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Jason Schreier: A look inside BioShock Infinite’s troubled development
Abriael_GN
RSI Employee of the Year
Still no arguments I see. Animated gifs are normally a prime signal of desperation.Sure lets go with that.
Papacheeks
Banned
I love that he cherry picked one of the worst managed studios in the industry. Everyone knew this game had tons of issues and it started at the top under Ken's leadership. We knew the minute Rod was hired to get the game gold was the big indicator.
Where is irrational games now? Where is ken now? Ken basically fell off the earth after Infinite. It was pretty well known the whole studio had issues, and a lot of it was organization and leadership.
Same issues CD PRJ has. And then you have studios like Insomniac, santa monica that seem to be able to have good work flows, and work efficiently. But obviously there is crunch. Jason is reporting on something that was super obvious a long time ago.
There are still large studios like this, rockstar has a ton of issues. 343 is another one that seems to have similar issues. But he paints this broad stroke in the way he describes these instances. FOr all the dysfunctional studios/ management, there are studios like Gureilla Games, Insomniac, Flying Wild Hog, Housemarque who all seem very capable of working on multiple projects at a time.
He reports on these and really it's obvious the issues are more to do with Project management/ and higher ups than the industry enforcing/creating environments of crunch. I would of had a different view if this was PS3/PS2 era where games had to be content complete for the most part much sooner.
But with the way patches and bug fixes can be done, it gives a little reprieve to developers. But also makes it that they are working longer past the games launch to fix/support the title after working long ass hours to get the game to completion.
Jason cherry picks obvious studios with known issues throughout the industry, and honestly nothing special about these.
Love to see him try to spin other studios who are very efficient for having too much crunch.
Where is irrational games now? Where is ken now? Ken basically fell off the earth after Infinite. It was pretty well known the whole studio had issues, and a lot of it was organization and leadership.
Same issues CD PRJ has. And then you have studios like Insomniac, santa monica that seem to be able to have good work flows, and work efficiently. But obviously there is crunch. Jason is reporting on something that was super obvious a long time ago.
There are still large studios like this, rockstar has a ton of issues. 343 is another one that seems to have similar issues. But he paints this broad stroke in the way he describes these instances. FOr all the dysfunctional studios/ management, there are studios like Gureilla Games, Insomniac, Flying Wild Hog, Housemarque who all seem very capable of working on multiple projects at a time.
He reports on these and really it's obvious the issues are more to do with Project management/ and higher ups than the industry enforcing/creating environments of crunch. I would of had a different view if this was PS3/PS2 era where games had to be content complete for the most part much sooner.
But with the way patches and bug fixes can be done, it gives a little reprieve to developers. But also makes it that they are working longer past the games launch to fix/support the title after working long ass hours to get the game to completion.
Jason cherry picks obvious studios with known issues throughout the industry, and honestly nothing special about these.
Love to see him try to spin other studios who are very efficient for having too much crunch.
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Revolutionary
Member
This is just an advertisement for his new book.
Tripolygon
Banned
Still no arguments I see. Animated gifs are normally a prime signal of desperation.
Ezquimacore
Banned
I didn't really mind him before but I'm starting to hate this guy and his TMZ trash "journalism"
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Piss up a rope Jason.
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
Bioshock infinite is great especially when you’re high.
Elder Legend
Banned
I am just here to say.
Fuck you Jason Schreier if you are reading this. I cannot stand you and you are a fucking pussy cunt bitch. I hope someone writes a story on you on how much of a fucking cunt you are. Fucking piece of shit.
Fuck you Jason Schreier if you are reading this. I cannot stand you and you are a fucking pussy cunt bitch. I hope someone writes a story on you on how much of a fucking cunt you are. Fucking piece of shit.
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Yeah, there are lots of differences, but they still used the original concept nonethless, but I didn't know that the game was rebooted so many times. At least the game was great tho.
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Hugare
Member
Some of you read "Schreier" and then procees to act like fucking retarded monkeys
Read the damn piece and make your own mind as a grown adult would
It mentions crunch, yes, but its based on testimonies from people that worked there at the time. And its not the focus.
"It's a 2013 game", who cares? If its an interesting piece about the troubled development of a very critically acclaimed videogame.
Read the damn piece and make your own mind as a grown adult would
It mentions crunch, yes, but its based on testimonies from people that worked there at the time. And its not the focus.
