The GameShadow Blog

Bioshock 2 has been delayed until 2010.

The game was scheduled for release in late October, but Take-Two Interactive has announced that it will now be released in its new financial year (which actually begins in November 2009).

Max Payne 3 is likely to suffer the same fate, moving from its end-of-2009 window to an early 2010 one.

Development Studio 3D Realms Entertainment has closed due to financial problems.

This leaves the future of the long-awaited Duke Nukem Forever up in the air.

Take 2 Interactive has retained the rights to the Duke Nukem series, confirming that its original deal with 3D Realms was for the publishing side only and did not include developer funding.

EA has confirmed that private discussions are now to take place between itself and Take Two over the proposed acquisition of the latter.

This is the latest development in a story that’s been running for months. Take Two repeatedly dismissed EA’s increasing bids for the company, vowing not to even consider a sale until after the launch of GTA IV. In response, EA turned its bid public, and then hostile, but to no avail.

Acquisition has since been considered unlikely, but recent news that EA was to perform an audit on Take Two reopened the topic, leading to the latest announcement that the companies were to re-enter negotiations.

No more news will be posted on the subject until the firms either close talks, or come to an agreement.

Following very vague indications from Take 2 that Ken Levine - Bioshock’s big daddy - would be ‘involved’ in development of the sequel at 2K Marin, Variety is reporting that Levine is deep in the midst of contractual negotiations with overlords at Take 2.

With Bioshock such a huge success, Levine certainly seems due for some recognition, and Take 2’s chairman and CEO are said to be fully aware of his value to the company, but cagey about bending over too far.

If Levein were to walk from his commitment to the firm, he certainly wouldn’t be the first to do so in his position. Having sold Irrational Studios to Take 2 shortly before the release of Bioshock - reputedly in order to keep the game on track financially - Levine is at risk of losing a great deal of creative control, which means he will be looking to either claw that back, or move on and start afresh.

Personally, I’m really excited by the idea of a Levine driven X-Com game - mooted to be 2K Boston’s secret project - so here’s hoping he sticks it out and gets his fair dues.

It’s been talked about, but finally today, Take-Two Interactive announced that it has struck a deal with Universal Studios to bring Bioshock to the big screen.

The movie will be directed by Gore Verbinski, who previously directed the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and The Ring.

Take-Two Interactive announced today that Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV surpassed all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales. It sold approximately 6 million units globally, creating an estimated retail value of more than US$500 million in the first week.

On a related note, Microsoft were pleased to announce that the Xbox 360 version has sold 100,000 copies (20%) more than the Playstation 3 version in the UK, since the game’s release last Tuesday, 29^th April.

In a recent presentation (slide 25), Take Two has highlighted the possibility for MMOs based on Bioshock and Civilization.

The precise phraseology used is ‘Potential Take Two Opportunities: Bioshock, Civilization’.

This presentation was made at the Bank of America SMID Conference, with Take Two fighting to justify its portfolio value and ongoing rejection of EA’s purchase bid, so it’s reasonable to assume the company was throwing around big names for just that reason.

It seems unlikely both, or even just one of these ideas will see fruition, but it’s certainly true that a Civ MMO might be an interesting prospect.

Do you think we’ll ever see the words ‘Bioshock’ and ‘MMO’ in conjunction again?

Unwilling to wait for Take Two to release GTA IV and come back to the negotiation, EA has made an offer to Take Two’s shareholders of $26 per share - well above the current market valuation.

This move effectively takes the decision out of the hands of Strauss Zelnick and his board of directors, who had previously turned down multiple offers from EA. They had this to say:

“The Board of Directors of Take Two Interactive Software, Inc. today recommended that Take Two stockholders take no action at this time in response to the announcement by Electronic Arts Inc. that it has made an unsolicited conditional tender offer to acquire all of Take Two’s outstanding shares of common stock for $26 per share in cash.”

There’s been all sorts of accusation flying around that Zelnick has ulterior motives in delaying the sale, with legal action taken against him and the board by at least one large investor.

The crux, here, is that with $3.4 billion in the bank, if EA decides it wants to buy Take Two: EA’s going to buy Take Two.

Soon.

On February 24th 2008, EA revealed that it had made a bid to purchase huge games publisher Take Two (whose primary asset is the GTA producing Rockstar).

Though EA CEO John Riccitiello had been keen to acquire the pubisher for some time, the objective was only made public when dialogue between the two companies halted. EA sent an open letter to Take Two Executive Chairman Strauss Zelnick, proposing to purchase shares in the company at $26 each ($1 more than previously offered. This values the company at approximately $2 billion. The open letter is seen as a hostile move, designed to turn shareholders against the Take Two board.

The following day, EA launched an official Take Two Take Over website, which is well worth checking out. http://www.eatake2.com/

In addition to fascinating correspondence and conference call recordings, you’ll find this tit bit:

Do you intend to kill or restrict any of the R* franchises?
We [EA] strongly believe that behind all the controversy is a core of great intellectual property and development talent. These titles don’t sell millions because they’re controversial; they sell because they’re great games. We have no plans to change that.

ie Yes.

Since then, a lot of tooing and froing has occurred. Take Two has claimed EA just wants a finger in the GTA IV launch pie, EA has claimed it’s offering a fantastic deal to Take Two investors. Take Two has delayed further discussion until after the GTA launch. Meanwhile, its stock value has soared.

