On the Hot Seat: BioShock's Ken Levine

Can't stand the heat, Levine? Get out of the Crispy kitchen.
3/21/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

Man, I've been there. I was a screenwriter. The money, the hot women, the whole thing. Game making is a different medium. The reason I'm in games, let's be honest, is that I failed as a screenwriter. The form of games, it's all brand new. Working on games is what Hollywood must have been like in 1915. We're all still figuring it out, and that's exciting.

Crispy Gamer: At best, writing is an afterthought in most games -- yet, BioShock features some truly terrific writing. [Editor's note: It won the Best Writing Award at this year's Game Developer Choice Awards.] Tell me a little about the writing process involved in BioShock.

Levine: I did a lot of writing on the game, yes. But I'm lazy. Everything was always very last-minute. The whole thing was really born out of an ongoing dialogue between the artists, the designers and myself. We'd inspire each other. Working on a game is not like writing a novel. I don't sit down and just come up with everything. Example: The Gatherer's Garden machines. I remember a meeting I had where I said, "OK, here's what I want them to look like," and I described them to the artists. They went off and came back with that great design, with the soda-machine area in the middle. Later, I remember we were recording dialogue for the game, and I was working with one of the voice actors, a woman, and I wrote a song on the spot, the little jingle that comes out of the machines. I had her record it, and that's what's in the game. So much was done in the moment, at the very last second.

Crispy Gamer: During the development of BioShock, was there a sense that you were making a balls-out, transcendent piece of software here?

Levine: I'd say that there was a sense that we were doing something different here, yes. We thought, We're really taking a leap of faith. Who knows how this is going to turn out? Our wives and significant others were very patient with us. My wife is a very patient woman, bless her heart.

And, you know, beyond that, credit 2K Games, too, for greenlighting the project. Here's a truth: No marketing guy ever got fired for greenlighting a licensed property that failed. But the tombstones of marketing guys are all along the game development highway for those who greenlit projects like [BioShock] that didn't work out.

For example, consider the whole concept of the Little Sisters. You're basically holding a child and having to decide if you're going to save her or kill her. They never said, "Are you f***ing kidding me?" They never put up a single creative block.

Really, give credit to 2K Games, because at the end of the day, we've all got families to feed, and honestly, I'm not sure I would have greenlit this project if I had a family to feed...

Crispy Gamer: Talk about working in Boston. Are there any advantages to working in the New England states as opposed to, say, working in Austin or San Francisco?

Levine: Besides working with great people? No, there's really no advantage. There's no support from the state for this kind of work, so we have an obligation to treat our employees right. And we do. And look at the games coming out of the New England area these days. You've got things like Rock Band and BioShock. The fact that games like this are coming out of Boston is a testament to the gumption of these people.