According to a source, Bizarre Creations will be going through a "90-day consultation period, statutory redundancy." The NeoGAF thread on this subject states that all 200 or so staff at the studio have been made redundant. Bizarre employees have known about today's closure for just about three hours.
A press release about this is said to be forthcoming.
UPDATE:Joystiq has a bit of clarification on the "90-day consultation, statutory redundancy" thing. Bizarre is sorta in the process of closing. This 90-day period gives notice to employees that a company is going to be shuttered or sold or downsized.
UPDATE 2: Shacknews and other websites have received the following boilerplate from Activision regarding this. Just to be extra clear, our sources believed Bizarre was toast at the time we reported this. It appears now, though, that the studio isn't closing immediately as was feared. It's possible that within this 90-day period someone can buy Bizarre and save the jobs that were supposedly made redundant.
Over the past three years since our purchase of Bizarre Creations, the fundamentals of the racing genre have changed significantly. Although we made a substantial investment in creating a new IP, Blur, it did not find a commercial audience. Bizarre is a very talented team of developers, however, because of the broader economic factors impacting the market, we are exploring our options regarding the future of the studio, including a potential sale of the business.
Is there anything preventing Bizarre Creations from reopening it's doors under a different name and going independent again? Granted it would probably be a smaller group of guys, but the core of what made Bizarre could live on. I know a lot of people are still waiting on Geometry Wars 3.
This is bad news indeed. Really enjoyed the Project Gotham Racing games, feel sorry for everyone losing their jobs. Hopefully someone else can swoop in there and save them from Shitivision.
I probably need my flame-retardant suit, but I fail to see the problem. PGR was a decent series, but that was before the economic market imploded. Blur didn't do all that great from my understanding, and Geometry Wars wasn't exactly a cash cow. So why is Activision the bad guy? I'm certainly not saying it's the consumer's fault either. I guess it's simply Bizarre's fault for not putting out a home run over the last few years.
When a division of a company is unprofitable it gets CUT. REMOVED. LET GO. AXED.
Stop complaining. Bizarre Creations did not produce the results necessary to make profits for their umbrella company. Activision is a company looking to make money. It's not a "not for profit" corporation building schools in Africa.
@TadThuggish: I'm sure people really *love* a good coca cola too. It's one of those unfortunate realities that union leaders in the bottling plants in Columbia have this nasty habit of being murdered on a regular basis. Man... that murder... *such* drama associated with it!
I hate the head in the sand mentality of that statement. You just want the game, but you don't care about how it was made. That's fine, you are absolutely permitted to feel that way, but do not presume to distance yourself from the cycle you become a part of as a result. A video game isn't a societal necessity like shelter, or food... it is a luxury item.
I'm not trying to tell anyone that might purchase Activision games that they're bad people, but I *do* want them to accept their role in the cycle. Whether you like it or not, you *are* a part of it. Period.
@DriveupLife: I think the issue is more that they made some quality games and are getting shut down while some truly terrible developers / franchises continue on forever.
I don't think anyone is blasting capitalism, it's just unfortunate when it doesn't work correctly.
Blur didn't do awful, I think it sold about 300K units worldwide. Not a smash hit but not a complete disaster either, still it didn't make anywhere near the 40million required.
its like activision doesnt even give the damn developer the chance, one game and your toast, unless your game is call of duty. blur was fun and so was geo wars.
I like how everyone in this thread thinks they understand the reasoning behind this decision. I don't have the best explanation, and I'm pissed about it too, but I'm sure there's a reason besides 'evil.' This is a really dickish time of year to do this, though.
...Also Activision doesn't own Bungie, stop saying they're next. That's silly, they just have a publishing deal. The worst that can happen is they...don't publish the game, which won't happen.
For those lacking any foresight, the problem is the games industry is getting less and less variety in games. Unless you make Call of Duty or Halo or The Sims or World of Warcraft, you don't have a job. If those games are all you play you might not see the problem, but this sort of stuff is toxic to the industry.
If these trends continue for much longer the games industry really won't last much longer.
This really sucks. Blur was a pretty fun game, and one of the only modern arcade racers that doesn't have Mario in the name. Sad to see Activision doing this to them.
