The first Bioshock came on the scene with awesome surprise – and was chosen for GoTY by many outlets. A surprise hit that many a publisher had turned down according to creator Ken Levine, one that’s now 2K Games most profitable title to date.
Speaking of the title’s long and bumpy road to success, Levine said in the latest EGM that “[they'd] been taking [Bioshock] out and pitching it, and doing prototypes.”
“Vivendi bought it for a while, but then they backed out and asked us to do SWAT instead. They were like, keep the money we gave you, which wasn’t a lot, but the game is too risky, we want you to do this game instead.”
“Atari Maybe?” Levine continued, “a lot of people got very, very close to it.”
“It wasn’t until we finally sold to Take-Two that they bought into it.”
Finally, Levine arrived at numbers, confirming the game had sold “almost four and a half million units now”.
When asked what is that in revenue by the interviewer, Levine said: “You’d have to ask my cooperate overlords for that.” Pressed harder he said – “Even if I knew, I probably couldn’t say. I’d probably have the FCC or something on me – I think it’s 2K’s most profitable game ever.”
Bioshock Infinite will be Irrational Games’ latest title, and will release in 2012 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Levine said it’s “scary as hell” developing that game, as they’re taking a totally new path with it, and there’s always the fear of failure.
find it hard to believe.
i mean this generated more profit then GTAIV?
a game that broke sales records?
bioshock sold well, but not that well!
That’s because of Rockstar. GTA is credited to Rockstar, not 2K.
even mafia 2 sold better.
bioshock as a series maybe, but just the original by itself i doubt.
especially considering it was PC and 360 exclusive for a while, then when the ps3 version did finally release it was crap!
i hope we do see a new bioshock game return to rapture though.
as good as infinite looks, im really disappointed were leaving the amazing world of rapture!
just the art style for the world is simply jaw dropping!
Well I would think Levine knows a bit more than you in that area… he said that himself in the interview..