Activision “exploring options” over Bizarre Creations’ future

Updated again.

There’s to much update in it!

Well, all I have to say on the matter is you would genuinely have to be a heartless person to find pleasure in someone’s misfortune. I will leave it at that.

Moral of the story: studio owners, look to THQ, Zenimax and EA instead, or face a risky couple of years at Acti.

@47, “Dude, seriously… that’s so unfair. You don’t know the budget they had, you don’t know how many creative limitations they got due to the license, you don’t know how much time they got, you don’t know anything… ”

budget? they had for the last game Bruce Feirstein as a writer. Blood Stone features the voices and likenesses of Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and Joss Stone. Bad budget?

Creative limitations? Activision wanted to kill them from the start but others have a freedom?

How much time they got? You think Activision that stupid?

Gosh, how naive you are. You think that Activision don’t want to make a profit?

Blur is a superb game. It was just a victim of bad timing. BC shouldnt have to pay for the publishers mistakes.

@55

“Blood Stone features the voices and likenesses of Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and Joss Stone. Bad budget?”

Can you say contractual obligation? This will have had nothing to do with the games budget. They just spent all that time and effort rebooting the Bond franchise, it would seem stupid to let a video game developer come along and change fundamental characters wouldn’t it…

Erthazus, you really are a Twat.

Blur was an average racing game, but I think the room for those today is very limited, especially after the Need For Speed tidalwave. And who’s satisfied with an average racer from the studio that made Gotham?

What puzzles me is why Bizarre is first in line to get the axe, when Activision has a number of far less convincing studios to choose from.

Indeed. We get another stupid skate board game with a silly plastic atachment that nobody wanted or even remotly worked but they kill of Blur.
Makes perfect sense!

Blur was average. Even Split Second was a superior game. That is all besides the point.

It still sucks when anyone has to (potentially) lose their job. It ain’t like the British Games Industry has a glut of developers or studios like their American counterparts.

@61 EU businesses generally don’t stand a chance in multinational corporations today, since you save far more by shutting down an EU business, than you do shutting down a tax incentivized business anywhere else. The same thing recently happened to IO Interactive in Denmark.

It seems that Activisions other mediocre studios are either in California or Canada. That pretty much clears it up.

Their games came out at really REALLY bad times. Blur came out really close to Split Second and it hurt both of them. Blood Stone came out along with GoldenEye remake which while on a different platform than BS, had most of the hype and anticipation among fans.

Activision are shits. Erthazus is a loser who has no idea whats shes talking about.

there going to kill bungie next. finally!

“budget? they had for the last game Bruce Feirstein as a writer. Blood Stone features the voices and likenesses of Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and Joss Stone. Bad budget?”

Yeah, if anything I’d expect all those expenses to have a negative impact on the game’s actual development budget. You think Bizarre were the ones who came up with the idea of spending money to get Bruce Feirstein as a writer? Not likely. You think Bruce Feirstein made the game better? Not likely.

For shame. Perhaps if Activision had actually bothered to do some publicity for Blood Stone and not just quietly thrown it out to die alongside Call of Duty it might’ve even sold a few copies.

I wonder if Microsoft will dig into their wallets, given the PGR-reboot rumours of late?