"It's a 2013 game", who cares? If its an interesting piece about the troubled development of a very critically acclaimed videogame.
SF Kosmo
Banned
Jason has spent years cultivating contacts in countless major studios and his stuff is always backed by dozens of inside sources.
Very few people in games journalism do that. Tight deadlines, low pay, and the fact that most have no journalistic training makes that really uncommon.
Information about game development is usually very controlled and there's a really incestuous relationship between game publishers and game journalism. Schreier actually does real research instead of being a mouthpiece for game publishers to do PR.
Abriael_GN
RSI Employee of the Year
That's such a naive view.
You forgot to specify "dozens of inside sources." (actually much less than "dozens") that he has no responsibility whatsoever to back up because he only writes with outlets that require no accountability in exchange for clicks. Bloomberg is a perfect example. They've been peddling anonymous sources to support all kinds of crap for a decade. Easy to have sources that you don't need to prove, and even easier to cherry-pick them. If you think writing "hey, I talked with 10 people. Please believe me" is "backing," then you should check out the meaning of the word in a dictionary, because it doesn't mean what you think it means.
Everyone who has worked in the gaming industry for a while has tons of contacts. Not everyone is so scummy that they think it's ok to take advantage of those contacts to pursue agendas.
Anyone with a bit of critical thinking can see through Schreier's hit pieces. His sources NEVER disagree with each other. They all support the same narrative and paint the same picture. Anyone who has even remote contacts at a game studio with more than 20 employees knows that this is simply impossible unless one cherry-picks only the sources that are convenient to their narrative. Something as personal and sensitive as perception of work conditions is way too subjective to usually receive a homogenous picture in large studios unless you discard all sources that you disagree with.
This isn't "research." It's clear-cut dishonest political propaganda. Unfortunately, even in wider journalism, too many confuse the two nowadays.
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NickFire
Member
Imagine a world where Nintendo kept re-releasing a game. But instead of upgrading it or remaking it for a new console, they just changed Mario and Luigi's names and released the same thing over and over.
That's what his "reporting" feels like to me these days. I see his name, and I say to myself that its probably a complaint about mean old crunch at some different company than the last piece. Check a couple posts, confirm the expectation, laugh, and wait for the next day when the cycle starts over.
Sorry not sorry, but making a career of complaining that people have to work hard warrants a sensible chuckle now and then,
Isa
Member
The man is a complete tool. But what else is new? Its crazy to think just how much better life is compared to the 80's and 90's game development. Hearing and reading interviews from old devs is profound. But one takeaway I always had is that they were paid well and they are proud of the work they did. That's badass man, its a battle against time and budget. And to be able to look back on your struggle and know you created f'n art that can last ages and impacted other developers and more, well its inspiring.
In regards to Bioshock Infinite, yes it was known it had issues. I still really enjoyed my time with it. Not as much as the first, but it was quite good. Also, as a pervy nerd, gotta thank them for creating Elizabeth, who has been a pretty popular model for SFM pr0ns for a good few years now. Totally brings that Disney Belle style or whatever her name was from The Beauty and the Beast.
In regards to Bioshock Infinite, yes it was known it had issues. I still really enjoyed my time with it. Not as much as the first, but it was quite good. Also, as a pervy nerd, gotta thank them for creating Elizabeth, who has been a pretty popular model for SFM pr0ns for a good few years now. Totally brings that Disney Belle style or whatever her name was from The Beauty and the Beast.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman
leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
this aint it chief
Papacheeks
Banned
Context is key here for this piece in his book which is from a studio with known issues during a gen where lots of companies/studios fell, and a lot of it was trying to get correct workflows for the HD generation. We still have studios with poor project management. But also have tons of studios smaller making games with smaller teams, and making them in half the time.
Which I've never seen Jason bring up or talk about because successful studios probably dont want to talk to him, or it doesn't fit his narrative. He mostly talks to people from troubled projects that historically have had troubles with previous projects. But the successful studios making games with great leaderships that have good project management skills dont get brought up or credited.
A.Romero
Member
Anyone thinking that Jason actually does due diligence when writing an article should go to Halo Infinite's thread where the person that was a source for Jason's article had to come out and clarify that shit wasn't exactly as Jason described.
