Ken
Levine just taught me a lesson about passion.
That's
a tired word, 'passion', isn't it? Another one we just plain hear
too often lately. Everywhere you turn someone's claiming to be
passionate. Politicians have to be passionate lest they be accused
of serving the public for reasons other than magnanimity.
Forsooth! Actors and rappers crow endlessly about it, sometimes in
the same breath used to take a swing at a cop. The Olympics have
added another few thousand (mostly legitimate) excuses to pepper the
airwaves with odes to passion. Alas, like 'impact' or 'bullying',
'passion' is another word whose treads have been worn bald from
overuse. Yet there it was again today, smack dab in the middle of
Ken Levine's startling 583-word announcement on the front page of the
Irrational Games website – 'passion' – cited as the reason he is shuttering his wildly successful game studio and moving on.
I
love the stuff Irrational makes, so the news hit me like cobra venom
– a sting of disbelief and confusion followed by descent into foggy
stupor. It felt...well, not unlike the first few minutes of a
Bioshock game,
really. One simply doesn't do
what Mr Levine is doing. Or rather, few others would
do what Mr. Levine is doing – closing the doors on one of the most acclaimed game-making companies in the world, a studio
which delivered one of the most lauded platform titles in
recent memory, BioShock
Infinite,
and from the outside looking in seemed poised for halcyon days of
brisk sales, boundless opportunity, and a limitless supply of talent
begging to work for them (side note: Yours Truly even applied to
Irrational last year; I never heard back from them, which now doesn't
feel like quite so sore a point as it once did). But Levine is an
odd bird and playing by the conventional tenets of upward mobility
doesn't seem to interest him. In his announcement Levine praised his
“incredible team” at Irrational and reflected that “seventeen
years is a long time to do any job, even the best one.” He then
went on to say “While
I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion
has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done
before.”
Passion.
Passion made Levine move on. Groan all you want – for about five
seconds I didn't believe him either. Sounded like an eye-roller,
really, a buzz word to mask a failed cash grab or some internecine
industry power struggle. But then it occurred to me: Levine, as Creative
Director of one of the most popular franchises in history, could have stayed put and churned out BioShock games until he was an
old man. That's really not an exaggeration; thanks to the narrative
device he installed in Infinite he had a wellspring of potential
material that was functionally inexhaustible. 'Functionally' because
even the most doggedly loyal gamers would tire of the formula
eventually, but not before Irrational raked in another mint of moolah and, knowing Levine, lined another shelf in the Irrational
lobby with medals and trophies. Last year's Burial At Sea DLC was
just one half of a new Booker/Elizabeth adventure to be concluded
later this year, but fans chattered about whether it was just an
appetizer for a forthcoming sequel, another full-length
title as complex and engrossing as the first journey to Columbia, or
perhaps even another foray into Rapture where it all began. The
engine was primed; the faithful were slavering. If it was easy
money he wanted, and a soft place to rest his rump, all Levine had to do was
stay put and not screw up too bad.
But
that's not Ken Levine. I get that now. Being a hit-maker isn't as
important as going after something that will still give him the
Spark. He's that most enviable of creative types: the guy who was
actually able to give form to his vision, to see that vision realized
on a grand stage and to share it with millions who thanked
him for the privilege. Now, though by most definitions he's “made
it”, he's going on the hunt again, down a new avenue that doesn't
include Big Daddies or Songbirds. It may not involve dollars or
accolades the likes of which he's seen lately either, but it's too
early to say. What did Levine teach me about passion? That I'm
clearly not there yet. If turning your back on such a sure thing is
the mark of having passion then I only pray I'll know passion at some
point in my life. We worship quantifiable success and stupidly
associate it with security. What about heeding the call of
something a bit bigger? Whatever it is Mr. Levine is following it
is a siren song that can't be muffled with money or praise or the
genuflecting of a thousand thousand fans like me who childishly plead
for more sequels. Once I'd processed the scope of his announcement I
could only stand in awe of his decision and envy the trust he has in
himself to do what he obviously believes in his heart is right. I
want to be there. I want to do that. And If I live to make a
similar decision only once I'll consider it a full life.
Some
have speculated Levine's sea change was prompted by creative
frustration and that he telegraphed some nascent discontent
with those infamous delays to BioShock Infinite. We all remember
those, right? He tweaked his new opus to a fair thee well, going so
far (if rumor can be believed) as to sequester himself in a hotel
doing eleventh hour rewrites, crossing Ts and dotting Is no one else
was privy to. Maybe in the end, even for such a dazzling game like
Infinite, Levine's vision really was shackled by technological
limitations, or maybe he was simply trying avoid a rushed or
ham-fisted ending (Levine has stated publicly he would re-do the
ending of the original BioShock if he could). But to me those delays
only ever meant he was a perfectionist, and a perfectionist in the
purest sense; after all, he was tweaking things no one else had seen. So really he was only ever trying to impress himself.
On
camera in interviews Levine comes across like a mirthful spirit - funny, contemplative, restless and mercurial, a dude with a ton of
smart things to say who can't always decide how best to say them,
see-sawing between thoughts, impressions and spur-of-the-moment
fancies that are certainly the best ideas you've heard all
week. It's no surprise his stories involve assuming strange roles in
strange places and charging blindly into the unknown, improvising
victories and overcoming whoa-momma odds. It is what I imagine being
a Creative Director for a successful gaming studio must be like. If
passion isn't the whip that drives you, what on Earth is? Is there a
more tangible substitute that can produce even half the results? And
if that passion starts to fade, or is stymied by the side effects of
your own success (boardroom politics, profit margins, an unwieldy
workforce...all of those, or maybe none of them), what then do you do?
Soldier on while your company goes one direction and your Muse points
another? Try to top yourself at your own game - literally! - and
make another BioShock even better than the one you just made? Tall
order. And for how long? Until you're an old man in a young man's
industry getting lapped by new tech while your original ideas gather
dust in a cul-de-sac? Until your style becomes rigid and is mimicked
and borrowed and paid homage to so often by so many that your
creations become quaint?
Screw
that. It is a singularly rare thing to see real passion. So rare,
in fact, that when we see it right in front of us we don't recognize
it for what it is. To some it may seem like Levine is chasing a pipe
dream, or snobbishly eschewing mainstream gaming in favor of an
all-digital clique. Others might balk at how many talented people
he's putting out of work by closing Irrational (side note: Levine has
made it clear he's going to do what he can to find work for his
defunct team by positioning as many as possible at 2K Games,
Irrational's parent). But look at what he's putting on the line:
money, success, respect, hero worship, a legend status in the gaming
community – all on the chance that he may end up, however unlikely,
as “the guy who ditched BioShock”.
I
don't think it's going to happen that way. Let's face it: it takes
an uncommon mind to come up with something like the BioShock series,
'a thinking man's shooter' that employs more philosophy than
bloodshed and leaves your brainpan full of noggin'-scratchers like
“Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?” By the
sweat of Levine's brow we got almost two decades of game-making
excellence at Irrational. Now his passion has turned him toward more
narrative-heavy games for “the core gaming audience” that focus
on replayability. What does that mean exactly? Hell if I know. But
I'm thrilled for him, and as a proud member of his core audience I'm
excited to see what he's got in store for us.
I
wish him well.
