‘No, We Do Not Hate Ken Levine’

BioShock made team leader Ken Levine famous. While he renegotiates his contract with Take-Two for more money and power, there have been rumours that Levine isn’t exactly Mr. Popular. More like Mr. Unpopular! Apparently, the BioShock team did not enjoy working with him. Not so says lead BioShock programmer Chris Kline:

What’s kind of curious is these rumours floating around, and we read them on the Internet.. Oh, there’s some rumour that like, after BioShock, everybody hated Ken and everybody left. And everybody’s in the office like ‘where did this come from? I didn’t leave. Are you leaving? No.’ The answer is, after BioShock finished, nobody left… We would love to know [where the rumour came from]… It’s rough for us, because we’re like, it’s the same old team, we’re still there, still like working with Ken, we’re doing great stuff… If you ever meet Ken, he’s the most unassuming guy. He’s the biggest nerd. But what you have to do in a game is go out there and get people excited about your project… What I think people like about Ken, or what’s made him an ‘icon’ is that he tells the truth… He takes his case to the gamer, and that really gets people excited.

You heard it here! Ken Levine: Nerd, icon, exciter.

The Truth About Ken Levine [Next Generation]