Bioshock Infinite and Irrational Game Founder Ken Levine Discusses Fan Pressure and the Effect it has on Game Industry

It has been a busy week for Irrational Game's Ken Levine. In addition to releasing new DLC for Bioshock Infinite, the revered game designer spoke to Eurogamer about the recent controversies stemming from video game fans launching personal attacks on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's Jeff Vonderhaar over a patch made to the game and Fez developer Phil Fish over his decision to cancel Fez 2. Levine gave his thoughts on the controversy, stating that some developers walk away from the industry because fan pressure and expectations cause then to lose their passion for creating video games:

"Like, for instance, Vonderhaar. If I were him... Especially to start bringing your family into it. I mean, I've had people say threatening things to me. You know, it's like, why would he want to get up the next morning and go try?...But there are guys who I respect and like who walked away from the space because it's just not worth the trouble any more. Especially if you've got families and got lives. Everybody's entitled to do what they want to do, but just like the developer at some point is entitled to say, you know what? It just isn't worth it for me any more."

Levine, who along with the rest of the team at Irrational Games faced some substantial pressure from fans to match the excellent reputation of the first two Bioshock games with Bioshock Infinite, and then to get DLC out for the game in a timely fashion, claims he handles pressure better than most. But he believes fans antagonising developers only causes the industry grief, and affects the quality of the games they fans are so eager to play:

"...Say if it was someone besides me, the amount of pressure to get DLC out, I could say, f*** it, let's cut half of it so we can get it out sooner. I'm used to the pressure, but there may be a guy who's not like me, who doesn't have the experience, who will give into that pressure and release something that's not as good because they feel that...And that's what I worry more about is how it affects games. As a gamer, game comes out, I hope it's good, and if I like it I play it and if I don't like it I don't play it, and I think you can get in a strange space where it ends up being counterproductive for the gamers. But for me, it's just part of the job at this part, but I don't think it helps gaming."

While the cases of Jeff Vonderhaar and Phil Fish are two of the more extreme examples, video game fans can be very opinionated and harsh with their criticism, and some fans should take Levine's advice to heart and relax a bit with their criticism and personal attacks against individual developers. After all, they are only shortchanging themselves if they cause talented people to leave the industry.