When an anonymous source is "quoted" you have to keep in mind that that source might not exist and if it does most likely he/she wouldn't come out to say that the information shared with the journalist wasn't properly relayed or transferred to the article or the source would stop to be anonymous.
What just happened with Days Gone controversy is a perfectly good example of how perception and agenda can twist facts.
When an anonymous source is "quoted" you have to keep in mind that that source might not exist and if it does most likely he/she wouldn't come out to say that the information shared with the journalist wasn't properly relayed or transferred to the article or the source would stop to be anonymous.
What just happened with Days Gone controversy is a perfectly good example of how perception and agenda can twist facts.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Anytime dirt digging or market research comes out, people should always look into the source, sample size, and if possible (although probably impossible to know unless you did the questioning) is what was asked in its entirety.
I'll give all you guys a a quick lesson in market research feedback:
- Companies usually hire big companies to do it involving big money
- The marketing department and research company will work together on a goal and set out questions to ask people based on user testing or perception testing
- After 6-12 months, result come in and the marketing department will share it internally:
1. Only if there's good feedback
2. They can cherry pick enough good answers to form a narrative
The research might involve 40 questions, but they'll only tell people at the office the 12 questions people gave 9/10 and 10/10 scores. All other questions which showed the company or brand or item in a bad light they never bring up.
I guess I'm the luckiest worker ever because every big company I've worked at somehow every brand is numero uno in consumer tests. And if tomorrow I change companies, every market research test going forward will magically change to #1 best rated again. And my previous company just changed to #2 or #3 all because of me.
The fewer questions revealed internally the more cherry picking. I've seens tests scores where only 3-4 questions were publicly revealed. So you're telling me in 10 months and $100,000 in costs all you did was ask people 3-4 questions and they all scored an avg of 9.2/10?
Gimme a break cherry pickers. Lets see the other 30 questions you asked and what you didn't reveal.
Now take what I wrote above and reverse it where Jason S looks for the bad review narratives and ignores positive feedback. And it's the same shit, but the other way.
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NinjaMouse
Member
Lol...he could literally pick any game, I bet, and reuse this title and "content" over and over again.
I'll be shocked when this clown writes an expose on "A Look Inside <GameX>'s Unbelievably Trouble-Free Development".
I'll be shocked when this clown writes an expose on "A Look Inside <GameX>'s Unbelievably Trouble-Free Development".
Abriael_GN
RSI Employee of the Year
Those who blabber about "research," Wanna know what actual "research" in gaming journalism looks like?
Writing about smaller games that aren't pushed by big PR or big publishers, and other outlets ignore, that your readers may not know about and may enjoy knowing about (which for instance includes every Japanese game besides Final Fantasy, Persona, and a few more popular franchises). Giving their developers a voice with coverage and interviews.
That's exactly what Schreier never does because it's not sensational enough and Bloomberg wouldn't let him anyway. It doesn't work well enough as clickbait.
Writing about smaller games that aren't pushed by big PR or big publishers, and other outlets ignore, that your readers may not know about and may enjoy knowing about (which for instance includes every Japanese game besides Final Fantasy, Persona, and a few more popular franchises). Giving their developers a voice with coverage and interviews.
That's exactly what Schreier never does because it's not sensational enough and Bloomberg wouldn't let him anyway. It doesn't work well enough as clickbait.
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HoodWinked
Member
Ya Bioshock infinite is one of those games that the woke cult really turned hard on so this kind of revisionism to make this as problematic as possible down to it's development means they're fulfilling thier duty as a member of the cult. Jason continues to be a one trick pony.
Papacheeks
Banned
Playing devils advocate under Ken Levine Irrational has had nothing but issues as a studio. WHich is why it was ripped apart by higher ups at 2k and rebuilt with new teams and management.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Is this really true when his last two big pieces were on CD Project and Naughty Dog? Both are very successful studios.
LectureMaster
Gold Member
Not even gonna click.
What's the fucking point rather than making himself money to exploit the development of am eight year old game when the developer was gone ?
Guy is just a slippery fox, have his deeds done any positive thing to the gaming industry?
What's the fucking point rather than making himself money to exploit the development of am eight year old game when the developer was gone ?
Guy is just a slippery fox, have his deeds done any positive thing to the gaming industry?
