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BioShock Goes Gold as Irrational Loses Name
by Chris Remo, Aug 10, 2007 12:30pm PDTIrrational Games, the acclaimed developer behind PC classic System Shock 2 as well as nearly-released SS2 "spiritual successor" BioShock (PC, X360), is no longer known as Irrational Games. The formerly independent studio, whose two branches were acquired by Take-Two Interactive last year under the 2K Games label, are now known as 2K Boston and 2K Australia.
Take-Two claims change will result in no loss of creative control for the companies. "We're proud to be part of the 2K Games family and enjoy the new opportunities and artistic freedoms this strengthened relationship provides," said Irrational president Ken Levine in a statement. "The name change signifies our growing position as a central part of 2K Games, and we plan to ensure our future titles continue to set new standards of quality and innovation for the industry." 2K and Irrational 2K representatives were unavailable for comment.
In a separate announcement, Take-Two announced BioShock has gone gold. The game will be available for PC and Xbox 360 in North America on August 21 and in Europe on August 24.
Comments
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When this game was first announced it was being advertised as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2, shoot first-think later explosion loving rollercoaster ride FPS adrenaline junkies need not apply.
Then they showed up to E3 and something had changed, they were now ratherly cleverly marketting it to a far broader audience as first and foremost a First Person Shooter, designed to rewrite all the FPS rules that were written in stone and hail in the next generation of FPS games. It did all of this while still (as far as I can tell, I haven't played it yet) staying true to its System Shock heritage.
From my point of view this is the difference between:
(a) Making another System Shock 2 type game that is loved by the hardcore but generally goes virtually unnoticed and probably flops commercially in today's market, hammering a nail into the System Shock game type coffin for another 5 years at least.
and
(b) Making another System Shock 2 type game that gets a big huge budget to polish it as much as possible, still remains true to its past, keeping the hardcore happy and goes on the sell really well thanks to the marketing doing a great job explaining to the average FPS player, in their own terms, WHY they would want to play this. This will hopefully end in people's eyes being opened and practically a guarantee that we will see more games like this, both from Irrational and from other developers.
As far as 2K goes and Irrational being renamed to 2K - I don't care. Levine himself has said many times that 2K have looked after them very well, allowing him to completely scrap the first few ideas for Bioshock until it felt right (remember when it used to be set in an abondoned World War 2 base or something?). As far as names go, I don't care what they're called as long as it's Levine and crew making more games like this.
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