BioShock Series Could Switch Developers
"We think BioShock is still one of the most important franchises in the industry," Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said in a recent conference call to investors, as picked up by IGN. "We do intend to support it; doesn't necessarily have to be at [BioShock 2 maker] 2K Marin, but we do intend to support the franchise."
The original BioShock, released in August 2007, was created and developed by 2K Boston, which recently switched its name back to Irrational Games and is currently working on an unannounced project. The sequel, released in February 2010, was developed by XCOM maker 2K Marin, with Digital Extremes handling the multiplayer.
Various downloadable add-ons for BioShock 2 are in the works, with the company having already released some multiplayer add-ons and promised more single-player content.
The company also noted that, despite BioShock 2 shipping three million copies as of March 2010 and turning a profit, sales "slowed down sooner than we had expected."
"We think the franchise has a long life indeed," added Zelnick, who previously stated that a third entry in the series was likely to arrive alongside the feature film. "If we spin [BioShock] the right way and get the right twist of innovation, we can make six parts of it, as Star Wars did," 2K Games president Christoph Hartmann has previously said.
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Clarkek
reply*milk* *milk* *milk*
It's like that kid that repeats a joke that was just said because everyone laughed at it.-
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Yes we've all heard the standard overused response. What you fail to see is companies focusing on making unoriginal sequel after sequel are not focusing on making games we actually want to play. Even if we don't buy it, we still lose because maybe we were hoping for a new original type of game? Instead the resources went to rehashing old ideas, which is complaint-worthy.
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There's a fine line between giving people something new in a sequel and still keeping it familiar. Some people don't want 'a new original type of game' in a sequel. That's what new franchises or branching franchises are for.
Most gamers want sequels to have some new features while still retaining the core gameplay that made them enjoy the original.-
A restricted setting and storyline like the one Bioshock had leaves little room for credible sequels.
I mean cmon Bioshock 2 took place 10 years later, yet there are still hundreds of crazy splicers that probably didn't repopulate during the last 10 years. Makes you wonder why there is still anyone left since all they do is kill each other...
So yeah, bioshock 3 should be fun... as a parody.-
Great point. It shows that gamers have gotten more adept at looking behind the curtain of the worlds they have been playing in to see the illogical nature of those worlds. The consumer part of the player's mind weighs brand loaylty when they are asked to return to those worlds, and the sense of wonder or suspension of disbelief takes a hit when they return to see that that game world still serving the same shallow content.
Many of the single player worlds we have enjoyed start to unravel when the timeline is advanced beyond the initial frame of reference.
Game designers who build 'closed-loop' worlds where the inhabitants and resources are limited, that plan on returning to those same worlds again because of sales, are asking the players to work harder to maintain brand loyalty.
Content has gotten more complex, game worlds have rules; there are inventories, skills and physics. Having enemies and gear appear out of nowhere is silly. Using predictive logic, a player could go on a killing spree and reduce the population to zero in areas they have regular access to, and it will have no noticable effect on the overall believability (and acceptance) of that game world.
Game designers need to work harder to explain why things are the way they are and show us how these bubble worlds can continue to exist. Give us more dead-ends. Get rid of NPCs that can't be killed. Have NPCs be subject to the same skills, handicaps and sense of self-preservation that the players are.
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