Despite the almost unanimous good press that it’s been getting, Bioshock’s senior designer Joe McDonagh recently told CVG that pitching the title to publishers was a tough call.

"Ken (Levine) spent years pitching the game to publishers but no one was interested, incredible as that seems now. I joined Irrational in December 2004 and my first job was to get a publishing deal for the game (I worked as the Business Development Director for the first six months). I remember pitching the game to one publisher who later told a friend of mine that it was 'just another fucking PC FPS that's going to sell 250,000 units.'”

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t an attitude that McDonagh was a fan of: “This sort of attitude really pissed me off. System Shock II, for all its critical success, didn't sell very well which turned buyers off. Something I realised very quickly was that as much as your boss won't ever know that you turned down a future game of the year, he will know that you signed up a turkey. You don't get fired for not taking risks. That kind of mentality is driving the industry into a creative cul de sac.”

Development costs for next-gen games have never been higher, with costs now running in the millions of pounds for a full next-gen title. As this console generation wears on, we’re going to have to hope that publishers are far-sighted enough to see that you have to take the odd risk on original games. In the long run, playing it safe and releasing generic Alien Shooter IX just isn't going to attract loads of players.

Source:
CVG

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