Papacheeks
Banned
You got to read. Both studios have heavy uses of contract workers, and a lot of bloat when it comes to project management. UNCHARTED 4 was restarted mid prouction, and Amy heniq left after that. CDPRJ has Project Managment issues and same goes a little with Naughty Dog. But naughty dog also has the best talent in the world when it comes to animators.
Insomniac, SSM, Flying Wild Hog, Rebellion, house marque seem to have good project management when it comes to output at a good timeline.
CDPRJ red's last game was in 2015. And they were almost double the size now. And a lot of that is contract. 343 also has similar issues. When I say successful I dont meant critically or commercially I mean in terms of efficiency/Project management.
You will not see in any of Jason's articles or books talk about established studios that have good project management which I would rope Super Giant Games into.
Large companies like rockstar have tons of bloat and that also comes from top down management.
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TKOFromTokyo
Member
Amen brother, I work in SEC reporting. I know the pain.
harmny
Banned
It was demoralizing to put weeks of your life into something only to watch it get flushed down the drain. “It is tough when stuff gets cut or changed dramatically that people have worked on for months,” said Dowling. “That was definitely a thing that happened a lot at Irrational.”
“You spend a lot of time and put your heart and soul into something just to have it disappear in the span of a meeting,” said Bill Gardner, who had helped lead the multiplayer team. “You never really get over that.”
Lol these people should leave the creative industry immediately. The first thing you learn is to accept that things change and not to take that personally.
If ken levine said do this and they spend weeks doing it and then he comes and say yeah you know what throw that away and you can't get over that this is not a field of work for you. Or maybe they should be independent developers. Or go work for call of duty or some company that makes the same game every year.
Jason seems to think making a game is like baking a cake. You just follow the recipe and everything works. It's nothing like that.
Thank God he doesn't cover the film industry this literally happens everyday and it happens even more now that you can do whatever you want with vfx
“You spend a lot of time and put your heart and soul into something just to have it disappear in the span of a meeting,” said Bill Gardner, who had helped lead the multiplayer team. “You never really get over that.”
Lol these people should leave the creative industry immediately. The first thing you learn is to accept that things change and not to take that personally.
If ken levine said do this and they spend weeks doing it and then he comes and say yeah you know what throw that away and you can't get over that this is not a field of work for you. Or maybe they should be independent developers. Or go work for call of duty or some company that makes the same game every year.
Jason seems to think making a game is like baking a cake. You just follow the recipe and everything works. It's nothing like that.
Thank God he doesn't cover the film industry this literally happens everyday and it happens even more now that you can do whatever you want with vfx
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Upper_Management
Member
Agree with you 100% on that.
Jason has zero clue on what goes into making a game. He capitalizes on the negatives, the burn-out, crunch time, disgruntled folks and those with an axe to grind.... etc. I mentioned it earlier but I highly doubt an article about the studio that has a successful work life balance, turned around their schedule/crunch, or just an awesome studio in general would garner the article clicks. I don't think it exists within him to put in the effort to write a positive article. Watching Jaffe give him the business recently was very satisfying.
MR ARCADE FOREVER
Member
Someone tell Soychreier how crunch works at a socialist /communist country
EverythingsOverrated
Member
I assume this chapter was shared since the dev issues for Bioshock Infinite are very widely known. Not exactly breaking news, I originally thought this was a bumped old thread when I saw it on the front page.
I'll probably end up reading this new book. The last one was solid. Schreier obviously has a bias when it comes to covering the industry regardless I still find the stories interesting
I'll probably end up reading this new book. The last one was solid. Schreier obviously has a bias when it comes to covering the industry regardless I still find the stories interesting
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
I am so lost here. So ND isnt successful anymore because they outsourced? What does that have to do with anything? And Jason did cover the Amy Henning departure in his first book. Thats where we got the details on Uncharted 4 being restarted. Even by your own metrics of efficiency, ND is one of the more productive studios this gen with 3 games this gen and 5 in the last 10 years.
SSM has good management? Did you not know about their AAA new IP that was canned in 2014 after 4 years in development under Stig Aasmussen? 4 years of wasted dev time by their A team no less. They actually had layoffs after that.
Regardless, I am so confused about why you want the ONLY investigative journalist to waste his time doing puff pieces for studios when 99.99% of the gaming websites and youtube channels are already doing that. Dont we always complain about publishers paying off reviews and websites? And you want this guy to do that too? Why should we applaud good management anyway as if its some amazing thing that needs to be celebrated? That's literally their job. Should the janitor at Insomniac get an article because he cleaned the restrooms every night like hes supposed to?
