14 DAY TRIAL // Ken Levine, the main creative force behind BioShock and BioShock Infinite at now-defunct Irrational Games shared his thoughts on the rampant violence in his games and how they couldn't have been any different.
The BioShock series was largely regarded as a transformative experience for first-person shooters, showing considerable focus on a dark and challenging storyline, but some people also criticized the games for featuring a ton of violence.
During an interview with NPR's Arun Rath, on All Tech Considered, Levine said that he was often asked about whether he could have told the same story in BioShock Infinite without all the extreme violence, after the game came out.
"I wouldn't have known how to make a game like Mario. I wouldn't have known how to take this kind of story and turn it into a game about jumping on blocks. I think the reaction to the violence is more an expression of people building confidence in the industry's ability to express itself in more diverse fashions," he said.
Levine pointed out that violence was easy to simulate, and that just like action movies, there was a market for it, and making a game like BioShock Infinite only without violence would have been very difficult for an industry veteran like himself.
He added that the question of whether they could have done it without all the violence was a very interesting one to pose in retrospect, nonetheless, and was a testament to the fact that games were maturing as an art form, evolving in ways that weren't possible a few years back.
"I think that it's not particularly more violent than Bioshock 1. I think the conversation in the games space has changed a little bit. I think people used Infinite as a launching point to talk about the changing nature of games and can you make successful games that don't have violence in video games," he said.
He also underlined that video games were traditionally difficult because they started out in arcades, where players had to constantly churn out quarters in order to be able to play, and as such the games had to do their best to kill them in order to ensure a steady stream of revenue.
When developers started making games that didn't have to eat a lot of quarters in order to be successful, it took everyone a lot of time to realize that games were difficult because those who were making them were used to games being difficult, because they had to eat quarters.
As the developers distanced themselves from that mentality, there came the question of gameplay mechanics. Then, a shooter is a pretty convenient genre, it answers a lot of questions in an organic manner, like you have a gun and enemies and you have to shoot them, and you know there is always some conflict coming your way.
He explained that although he originally thought that people were coming to the game for the shooting, he realized that the evolution of technology allowed them to fit much more into the game, such as immersive and highly atmospheric visuals and a strong narrative, and that was the primary draw for many of the game's fans.