Ken Levine and Take-Two in Negotiations

Variety is reporting that BioShock lead designer Ken Levine hasn’t been in the public eye recently due to the fact that he’s busy re-negotiating his contract with Take-Two.

Have you been wondering why “Bioshock” creative guru and 2K Boston chief Ken Levine has been strangely absent from the press recently? Why “Bioshock 2” is being made at a separate studio and all Take-Two has said is that he “will be involved?” Why he wasn’t available to talk on the record about the “Bioshock” movie? Why nobody knows what’s up with him?

As several sources have confirmed for me, the answer is simple: Levine is re-negotiating his contract. Coming off the big commercial success (2.2 million units sold) and even bigger critical success of the game, Levine has become one of the very few recognizable and respected names in the videogame development community and he’s trying to use that to get the creative freedom and compensation he feels he deserves. Take-Two, meanwhile, obviously wants to keep the guy on board, but is probably wary both of not spending too much money and also not setting a precedent that it will regret having to follow with the creative director of every successful game going forward.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Personally, I’d like to see Levine jump to EA and start working on System Shock 3.