Ghost Story Games
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Predecessor | Irrational Games |
| Founded | February 23, 2017 |
| Founder | Ken Levine |
| Headquarters | Westwood, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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Key people
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Ken Levine (creative director) |
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Number of employees
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25 (2017) |
| Parent | Take-Two Interactive |
| Website | ghoststorygames |
Ghost Story Games, LLC is an American video game developer based in Westwood, Massachusetts and led by Ken Levine. The studio is the rebranding of Irrational Games as announced in February 2017, and while still the same business subsidiary under Take-Two Interactive, the rebranding was considered a fresh start by the founders as they move into more emergent narrative-driven titles compared to the larger titles they had made under Irrational.
Irrational Games had a history of several successful titles, including BioShock and BioShock Infinite, both helmed by Levine. Levine expressed how much stress completing a large title was at the conclusion of work of BioShock Infinite, and decided that he would drastically trim down the studio "to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers. In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience." While Levine had considered founding a new startup for this endeavour, Take-Two convinced Levine that they would still be the best place for his studio. On February 18, 2014, the studio was restructured: Levine kept about 15 others, with Take-Two, 2K Games, and the studio helping to find positions for the other 75 employees. At this point, Irrational was effectively shut down, though over the next few years, it would continue to provide new job openings.
In October 2016, several video game journalists noted that Take-Two had filed a trademark for the name "Ghost Story", related to video games, but otherwise not clear what this was for. On February 23, 2017, the studio announced it had rebranded itself as Ghost Story Games, though they were treating it as a fresh start as a newly founded studio. It was founded by 12 of the former Irrational members with Levine still as president and creative director. The studio's focus is "to create immersive, story-driven games for people who love games that ask something of them"; the name was chosen as ghost stories "are immersive, exciting, and steeped in community", similar to their design philosophies. As of this point, the studio had about 25 employees.
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