" @TadThuggish: I'm sure people really *love* a good coca cola too. It's one of those unfortunate realities that union leaders in the bottling plants in Columbia have this nasty habit of being murdered on a regular basis. Man... that murder... *such* drama associated with it! I hate the head in the sand mentality of that statement. You just want the game, but you don't care about how it was made. That's fine, you are absolutely permitted to feel that way, but do not presume to distance yourself from the cycle you become a part of as a result. A video game isn't a societal necessity like shelter, or food... it is a luxury item. I'm not trying to tell anyone that might purchase Activision games that they're bad people, but I *do* want them to accept their role in the cycle. Whether you like it or not, you *are* a part of it. Period. "
Call of Duty was not made in a sweatshop. No one was murdered. With Call of Duty: Black Ops, no one lost their job.
What you're saying is that anyone who has put BP oil into their car was a cause of the oil spill. No, the oil spill was BP itself's fault. The people in charge. Not me, not my car, not their oil. By that token, every war is everyone's fault because we paid our taxes in the hopes it will contribute to libraries and roads. You're upset that a good company is closing (entirely understandable) and are looking for the closest thing to blame as long as it doesn't put any on yourself. You're not as smart as you think you are.
British development industry has seriously taken some beatings this year. Two development closures in Liverpool alone, and the whole fiasco with Realtime Worlds.
2010 has not been a good year for us. At least Criterion seem to be standing on firm ground. I'll certainly be offering my support by buying a copy if NFS:HP on Friday.
Hopefully Microsoft or somebody else will pick the staff from that studio up. I say Microsoft as I want PGR 5 but anybody really as this stuido makes fantastic racing games. A big disapointment from Activision to shut them down due to the Bond and Blur games not selling well (Blur I thought did ok and the Bond game has suffered due to the Bond branding in general not being that big at the moment due to the lack of any films out recently or in the coming months and the game is not tied to a film so will naturally struggle to gain that mass media coverage).
Sqaure Enix should buy them. They have experience with European Studios (CORE among others) and they would benefit from a studio who knows how to make polished vehicle and combat games.
Good Luck to all Bizarre Creations duders and dudettes. Kudos to you all.
Seems like that's what you get when you sell the studio to locust-like companies like Activision: one misstep and you're finished.
Sad to see the name go. Games like the PGR series and Geometry Wars have a firm place in this generation of consoles. Hopefully most of the guys get picked up by other companies soon.
@Garfield360UK: Bloodstone wasn't helped by a complete absence of advertising and its release being so close to BlOps (also it wasn't very good).
We've seen this a lot from big publishers in the last 18 months. Complaining about game sales when they have done almost no publicity or advertising (I'm especially thinking of SEGA with Alpha Protocol, Bayonetta and Vanquish)
@StrikeALight: We'll have no one left soon. Currently we're the 3rd biggest producer, also the 3rd biggest consumer not that that matters, of video games world wide (after the US and Japan obv.). But the last governments promised tax cuts never materialised and the Tories hate the entertainment industry so.....expect to see that mantle passed on to Canada or France where the industry is HIGHLY subsidised. Though in France everything is subsidised so it no real surprise.
Optimist with no particular attachment to Bizarre Creations says: Those people made solid games, so I'm sure they'll filter out and make more games more solid.
" Fuck. British development industry has seriously taken some beatings this year. Two development closures in Liverpool alone, and the whole fiasco with Realtime Worlds. 2010 has not been a good year for us. At least Criterion seem to be standing on firm ground. I'll certainly be offering my support by buying a copy if NFS:HP on Friday. "
That, along with Dirt 3 from Codemasters whenever that comes along. Very happy to support the UK gaming developers.
Wow this is bullshit. I am a PC gamer and the only reason I have a console (x360) is for social gaming. The only games that take rounds on my 360 (because I can use all four controllers) are Halo, Fifa, Blur, and Geometry Wars 2. Two of these are by Bizarre, this is sad news indeed.
Because if you ran a game studio that produced a game at a huge loss to you, you'd let them stay around, right?
I'm not saying it isn't sad to see Bizarre closing down, but with Blur's failure at the market and Blood Stone's... nonexistent audience, really, that's two games that are going to do pretty badly in one year. It's a financial thing.
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