14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone's heard of Ken Levine if s/he's a fan of the recently launched FPS, BioShock. The man is practically Irrational Games' image/face, so whenever people will have something to ask about the game, they'll expect Ken to be the one answering all the questions. As I found via EvilAvatar.com today, just after the man apologized to loyal fans over the forums, his entry got "nuked" (as the site comments) by 2K Games moderators. Thus Ken decided to make one more entry to get all the facts straight.
"Hey all-
I'm really trying to answer every PM I get, both here, on TTLG, on Live and a couple of other sites I post on. Since BioShock has made the splash it has, this takes up a bunch of my time. In the interest of saving everybody's time, here's a little FAQ about things I can and cannot answer for you.
Things I can answer:
-Story questions -Voice acting questions (If you hate that damn circus of values clown, you got me to thank!) -Interface question -Gameplay questions -Art direction questions -Other aesthetic questions (you hate that Perry Como track, I'm your man!) -Widescreen questions (i.e. WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO IT THAT WAY, DICKHEAD! etc.)"
And he even explains why these topics are the only ones he is free to discuss. As the post reads on...:
"I take responsiblity for all decisions made by my team at IG/2K Boston/Australia. I won't be able to answer the more technical questions (I love it when people write to me as if I've even heard of shader 2.0! I'm a technological moron.), but I can try to point you in the right direction (which is generally the tech support forums). I do have a huge amount of say as to what goes into patches, given budgetary limitations coming from 2K, however, so feel free to make your voices heard."
Care to know what Levine can't answer? The details are listed below, but it's not that the man doesn't want to answer them. As he puts it, he doesn't have "any control" over these aspects:
"Things I can't answer:
These are some of the aspects of the BioShock experience that aren't under my control:
-Customer Service Policies and procedures[...] -Copy Protection"
He concludes his entry stating: "I'll try to help where I can, but there's a large organization above me that I have only marginal input into.
Thanks for listening. If we can direct PM-informed traffic to the most appropriate people everybody can get better and more timely answers to their questions."
And that's shutting everybody up! Well, not for long of course. Just like Ken said: "I can try to point you in the right direction," and you don't reckon they going to try and use this in getting more answers, now do you?