This article is a fantastic look at how games fall into these same traps time and time again. An egoistic director who changes entire levels on a whim throwing away months of development. A culture of mandatory crunch necessitated by poor upper management. This is still happening in the industry as shown by Jason's recent reporting on Cyberpunk and to a lesser extent TLOU2. I really dont see why this is not worth covering.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
The Schrier hate on this board is ridiculous. We arent even critiquing his articles anymore. Just questioning why hes even covering this stuff now. lol
The funny thing is that this forum hates Cybperunk and TLOU2 with a passion, and Jason was the first and only one to ring alarm bells on those games. His article on TLOU2 mentioned how the new characters were focus testing so poorly, they had to redo entire levels and rewrite some stuff. His pre-release articles on Cyberpunk warned everyone that this game was a year away from launch. Both were dismissed because 'anonymous sources' but they ended up being right on the mark.
Make up your minds people.
TheMay30thMan
Member
Old news. Ken Levine already spoke on the troubled development of Bioshock Infinite and its place in the events that lead to the closure of Irrational Games. If Jason did even the smallest amount of investigative journalism, he would have known that.
Papacheeks
Banned
I mean you should listen to Jaffe talk about a lot of stuff that was cut from God of war and twisted metal reboot. It sucks but he understands deadlines, and project management. Sometimes things get chopped. It's part of the process. But in Ken Levine's case, he was very manic and not a good manager. So thats why that studio brought Rod in to get it where it needed to be and keep people on deadline/schedule.
Papacheeks
Banned
There's a difference in being successful and at what cost. Last of us part 2 had over 1200 people working on it up till it's release. That is insane.
And most of it was contract work. So when it comes to project management, you can have shitty environments that has people crunching like crazy because workflow and leadership keep shifting and changing. My point is most of what Jason reports on is stuff that is known through the studios history .
He never adds references to studios with great project management just the ones where it's more than obvious there's tons of issues. Which is why people like Corey Barlog, even Neil Druckman call him out. Naughty Dog's production was overly bloated, and that could come down to it's size of scope or, that the project didn't start actually coming together till much later in it's production. WHich is a sign that the project was mismanaged or didn't have clear idea of what is was.
Cory literally had working systems WITHIN less than 2 years. It may have only been a created slice, but it was using the systems they had built when they showed it in 2016.
Stig's project if you actually looked into it, didn't meet multiple deadlines, and wasn't even in a playble state after many years in development. SO they cancelled it brought in corey, he had a story idea for god of war and they started on it, brand new camera system, brand new combat system and had something working within 12 months that they then polished to take to E3.
That is being efficient, and look at where the studio is now? Ask Jaffee if SSM is good at project management. The fact Sony axed it early on and started another project shows good studio management regardless if it sucks stig's game was canned.
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Stooky
Banned
It would be worth covering by someone that understands game development.
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Bartski
Gold Member
Schreier deserves a lot of the flak he's getting but this is a rather good read, and validated years back by Levine's himself and his comments on Irrational's demise.
If they weren't even in alpha a year before the release it's rather telling. I was super hyped for Infinite and very disappointed by the game, I thought it was alright but the action just reeked of cut corners.
If they weren't even in alpha a year before the release it's rather telling. I was super hyped for Infinite and very disappointed by the game, I thought it was alright but the action just reeked of cut corners.
CamHostage
Member
The book isn't out yet. I would be surprised if Scheier did not have a chapter, in a book about crunch, that talked with some of the studios that have tried to mitigate crunch in their workforce. That would be an incredibly worthwhile chapter, in investigating companies that are trying to do things differently, and in observing what has and has not been successful in those new methods.