The clever money, apparently, is on EA winning. I’m sure no one has any opinions on that, now do they…?

Stupidity has struck once again for the ill-fated Manhunt 2, as the BBFC’s appeal to the High Court is successful.

Beginning some months ago, the British Board of Film Classification opted not to classify Manhunt 2, effectively banning it from sale in the UK, citing its ‘callousness of tone’ as one reason for doing so. Rockstar appealed the decision, taking the issue to the Video Appeals Committee, who decided by a narrow majority that the BBFC had been wrong. Ordered to classify the game, the BBFC - whose only other complete balls up was refusing to classify Carmageddon many moons ago - instead took the issue further. The High Court has decided some ‘error of the law’ has been committed, and the VAC will now reconvene very soon for what may be a final decision.

While the BBFC is rightly concerned that being proved wrong in this case will badly damage its reputation - that’s what happens when you do stupid things - you and I know that Manhunt 2 will be tame compared to many games that slip through the net. Of course, those games aren’t as high profile, so the BBFC doesn’t really give one.

There are stories of one victim who happened to be walking past a building in which someone who had played Manhunt 2 had once brushed their teeth, and the unfortunate soul was instantly transformed into an axe murdering psychopath.

The image below is said by the BBFC to be the direct result of being exposed to even a split second of Manhunt 2 footage.

Another one bites the dust.

2K Games, one arm of publishing giant Take 2, has just announced its acquisition of Illusion Softworks, the Czech developer - and owner - of properties like Hidden & Dangerous and Mafia. This news comes moments after EA announces its official acquisition of Bioware and Pandemic.

The deal will bring two studios, and 200 employees under Take 2’s umbrella of AAA producing teams, with Enemy in Sight and Mafia II currently in production at what will be rebranded 2K Czech.

Studio acquisitions are not always a bad thing. They provide financial security to the people that need it, not to mention development support in the form of tools, QA and PR. Illusion itself was already heavily distributed among venture capitalists, rather than the studio founders.

However, the facts speak for themselves, and there’s something distinctly worrying about Take 2’s fascination with ditching well-respected names like Irrational and Illusion, to replace them with the blandness of 2K Boston, 2K Czech etc.

Some studios flourish after acquisition, most sell out and move on.

Tell us, which do you think Illusion will be?

Yeah, I did a double take as well.

It’s available here on GameShadow and… yeah… it’s Duke Nukem Forever… kinda.

A lot of the sensible money says Duke is a bygone era - the gameplay on show here certainly doesn’t support any conclusion other than that.

All the same, it’ll be nice to see a proper action man on screen again. Even if his best lines are stolen from Evil Dead.

Take 2, via its publishing label 2K, has set up a new development studio near San Francisco with the intention of producing a sequel to Irrational Games’ Bioshock.

Irrational was swallowed up by publisher Take 2 during development of Bioshock, and is now known as “2K Boston“, with an undisclosed number of its staff relocating to the new studio. Whether this includes visionary and project lead Ken Levine has not been revealed.

Rumours that the decision is the result of creative differences at 2K Boston have not been confirmed.

2k Boston is said to be working on a new intellectual property based on Epic’s Unreal Engine.

At his Montreal Game Summit keynote, Jonathon Blow (the one man band behind 2008’s time-warping platformer, Braid) has railed at the McDonalds-esque game design in MMOs and in Bioshock.

“MMOs have empty gameplay, but keep players hooked with constant fake rewards,” said Blow. His concern is that, like fast food, MMOs are empty, and ‘nutritionally’ bereft - they’re a shallow, meaningless experience that nonetheless becomes addictive, resulting in a poor quality of life for its players.

He pointed out how McDonalds has faced criticism from commentators, and that World of Warcraft’s method of teaching players about routine was similar and “akin to advertising”.

And he’s completely right. MMOs have no soul. They thrive on just two things: social networking (something Facebook does better), and constant reward. Few players ever take the time to realise how empty these rewards are. What value does the +3 sword have in the real world? The difference between game design in MMORPGs and traditional RPGs is vast - Knights of the Old Republic 2 has strongly tactical combat, and a rich, meaningful storyline. WoW has XP grind and not much more - just enough to keep players playing.

I take issue with MMORPGs for a different reason to Braid, though. He’s concerned about the social impact of these games on their players - but if players really want to waste their lives, then so be it. I’m just more worried that if designers can get away with bland gameplay like this - and come out with one of the most successful games of all time - then what future is there for games with genuine depth?

Blow also took issue with the hype surrounding Bioshock, claiming that despite wide praise, the game “sucks” and that “the designers of this game are trying to manipulate your emotions in a clumsy way. BioShock claims to be about altruism and humanity but what it really teaches you is how to headshot someone from as far away as possible. It’s a very weird game that we couldn’t proffer as an example to normal humans.”

I don’t know how he does it, but he’s bang on again. Yes Bioshock is pretty, yes it’s partly inspired by an obscure Russian-American philosopher, no, it’s not really doing anything all that special. And the twist was average in the extreme.

I don’t know if Braid will be the game to reverse these trends - while it looks great, it doesn’t look all that unique to me - next year will tell.