Game Pitch - Bioshock

Published July 19, 2011 by Irrational Games, posted by Gaiiden

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Here is yet another really cool online resource we're happy to feature by reposting one of their more popular design pitch documents here on GameDev.net for everyone to check out. There's plenty more over on GamePitches.com and new ones are being added constantly. It used to be that design documents were the popular thing to post online for budding developers to read through and see how a professional game was organized on paper, but once you get the hang of that how to you seek out financing from a publisher to produce your game? Now you can see how well-known studios have convinced people to give them money to make their now well-known games. Learn by example with this great resource!

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[size="5"]Irrational Games - Bioshock Pitch Document

[media]http://www.scribd.com/doc/32211144[/media]

0 Likes 11 Comments

Comments

ArtificialZero

"Make you own Weapons" - I don't remember that part. Would be interesting to know why some ideas are scrapped exactly.

I mean, I can understand - I'm happy with guns I pick up, crafting weapons sound more like work than fun - but I don't know.

July 19, 2011 12:25 PM

SuperVGA

Well it was possible to [u]upgrade[/u] weapons... Maybe they initially wanted to let the player construct the weapons from scratch? That would be a little far fetched, i think...

July 19, 2011 12:57 PM

SuperVGA

Nice pitch, though. Very well written introduction...

July 19, 2011 12:58 PM

Rattrap

The story itself, about being a deprogrammer and rescue an heiress sounds closer to what they are using in Bioshock: Inifinte.

July 19, 2011 02:42 PM

ThrustGoblin

Funny, the main character Carlos Cuello was the technical lead when I was working on the PS3 version.

July 19, 2011 11:20 PM

Hinch

I notice there're a few pie-in-the-sky features in this pitch that never made it into the final game. I'm interested to know, did they have a proof-of-concept prototype to go with this pitch, or were they able to get initial funding purely off their reputation and this document?

July 20, 2011 10:35 AM

nsmadsen

This is a great service to current and future game developers everywhere! I really enjoyed reading through this!

July 20, 2011 07:52 PM

coldacid

Hinch, I doubt there's ever been a game pitch that didn't promise the moon. Sometimes it's hyperbole, sometimes it's ideas that don't work with how the game evolves, sometimes it's just lying to get into a funder's pockets. In any case, you'd have to ask Ken Levine that question.

July 22, 2011 02:17 AM

StayFly

I love of idea of controlling the game world. If that made it into the full game that would of been awesome. Still bioshock was and still is an outstanding game.

July 22, 2011 03:13 AM

Orymus

I feel like the weapon customization they've promised was perhaps too close to the Deus Ex franchise. Maybe it did not stand out enough to make it into production. Still, I'm curious how far along they went with that idea... alpha? beta? who knows...

July 26, 2011 05:32 PM

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You've seen AAA game design docs posted online and have learned how to design your game on paper. Now how about securing that funding? Learn again from the pros by seeing how they pitched their games!

Game Pitch - Bioshock

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