What If BioShock Was Released In 2017?

So I recently started thinking about games, which is something I do quite a lot, but specifically about the current state of the games industry. It was a video by Jim Sterling - this video, to be exact - which really got me going. In the clip, Jim discusses the current divide that exists in the industry. At one end of the spectrum, we have the big-budget AAA titles with their season passes, Limited Ultra Hyper Deluxe Editions and "We need this to sell at least 5 million copies or we're doomed" marketing philosophy, resulting in games that often resemble one another and hit the same, tired beats, and, at the other end, we have the independently-produced games that often ooze with creativity but don't have the support or budget necessary to really challenge their high-profile counterparts. Jim goes on to discuss how Hellbalde: Senua's Sacrifice has made a fine attempt of bridging the gap between those two extremes and reveals his hopes that more games will follow Ninja Theory's example.

But that's not exactly what I wanted to talk about today. What I wanted to talk about is related to Jim's idea, but not quite the same. His video got me thinking about modern games and, as a brief test, I went and looked at the "Upcoming Releases" on Steam and the PlayStation store. As expected, pretty much every single high profile game coming out in the next few months is being released in multiple editions with adverts for pre-order bonuses and season passes being flung at you from every direction, like some great hailstorm of BS. In fact, it seems impossible to find a game from any of the big publishers like Activision, EA, 2K, Ubisoft, etc. which isn't set to release with its own 'Digital Deluxe' nonsense or pre-order incentives like day-one costumes and bonus weapons. Go ahead, try and find one, I doubt you'll succeed. Sadly, this is just the way the industry is now and, even if most of us who grew up with games hate it, we pretty much have to shrug our shoulders and deal with it the best we can.

This is what I'm talking about...

Personally, I've never bought a season pass and have no plans to. I've loved many games that have been released over the last few years and bought individual pieces of DLC that interested me now and then, but the very thought of spending nearly £100 in total on a single game just appals me. I'm not even sure how young gamers manage to get by these days, aside from having incredibly indulgent and wealthy parents. Either way, it's clear that the industry is in a bit of a mess and, at least on the AAA side of things, it doesn't show too many signs of getting better. If a big game comes out these days, it seemingly cannot exist without a slew of DLC, microtransactions and marketing gimmicks, as well as having a story and characters that are very purposefully designed to fit the "Hollywood blockbuster" model and appeal to the widest audience possible to ensure high sales figures. And let's not even mention how many of these games are forced to launch with bugs and require countless patches down the line (Destiny 2's PS4 Pro game-breaking bug is a recent example).

Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed plenty of these sorts of games. Just this year, for example, Horizon: Zero Dawn has easily been one of my favourite gaming experiences, and I'm hardly going to start complaining about games finally reaching a point where they can emulate movies and boast of big budgets and lifelike graphics. However, I'm left wondering about certain games from the past and what might have happened if they'd been released in the last couple of years. For the sake of an example, let's look at BioShock, one of my favourite games of all time and a prime example of the point I'm trying to make.

A masterpiece

BioShock was released in 2007 (side note: 2007 was one of the best ever years for gaming, in my opinion, with releases like Portal, Modern Warfare, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, and Team Fortress 2), a time when microtransactions and oodles of DLC accompanying every single release weren't yet set into the minds of the world's publishers. The game was released in physical form for a standard price. There was a steelbook edition sold in certain stories, but it was the same price as the regular box and didn't come along with any bonus DLC codes or useless paraphernalia.

There was a special edition, but the company originally had no plans to release one and was actually pressured into it by fans! As hype for the game built up, more and more folks demanded to see a special edition and Take-Two actually organised an online petition to see if enough people were interested, and then, when the poll was a major success, they organised another poll to ask people what they wanted to see in the special edition! In the end, the Limited Collector's Edition of BioShock came with a cool Big Daddy statue and two discs filled with extra content. No exclusive in-game items, no special prize for buying on day one, no pointless bonuses that didn't actually do anything. 

BioShock was a video game, carefully and loving created, put in a box and left for people to enjoy. There was no tacked-on multiplayer, no DLC down the line, no season pass, no costume packs, no in-game currency for you to buy with real-world cash, nothing. Oh and the story? Taking inspiration from Atlas Shrugged and other dystopian fiction, it dealt with some pretty deep themes in some special ways, but Ken Levine and his team were granted full freedom to bring their vision to life without any pressure to tick boxes or fulfil some kind of pre-existing "blockbuster" framework.