But you're right, that is an interest of his, the downsides of working in something seemingly as exciting and creatively expressive and lucrative as the gaming industry. And you're right, you don't get book deals pitching happy stories about people who wanted to make a thing, went happily ahead and made a thing without incident or challenge, and released that thing to great acclaim and more happiness. Jason covers the strife of the gaming industry. That's his beat. It's coverage that can be hard as hell, because there is a powerful wall of silence closing off access to the big leads, and meanwhile there are lots of bitter people in or ejected from game development, so to do it, you have to have the connections and you have to have the security backing to be slower than the news cycle (tweets can be interesting but acutely myopic in scope/timeline and of course one-sided.) You can fuck up badly telling a story that you think you have enough facts to go off of, because the people up top with all the info in hand will never give an inch if they can help it, so you never have 100% of what you wish you could work with. Bosses like Barlog and Druckmann and Jaffee can keep shut up like a safe when a writer is looking to extract info, then when the piece goes up without their input, they can pick nits with whatever detail puts their company in a bad light, sometimes without even providing contradictory facts that disprove it, just using a voice of authority to throw into question aspects of the article which are a matter of perspective and/or are not unfactual. (BTW, I actually don't see contrary storytelling from any of these three? Barlog, Druckmann, and Jaffee aren't high on being in Scheier's ink, but I haven't seen them actually contradict the reporting? Jaffee's narrative has mostly been, "Yeah, there's crunch, so fucking what, we all just do what has to be done to make cool shit," which is quite a statement but isn't really an opposing viewpoint.) And then, that difficult work comes out as negative pieces, which are of no use to your typical gaming kid who just wants to know when the next Call of Duty can be bought, nor are they much of a revelation to those in the industry who have heard this all before, and in aggregate (especially in a relative vacuum of similar content) they can read like a constant stream of dark news with no bright light to look forward to. There are all kinds of reasons why not many people do this, or why most of the game industry reporting (including post-mortems from the people who made the games themselves, though even those are usually given as much of a positive spin as possible since they're sort of PR in diary form for the studio) is left to off-the-beltway, rarely-quoted sites like Gamasutra.
You Papacheeks, or anybody else on this forum, is welcome to be the alternative voice to Jason Scheier, sharing your investigations into the inner workings and complexity of the video game industry. The world could use it. Good luck to you in making it happen.
Papacheeks
Banned
I think it all depends. Jaffee throws shade at Jason, not that he isn't a great journalist, he is. His reporting is always for the most part on point, and always backed. The issue is he himself has never worked on software development. ANd until you work on a project for months on end, that literally can break when adding and update to the engine that runs your NPC code, he needs to be a little more open to looking at the other side. Cory Barlog called him out on him tearing down the overall celebration of completing a project like God of war that more than likely had a ton of crunch building up to launch.
Jason disregarded comments by Cory and Neil because they come from a place of power in terms of their position within their respected studios. I think Jason doesn't take into account people like Jaffe, Barlog, even neil to his erly career all came from the bottom up. Specifically cory and JAFFE who both came from working in the trenches on mechanics, animation lead. So they know what crunch is, they know about prject managment and how in the PS2-PS3 days it was hell.
It was wild west and documentation on going from PS2-PS3 was not good, and also you had workloads changing from SD-HD so new tools, engine, and workflows had to be created. And that is daunting when your dont have great communication with the Parent company. Which is what happened during that era, which people like Ken Levine were part of which added to Irrational Studios having project issues and releasing on 360 first.
But then you look at the titles under Santa Monica and they are produced at a pretty good clip, and obviously leadership which Jaffe talks about was all top notch. So that trickles down into the overall scheduling of the project. I rarely see him talk about the success stories. ANd thank god we have someone like Danny O'dyer with //NO CLIP.
I'm not underplaying his writing or his book which I hear blood,sweat and pixels is fantastic. But all of his people he talks to are either starving worked to the bone indie developers, or people from big studios with a history of bloat or mismanagement.
Which is why I'm happy for people like Jaffe. He is interviewing people that Jason should start making relationships with not calling people liar's or disingenuous. But because of this whole woke Social justice BS people think because of some bad tweets /rants that jaffe is a alt right or whatever.
Jason has aligned himself with resetera and their whole "movement", which at some point is going to make them all look like fools and also any company that has been bending the knee to ridiculous shit.
I hope Jaffe, Danny, and to an extent Jason continue. But I think Jason will always report and support the people that wont question his reporting. His ego needs to be checked.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I watched part of the Jaffe/Days Gone guy interview. And it was good from what I saw. You got Jaffe and that guy talking games, development, market research studies, etc....
Now if Jason S with his supposedly giant resume of contacts and veteran journalism skills could do some entertaining and informative Q&A with people like the Days Gone guy who sat there for like 3 hours answering anything Jaffe asked, just imagine how much better the content would be from Jason.
