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.
Cute how people love to jump on Activision.... If you don't make the company money you are worthless, doesn't matter if they had talent... Wonder did EA get this kind of backlash when pandemic closed
What the hell, Activision?! I love The Club and Blur and now you're just gonna trash the company down because they fail to make money for you? Don't blame them. Blame your lousy marketing strategy.
First InfiniWard and now this? What are you thinking?! The only reason Blur sucked is because they lost the PGR licence and had to build their own crap at Activision's discretion. So we ended up with MarioKart with real cars. I don't think Bizarre takes any significant blame here.
They buy up promising companys with successful games under their belt, bleed them dry then shut em the fuck down. Thanks Bobby Kotick... you're the best!
My thoughts exactly, Activision should have kept open a studio that was hemorrhaging money. Why don't people understand the simplest business practices, it sucks but you can't keep everyone around.
" shit,was thinking of buying blur, tought it sell well, are people still playing online? "
Same here. Now I feel even more guilty for not getting it, despite loving the beta. Whatever did I get instead? Even worse. I can't remember what game I got over Blur. When did it come out?
At least I'm getting Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit. It's gonna be in the mail tomorrow. I'll make damn sure Criterion doesn't go belly-up too!
Blur may not have found a commercial success, but that's because Activision placed a shitty goddamn advertising campaign behind it. The game was fucking great. THEEEEEN, they ask them to make goddamn BLOOD STONE?! WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THAT WAS AN HONESTLY SOUND IDEA?! Did they LOOK at Quantum of Solace?!
PGR has sold well over the years. Geometry Wars has done well. Bizarre even did good things with The Club, despite all the haters out there. They happened to make an original IP...AN ORIGINAL IP...and now they get closed because it didn't do Call of Duty gangbusters or some shit?
Muthafucking Activision...*ugh*. I hope Turn 10 takes on the staff and they turn Forza into a goddamn monolith!!!
LOL i bet bungie feels really good right now. They are the EXACT same story as bizarre just Halo was more popular than gotham. But that doesnt mean anything for their new IP
I liked Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Too bad the other Geometry Wars titles never were ported to the PC. I would have bought them then, and I'm sure a bunch of other Steam users would've as well.
I think the Wipeout guys are based in Liverpool but those are the only ones I can think of. There will a lot of moving around required of people to find another job in the industry - lots of disruption.
It's very conceivable that there could be more Geometry Wars (except not by that name) coming out after this with that one main guy setting up his own indie studio - that would seem like quite a logical move and then he wouldn't even need to divert his attention elsewhere either.
Why is everyone on the internet always "fuck the corporate world, down with the man!"? Now I think Geowars is awesome, and yes, these big companies sometimes make decisions that I don't agree with, and seem heartless, and it's too bad this is happening, but come on. If I get a job anywhere, I am expected to perform. The fact is that obviously Bizarre didn't. Activision provides capital and expects a return on that.
If I own a restaurant, and my workers make shitty food, and people don't buy it, those people get fired, or the place gets closed. Just because a couple years ago the chefs made some kick-ass Geometry Wars Casserole doesn't mean people want to eat my Bloodstone Pie, and guess what? All those 007 pie crusts are wasted money. Its still a business - people did not want their product, and neither did you. Still, I hope for the best for the Bizarre guys.
I bet Bizzare Creations are happy that they split from MS now. Well, I can't say this is unexpected. When I first heard about Blur I thought it was just stupid. Then I played it and it was pretty good but still thought it was stupid because no one will buy it. For those that the gameplay would appeal to, the style won't and vice versa. And when I head that they are making a Bond racing game(first rumors were that it was a pure racing game) I've lost all respect I had for that studio.
Also, to those who say that Microsoft should buy them. They won't. You might have heard about a little studio called Turn 10. MS doesn't need two racing game developers, especially when the one they don't own at the moment want to make really bad 3rd person action games and apparently according to their last game, can't make decent driving games eather(driving sections from Bloodstone or BS as I would like to call it).
Also, after Bloodstone, I would have closed that studio down too. It was fucking horrible. And the Club was a abortion aswell. Blur is the only half way decent thing they have done since PGR4 and even that was just PGR3 - Now with Weather
" We only have ourselves to blame. If they would've made Call of Duty: Racing then people would've bought their games. "
On a related note, it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for Treyarch to add RC XD racing around the maps as an added game mode to Black Ops as DLC.
Not surprising in the least since Bobby only likes what makes Bobby substantial amounts of money.
That, and gamers kind of screw themselves over when everyone only buys sequels. All of these closures is just the beginning of what will turn into a market that contains a handful of developers that are being milked by 2-3 mega publishers for blockbuster cookie cutters and sequels.
Until gamers start buying into "new" games again, I doubt we're going to see any of this stop. Maybe if games didn't cost an arm and a leg gamers would be more apt to try a new IP. That would of course mean developers stopped spending half the government's budget on a game but I think I could live with slightly lower production values for fresher material.
" Activision Blizzard aren't making enough money from world of warcraft and COD to keep a great studio like Bizzare creations running? Seriously! What The Fuck?. I mean EA Fired some people from Various Studios, but they did not shut it down altogether. Jesus Christ! "
As much as it sucks, using the profits of one company to keep another afloat is bad business for the publisher. If a developer is not profitable enough to keep itself alive, then throwing money at it is not gonna help and major restructuring needs to take place.
Not to mention that Blizzard and Treyarch would throw a shitstorm if their own profits would be diverged to another developer that has been floundering for some time.
I was genuinely upset when I heard about this news - Bizarre have created games from way back and they've been with me since my gaming life. I wish all at Bizarre Creations all the best and hope they find gainful employment out of all this.
" Activision and EA, ruining creative games for years to come. "
EA tried the creative thing. People didn't buy the games.
EA went back to making sequels. People bought the games.
Truth is that most people are not interested in creativity or new licenses unless the publishers spend a boat load on PR and advertising and spoon feed people the hype.
At least EA tries a little, Activision just milks franchises until they are unusable (and then releases some more).
" You know what Activision? Fuck you.... FUCK... YOU! Been a fan of these guys since Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast. I want Bobby Koteck's head on a pike for this! "
i really hope they got bought out by a good company or something, i feel sorry for all the workers, they did make reallly good games, activision and EA are just corporate assholes
" By "statutory redundancy", do they mean "mandatory layoffs"? Companies need to stop being so fucking cryptic and just say what they're doing. It's even worse than "human resources", when they mean "Personel". "
@BananaKid: Dude EA experimented with both Mirrors Edge and Dead Space and got burned financially. But they clearly still believe in the teams behind the games and the concepts, that is why their are sequels being developed for both those games. So basically care about One thing Money, not Innovation or variety, Just MONEY!
I can't speak for other countries, but I am pretty sure here in the UK, they put fuck all money into marketing Blur. So in that respect, yes I think it is Activision's fault to a degree.
In my opinion it's a great game though, which makes it a shame.
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