In Service to the Brand - Why Bioshock Infinite Failed - Extra Credits

Hello everyone. Today we would like to talk about BioShock Infinite. Now there are all manner of great topics to dig into with this game, but there was one aspect in particular that we really wanted to discuss. It always really bothers me when I see a sequel, even a really good sequel, that could be so much more but was held back by the fact that somebody somewhere in production slavishly included elements from previous outings that have no place in the new game's world or design. Now there is a lot that is fantastic about BioShock Infinite, but there's also a lot wrong with it, and almost all of what's wrong with it is in service to the brand. Now I won't be talking a lot about the game's plot because while it can be a little all over the place, touching on a lot of important topics without ever giving them any of the depth and attention that BioShock 1 showed its central theme, that can probably be chalked up to the major reworkings the game underwent and maybe a bit of over ambition. Instead, I want to talk about the places where the narrative and the play are at odds, and why almost all of these problems come

from attempts to remind you that this is a BioShock game. And I can think of no better place to start than Vigors. Obviously, these were meant to be a surrogate for Plasmids, but where Plasmids were endogenous to the world of Rapture, Vigors just make no sense in Columbia. On a most literal level, the original BioShock was all about the effect of Plasmids on society. We could see what giving near magical powers to the people of Rapture did to that place. Plasmids were a cool gameplay mechanic, yes, but a great deal of effort was made to make sure that they were a gameplay mechanic which made the world more real and more alive. With Vigors, the opposite is true. Throughout the game, you see people doing tasks that would clearly be much easier with Vigors, but why aren't they using them? Why isn't anybody using them except for the crazy Pyros and Crow Guys? It can't be because they're too expensive cuz at the very beginning we see they're cheap enough to give away at the county fair. Why aren't they given to the police who are dying by the truckload trying to stop you? Why hasn't the creation of magical powers in a bottle had any impact on the society in this otherwise well-crafted world? It's because Vigors were shoehorned in in service of the brand. Someone

somewhere in the design process thought that you can't have BioShock without Plasmids cuz that's what BioShock's all about. I think players are smarter than that though. And we can still know a Final Fantasy game is a Final Fantasy game without needing to have Cloud's sword in every single one of them. Cuz in the end, it's not those familiar series trappings that define the series. You can pack your JRPG with all the Chocobos, Moogles, and Marlboros you want, but if that game doesn't have vibrant characters and an emotive story, then it utterly fails as a Final Fantasy game. And players know it. It's the same with BioShock's magical Plasmids and Vigors. But this isn't the only place it's done. The old scavenging mechanics feel very out of place in Columbia as well. The folks at Irrational even went out of their way in the beginning of the game to have an empty store with a sign that says, "You are on your honor." and a place where you can pay for anything you loot there. All in an attempt to rationalize just how strange looting is in this world. But then throughout the game, you just plunder everything. Looting as a mechanic makes complete sense in a fallen society like Rapture. The city's falling apart. The only surviving inhabitants are violent Plasmids-addled splicers. Everyone's scrounging for resources to survive in the remains of this once great city. But

Columbia is still a functional place. More than that, it's a prim and proper city. A society with decorum. Stealing everything you see makes no sense and takes away from your ability to simply explore the world uninhibited by the need to see if there's maybe a piece of cake in that hat box over there. I mean, how many times did you find yourself digging through a trash can right in front of the socially conscious citizens of Columbia? It doesn't really fit, does it? And I don't for a moment believe that with all of the brilliant people they have working at Irrational, no one could come up with a system to reward the player that fits better into this world than just reusing the system from the last one. But that's what we ended up with. Why? Again, to make it feel like BioShock. To establish a brand so that every time we as consumers saw those mechanics, we would instantly know, "Oh, it's BioShock." Plasmids and looting are apparently to BioShock what square hamburgers are to Wendy's. But you know what disappointed me the most? The extent of the violence in BioShock Infinite. Not the level of the violence, mind you. That first moment of violence in the game is probably the most extreme, and yet at the same time the most effective. That display of horrid violence has meaning. It rips away the

veil of idyllic civility and kicks us emotionally into understanding that we're now going to be exploring the darker side of the world we've entered. It's fantastic. This is violence used for a purpose. It's violence not simply for violence's sake. But then we hit the rest of the game where we're just killing hundreds, if not thousands, of policemen. This saps all meaning out of the violence. It makes it almost comical in this world. Here's a city, a normal 20th century city, much like the ones many of us live in, except, you know, flying. And here's a man slaughtering thousands of cops. Now, imagine if that happened in your city. Imagine if one man just started shooting police. Imagine how the populace would react. Imagine how the police would react. Is it anything at all like what happens in the world of Columbia? Of course not. Again, it makes sense to shoot your way through Rapture. It makes sense that in a lawless world filled with the half-insane, you'd end up shooting first and asking questions later. It makes sense in the individualist world of Rapture that no greater collaborative effort would occur to stop you. And it makes sense in a narrative about the power of the individual that a sole man could fight his way through the entire city. None of that really works in

Infinite. If they had had, as they hint at with the beginning, moments of intense violence punctuated by that tense calm of trying to get through the city, the game would have been a much more powerful experience. But here instead, we're just running around shooting everybody because someone decided that BioShock was about shooting. The brand of BioShock is now firmly about the barrel of a gun. Please, developers, we know what pressure you're under. James has been through this sort of situation, too. And we know this is a fight you can't always win. But your brand isn't about specific individual things. It's about the ethos, the idea behind the game, and why someone comes specifically to have the type of experience you're presenting. I think about it. Even Mario isn't the Mario brand. Imagine a dark, gritty Mario shooter where the plumber's on the wrong side of the law. That's not a Mario game, even though it has Mario and probably jumping and mushrooms and Koopas. Just trust your players. They want to play the game you want to make, not to replay the game you already made. Be true to the spirit of your previous games and we'll all stick with you, even if the mechanics change, or the characters, or even the name. BioShock Infinite received almost universal

praise and high scores, but you'll notice the few critical lines in every review of BioShock Infinite were about the combat. Even if reviewers couldn't articulate exactly what was wrong with it, almost every review I've read talked about how the combat was too long or too drawn out, or how they'd rather have gotten to explore the world some more. That feeling of dissonance created by chasing the brand undercut the brand and undercut the experience. So, even though it's really unlikely, it is our highest hope that this video helps one of you out there to convince someone to let you make a better game. Even if on the surface that game may not seem to totally fit with your conception of your brand. Thank you for watching. We'll see you all next week.