It's hard to imagine that the game whose demo that is currently in so much demand that it is now crashing servers was originally difficult to pitch, but it's true, according to game designer Joe McDonagh.
McDonagh told CVG about how the title was originally turned down by many publishers while being pitched.
"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 f**king PC FPS that's going to sell 250,000 units.' "
Wow, that publisher probably feels like an idiot now.
In other "hard" news, tehuberone's Community Blog Tehubertoid tells us how to play the disabled "hard mode" in the BioShock demo:
To enable hard go to your gamer profile in the dashboard and then change your default game settings. Go to general, then change your difficulty to hard.
Start up the Bioshock Demo.
Hard should be highlighted when you have the option to select your difficulty. Make sure not to move the cursor or you will not be able to select hard again unless you hit B and then return.
Hit A.
[Via CVG - thanks to AB and tehuberone]
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
11:04 AM on 08.13.2007
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The seriously helpful part was great, thanx Uber.
The best ideas are not filtering through to this industry, the best ideas do not come from technicians, yet that is what you have to be to be involved with game design right now. It doesn't surprise me at all the BioShock was a hard sell, it looks like a game Terry Gilliam would make, in other words it's original.
It's a vicious circle, no new ideas due to no new blood being employed in the industry, it's always the same type of people, it's an inbred industry in need of diversity, but because the stakes are so high, few studios will dare to take an unkown direction. As usual people won't make any changes until it's worse to do nothing than to do something.
All other creative mediums have a creation process which allows designers to instantly construct their vision, pick up a camera, pick up a pencil, pick up an instrument etc. With game design, the whole process is so technical, labour intensive and expensive that there is little chance of new ideas surviving this process, the games industry has evolved in complete isolation and as a result the main bulk of design talent out there is not being tapped into beacuse the games industry has evolved to exclude outsiders, this industry has to try and get creative design in sync with the development process, so that games like BioShock are not a rarity.
This is the current problem with the games industry, publishers and studios are not interested in anything new, they want the same crop of people who can come in and do the same job, so that they can knock out the same type of games as soon as possible.
Did you read the article? They turned down the game because they thought it was the same old thing.
I've got a fever and the only prescription is some Big Daddy!
The other part of the equation is knowing when the game as it is pitched to you is what the actual result will be. I'm sure most games start off with very lofty goals only to fall apart and become a generic shooter when they realize how hard it is to do what they originally visioned.
Did you read the article? They turned down the game because they thought it was the same old thing.
Well then publishers today simply can't recognize originality.
And then dl Metroid and play it while I wait.
LOL, well said! Three cheers for Terry Gilliam!
I gots the chills.
now give me Mass Effect.