This only existed because the fans demanded it

The result of all this? One of the most critically-acclaimed video games ever made, held up as a shining example of what this medium is capable of and perhaps one of the strongest arguments for "games are art" advocates. The world is a better place with BioShock in it and the game went on to spawn two excellent sequels (yes, I think BioShock 2 is a great game even if it's guilty of a lot of dumb stuff). But let's say that a studio like Take-Two wanted to put out that game today, would they really be able to? Certainly not in the way it originally came out.

Let's be honest, if BioShock was coming out today, not only would a season pass be an absolute guarantee, with needless tacked-on story sections and survival rooms thrown in for an extra $40 fee, but we can easily imagine the quality of the game itself being affected by modern times. When you actually look at some of the themes and scenarios in BioShock, it's hardly the sort of fare that anyone would say screams of "mass appeal" to a "casual audience". It's easy to see how the base idea of "A city underwater filled with mutants" could have been handheld along every step of the "How to make a blockbuster game for dummies" guide.

*Spoilers*

Now, this is where our example gets a little tricky, because Ken Levine is one of the most respected men in the business and I sincerely doubt he'd stand for any nosy publishers telling him how to make his game, but, for the sake of argument, let's just run with this. It might be a little cynical or far-fetched, but it's not that hard to imagine how this game could've turned out if the big boys at EA or Activision got their hands on it. 

The first thing you see in BioShock? A beautiful menu that somehow manages to set the tone for the whole experience to follow with some simple art deco-infused boxes and piano key sound effects. In a 2017 game, it's not hard to imagine that screen being pushed back to make way for a "Give us your email address and tick these boxes to join our club and receive our newsletter!" page, along with a couple of adverts encouraging you to download your day-one outfits and don't forget to redeem your season pass code.

Gee... thanks

The subtly spooky and memorable Sander Cohen sequence? Too complicated, replace it with a boss fight. Gene-splicing addicts as enemies? Too weird, replace them with monsters. No multiplayer? Are you serious? This is an FPS, right? It's got to have multiplayer! The moral dilemma of either saving or killing Little Sisters to earn ADAM for your upgrades? No worries, give us $5 and you'll load in with 500 bonus ADAM and an exclusive plasmid! Finished the story and reflecting on what a well-crafted and perfect experience it was? Well get ready to open up your wallet because we've got some DLC time trials and 2 hours of bonus story to sell you next month, and we'll be announcing our annual release program for this hot new cash cow franchise at E3! Be sure to make an account on our site to get access to the live stream. We can also imagine the RPG aspects of the game being massively played up as it seems like pretty much everything (even sports games nowadays!) has to have some kind of levelling system.

Hey, I admitted I was being excessively cynical, so don't judge me here. I know that might not be exactly what would happen, but it's not too hard to imagine, either. The truth is that the modern games industry has transmogrified into this hideous factory farm of shady practices and immoral marketing. Plenty of modern games are excellent, but they all inevitably come with this gross money-making baggage that is turning many long-time gamers away and pushing them deeper and deeper into the independent market, where developers, small and large, are getting better at making good-looking, well-designed games that actually have the quality to stay standing in a fight against some of the big boys. And this is good news. Out of darkness, light always emerges and now, at a time when the AAA industry is so deeply and darkly infested, it's good to see such a positive response from the indie world.

More games like this please

Am I going too far with this? I don't think so. I love that the games industry has reached a point where titles like Horizon and Destiny 2 can exist; these are the sorts of titles we never even dreamt of in our youth, but, to quote Uncle Ben, with great power comes great responsibility. Sadly, this industry is a business like any other and money needs to be made, and when unscrupulous businesses find new methods to exploit their audience as much as possible, well, they use them! DLC, season passes and Digital Deluxe Editions aren't going away any time soon, and I know many people would counter this argument by saying "Nobody is forcing you to buy them!" and that's true. It's perfectly possible to ignore all this stuff, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a problem here.

Nowadays, games are being developed with all of this stuff in mind. DLC is planned out months ahead of release, studios spend valuable time working on stupid add-ons and packs when they could be focusing on the game itself, and even the special editions are prepared in the most insidious way and given ludicrous price tags. Similarly, games with original and perhaps a little controversial ideas (like the way mental health issues are approached in Hellblade, for example) are controlled and moulded to fit a pre-defined formula, suffocating creativity and resulting in a AAA market utterly littered with games that basically consist of saving the world over and over.

It's pretty safe to say that if a game like BioShock was coming out this year, it would not be the masterpiece we saw back in 2007. It'd have some of the elements of that game, sure, and it might even become a critical darling and go down as one of the best games of all time regardless, but it would undoubtedly be released with a watered-down story, a slew of DLC and a whole bunch of extra nonsense that the original game never needed. And that would be a tragedy. A little tragedy in the grand scheme of things, but a tragedy nonetheless.