"The way I create video games, it's more like sculpture," Levine says. He finishes chewing a mouthful of egg white and sets down his fork. He explains the following, using his hands to visualize his words.

First, he says, his hands creating a box, he accumulates materials. Books and art, music and films. Comic books, Wikipedia pages and bric-a-brac from tourist pit stops. A lecture on gilded age objectivism, a non-fiction best seller about the Chicago World's Fair or an etching of an ancient torture device.

These many strange and precious things are then mentally pressed together — his hands pulverize one another — into a raw slab of inspirational clay. Inside this clay, he says, will be a game. He and his team will just need to find it.

The process is a creatively exhausting one. Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes years. Sometimes large chunks of the game, Levine tells me, must be broken off like the arm of a statue to make way for a better product. His index finger and thumb snap an invisible appendage.

With a team ranging from 20 to 200, Levine has spent the last half decade chipping away at his latest opus. As of Friday, November 30, he's officially stepped away from sculpting duties on BioShock Infinite. His job now is to meet the press, review marketing materials, respond to questions about what tiny things can and can't be cut or switched or polished, attend award shows — like the VGAs — and ultimately ship the game.
SOURCE: Polygon (READ IT NOW!!!)

A very interesting read on a gaming Titan.