Problem is, he thrives on combative and desperate environments for material from unknown sources which can be anything from imaginary friends to a sample size of one person. Then tries to massage his article to make it sound like all 200 people think the same. He might had actually talked to someone. Thats's fine. It could be a real opinion. But if his article is based on 3 people and one of them was a summer intern, I wouldnt' put too much stock into his bonfire articles. If he never wants to tell and source for people who he contacted and how many people he interviewed from that 200 person team, he's got nothing to on.
That's no different than my office which has around the same number of people, someone asks a current or ex-coworker what it's like, the person says it's crap, and then that interviewer will blanket the other 199 current workers and 500 other ex-employees feel the same? Thats not how it works.
Going by his articles, you'd think every gaming employee is batting 1.000 saying working at a game maker sucks. I guess that's true since he never posts responses from people saying the company is decent or great to work at. I never knew that! lol
But just because you're in media doesn't mean you have to be relegated to an ambulance chaser attitude. Have some integrity and chat with a real person on screen on a podcast or YT stream.
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Barakov
Gold Member
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
Dang, I have to read the whole book to get the whole story about Irrational?
I really don't like Jason Schreier but I want to know what went wrong with Bioshock Infinite, easily the biggest disappointment in gaming to me, I was beyond hyped for that game, I was literally counting the days in the few months before it's release.
And while at first I was blown away, by the end I left disappointed, my big issue with the game was that it never really "opened up" like I kept waiting for it to, for me the core of Bioshock is freely exploring a set of maps, Infinite is almost entirely linear, not at all what I was hoping for or expecting, to make matters worse literally nothing we saw in the early trailers made it into the final game as is, you could tell it was a game that had been quickly assembled out of random pieces, having great moments and elements but never coalescing into a great whole, never quite gelling like the first game did.
The cherry on top being that the story doesn't make much sense, the DLC patched things up a bit, as well as being better than the main game, the DLC felt like the Bioshock follow up I had been waiting for, but the story for Infinite still isn't great, though it has weirdly aged well in some respects (not to get political, but the events of the game are kind of eerie to look back on after these last 8 years)
It's just crazy to me what happened, the original Bioshock is one of my all time favorite games, how does a studio go from that level of success to closure in several years? I miss Irrational, I miss Bioshock and I miss Ken Levine.
What's weird is I had a premonition once that Bioshock Infinite was going to disappoint, maybe it was just because it kept getting hit with delays, but history later repeated itself with Cyberpunk 2077, when a game keeps getting hit with delays that's a sign that something has gone wrong.
I really don't like Jason Schreier but I want to know what went wrong with Bioshock Infinite, easily the biggest disappointment in gaming to me, I was beyond hyped for that game, I was literally counting the days in the few months before it's release.
And while at first I was blown away, by the end I left disappointed, my big issue with the game was that it never really "opened up" like I kept waiting for it to, for me the core of Bioshock is freely exploring a set of maps, Infinite is almost entirely linear, not at all what I was hoping for or expecting, to make matters worse literally nothing we saw in the early trailers made it into the final game as is, you could tell it was a game that had been quickly assembled out of random pieces, having great moments and elements but never coalescing into a great whole, never quite gelling like the first game did.
The cherry on top being that the story doesn't make much sense, the DLC patched things up a bit, as well as being better than the main game, the DLC felt like the Bioshock follow up I had been waiting for, but the story for Infinite still isn't great, though it has weirdly aged well in some respects (not to get political, but the events of the game are kind of eerie to look back on after these last 8 years)
It's just crazy to me what happened, the original Bioshock is one of my all time favorite games, how does a studio go from that level of success to closure in several years? I miss Irrational, I miss Bioshock and I miss Ken Levine.
What's weird is I had a premonition once that Bioshock Infinite was going to disappoint, maybe it was just because it kept getting hit with delays, but history later repeated itself with Cyberpunk 2077, when a game keeps getting hit with delays that's a sign that something has gone wrong.
Jebron
Member
Fuck Jason, I refuse to give him any clicks. I got blocked by him years ago for suggesting he stop calling out individual developers (they were getting harassed because of an article he wrote) and got insta-blocked. I hope one day the industry cancels his ass and I never hear about him ever again.
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