognizes that Irrational's street-cred will tank the instant management mucks about with content and will stick to funding, publishing, and marketing. The fan base is relatively high-brow, as a rule, and isn't going to be patient/ignorant/gullible enough to tolerate generic crap for long. Of course, such a positive outcome assumes Take-Two isn't populated completely by halfwits and fiends, a rarity in the corporate world.

About Tribes:V. VU just didn'y understand that Tribes take a long time to be sucessful. Sure...Tribes community was very negative agaisnt Tribes:V, but it's nothing compared tu uproar that Tribes2 caused. Compared to it Tribes:V was accepcted with open arms. it took long time and numerous tweaks for Tribes community to embrace the train wreck known as Tribes2. The same would be true for Vengeance, but I guess Vivendi just didn't have the patience to wait. Anyway, I'm worried. I love Irrational games, but let's be honest..SystemShock2, freedomForce, SWAT4, Tribes:V..all those games are very PC-centric. Sure..Bioshock is still in development, but when TakeTwo bought IG this game was already far into development, so it would be pointless to mess with it. But all those IG games could be made only ac primary PC titles, if taketwo shifts those guys into console-centric or even "we're making PC and console versions at the same time" focus...we will never see stuff like SS2, FF or SWAT4 for them again. Shame to see another great dev being bought up. it never improves developer, at most it just leaves them the same, in most cases it causes them to degenerate. But I guess publishers are arming themselves before next-gen and PC gaming is the only place wher there actualy are some good devs to buy(in console market almost all good devs are already owned by publisher). Oh..well in the worst case those guys will just leave Irrational and start a new company

I hope the first guy gets smacked across the head with a keyboard.

IG_EdgeTurn: ?Vengeance was well-reviewed, despite what the fan community thought of it. It was a great game, just not exactly the game that Tribes fans wanted." Exactly, which is why it only sold 47,000 copies in North America. As Morgan Webb said, "...why did they have to mess with the multiplayer?"

"I don't, as a rule, kiss and tell" If I recall correctly, that's a quote from the TV series Firefly. Heheh.

I sure wish he still wrote his column in Computer Games Magazine... =( He has some great things to say.

Yeah, from what I can remember Tribes was critically acclaimed.

Now that they have a new owner, I hope that they get another Freedom Force in development. It is the only superhero game that I have found a joy to play on the PC.

good, maybe at least it won't put the "Rockstar" name....... maybe.

It's certainly a fun game. Worth whatever couple of dollars it'll cost these days. This new direction for Irrational sounds like it may yield good results, but let's hope they do not change to "Rockstar East" or some similar nonsense.

Vengeance was well-reviewed, despite what the fan community thought of it. It was a great game, just not exactly the game that Tribes fans wanted.

Widespread acclaim for Tribes: Vengeance? It was panned by most fans of the series (and even some reviewers, notably Morgan Webb of X-Play).

Funny guy, but could he be a bit more vague?

[This message was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator]