To the surprise of many attendees in the Paris GDC, BioShock lead programmer Chris Kline opened his speech by saying that "BioShock (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) should've failed." He wasn't kidding as a detailed explanation followed the stunning intro.

"In fact, it did fail a lot, over the course of time," he continued. "A series of big mistakes and corrections and slipped ship dates, but all of these helped make it a good game.”

The first of such mistakes, said Kline, was deciding on what the game would really be. The early thinking was that a System Shock sequel was the way to go, but the idea was later scrapped because of concerns that this might not make for a popular game with the fans.

After a two-year lull in development, Irrational Games (now 2K Boston) decided that this wouldn't sell well with game publishers, so a change in direction was in order. When everyone got on the same page about an underwater shooter, one problem was solved and another one was spawned.

The design team, according to Kline, went swerving into different directions to such an extent that there was no coherence to the motif of the monsters. "The real problem at this time was that we didn’t know what the main focus of the visuals was," he continued. "What we now know is that it’s not the monsters, but the city of Rapture.”

When the deadline for the E3 demo loomed large, that was when the designers got on the same page once more and added a sense of focus on their craft. By the time E3 2006 hit, critics were abuzz by what they witnessed.

Though media members were ecstatic, fans weren't quite as thrilled. What was interesting, said Kline was "when we presented it as a shooter people started getting more excited about it. Even the team.”

The rest was history. BioShock launched on the Xbox 360 last year and received several Game of the Year accolades from reputable bodies. It's scheduled to launch later this year on the PlayStation 3 to receive even more refinements in the new version.

To conclude his speech, Kline told his fellow game developers to always doubt everything, listen to everyone, and “always remember that you might be totally screwing everything up.”


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