BioShock is all over the news right now -- PC gamers can reserve the BioShock demo for automatic download here at FilePlanet, and X360 gamers can download it from Marketplace. Console gamers might have already gotten the game thanks to an early retail release, and if you want to be the first to play it on the PC you can pre-order it now from Direct2Drive for direct download.

But this eagerly-anticipated game -- a show award winner every time it was demonstrated at E3 -- almost never happened. For a long time publishers didn't want it. Yes, I'm being serious! In a recent Computer and Videogames interview, senior designer Joe McDonagh talked about how BioShock creator Ken Levine struggled to convince publishers that BioShock was worth their time.


As hardcore PC gamers remember, BioShock is a kind of spiritual successor to System Shock II. Although the shooter was critically-acclaimed and highly-reviewed, it nonetheless didn't sell well. That made potential publishers wary. One publisher reportedly described BioShock as "just another f-ing PC FPS that's going to sell 250,000 units." McDonagh learned a lot about the publishing business during this time, and the mindset of the decision-makers: "You don't get fired for not taking risks," he explained to CVG. "Something I realized very quickly was that as much as your boss won't ever know that you turned down a future game of the year, he will know that you signed up a turkey..." "That kind of mentality is driving the industry into a creative cul-de-sac."

This frustration points out one of the basic problems with the games industry versus other entertainment. Games are an activity, and frequently that activity isn't 'fun' until all the pieces are in place and the final coat of polish is on the title. That's not necessarily true for other forms of entertainment. When authors shop around a novel, they usually send around the first three chapters and a summary of what's to follow -- book publishers can judge the quality of the writing and see the overall story arc and they can come to a pretty solid conclusion about the quality of the final book. Similarly, movie studios line up a script and usually actors before greenlighting a project; it's not fool-proof, as most box office turkeys will attest, but at least they can see exactly what story they're getting.

With games, it's not so easy. Publishers can see an engine demo, although the engine won't run as smoothly as it will years later when the game will be released. Hopefully they can see a piece of the gameplay, but not always (especially for MMOs!). They can read the 'script' -- the game's story and what levels the player will encounter. But will it be fun? How can you judge the quality of an activity by reading a design document? A lot of guesswork is involved.

That's yet another reason why publishers are gun-shy about investing in games that aren't copying off of proven gameplay or being built by teams with proven sales records. It ain't pretty. Although, at least in the case of BioShock, one publisher -- Take2 -- was smart enough to take the risk!

      -Fargo