Bizarre Creations RIP – 1994-2011

Metropolis Street Racer was my very first press trip. I didn’t know what to wear, so I turned up in a suit that was about three sizes too small then lied that I’d come from a meeting when I saw everyone was wearing t-shirts.

End of an era.

haha

And for the record, we were first in the world to get the game’s title. I phoned it back to the bedroom office off the bus. The Edge freelancer thought I was mental. Liveblogging, 20th Century style.

Such a shame nobody stepped in to save them. Good luck to everyone!

/salutes

Man, I’ve been doing too much saluting of late.

“Over the past three years since our purchase of Bizarre Creations, the fundamentals of the racing genre have changed significantly” -Activision 1 mont ago
“Oh My God ! They killed Kenny ! You Basterds !” -South Park

Sadly this was inevitable once they signed up with Activision, which nowadays seems akin to making a deal with the devil – only worse. As a gamer with no inside knowledge of the industry I really have to wonder why any developer would willingly want to work for or with Activision at all.

Basically a bit heart-broken. PGR3 was one of my first true online experiences and PGR4 was a fantastic racer. Nevermore.

Sad…but not surprising…Activision buys you up..gobble gobble gobble, and then shuts you down boot boot boot…Just got the Bond game for $10 US, ewwwwww Fugly Fugly Fugly..looks like a PS1 game…really really bad…not a good way to end it all!! Maybe they should have stuck to XBLA titles…oh well, I wish the staff all the best, and those who got rich selling off the company, well I will reserve my comments to my thoughts…This is Paul Harvey Signing off, and Good Day…

MSR is where it all started for me. When I had my old gaming review website, it was one of the first titles (along with a few others from the Dreamcast launch) that I went all out on with videos, images, an in-depth feature and so on. It was pretty much my life for a few months once I had gotten hold of it.

Bizarre Creations you will be sorely missed and now there is one less feather in the cap of the UK games industry as a result.

/salute.

Best wishes to all effected by this. I hope they find new positions quickly. Always sad to see an established and talented team broken up though, Blur was excellent.

These guys made Geometry Wars, and Geometry Wars made Xbox Live Arcade. Simply ridiculous.

Best of luck to all involved.

WTF….Bizarre is gone? I didn’t see that coming, why exactly? Wasn’t Blur a success?

Good luck to everyone involved. I worked with them briefly back in the Fur Fighters and MSR days. Great guys, good times, top games.

It’s a sad day for gamers.

Good luck guys and girls.

@frostquake you don’t have a fucking clue what you are talking about.

There is NO need to go all fanboi on this thread, show the people some respect!

@8

It looks like a PS1 game?

Exaggerate much?

Sad day.

Damn Activision.

really gutted for these guys there racers were amazing and there shooters werent that bad i thought CLUB was an amazing game online

thought ms or sony might have snapped them up, a real shame. best of luck to everyone who has left there.:-(

This shows why Independent studios should remain independent. when they’re owned by a bigger firm, there’s always the risk of terminations…

very sad day
F1 was first game i bought from them
they should make their own team and start developing small games or
hope everybody finds new jobs

@20 Any studio has a chance of getting shut down, independent or no.

Especially in the UK, these days.

It’s so expensive to run a studio here, so why bother, when you can make exactly the same products with cheaper talent in cheaper parts of the world?

” so expensive to run a studio here, so why bother, when you can make exactly the same products with cheaper talent in cheaper parts of the world?”

Thats whats killing our econemy and middle class in the states too. Not just games obviously, but with so many things from manufactered goods to customer services.

@22, this is true, but at least if you’re independent you live or die by your own decisions, successes and failures.

There is no mega-corporation overhead saying “we want you to do this like this” then throwing the toys out the pram when it doesn’t work.

And indeed successful studios get cut simply to make savings.

This is so sad, such a talented developer being throw to the trash can, i dont know what is worst, activision, or us gamers that we didnt do anything in order to place and statement on this, i know this people will find jobs (pray to god), but the precedent that this is making is big for our industry, i know is done before but not like this.

In other note, also this month Hudson(bomberman, lost in shadow) shut their doors too, sad month indeed T_T

Oh, bad bad Activision. Why are you closing a studio that is known for not reaching milestones in time and was willing to even take money from the marketing budget, in order to finish their games. Bad Activison! You know this is a charity, not a business. Bad Activision! Good luck Bizarre. I hope you get a new job….and get fucking organized this time.

@ 27 i prefer i studio or company for that matter, that not reach his milestones in time, that the one whoe does forcing his employees, treat them bad in the process and doing mobbing, just saying. and this it has nothing to do with business, you can make good amounts of profits, treating your employees the way they deserve, humanly speaking of course.

Lament of the unsubsidized Euro games developer, like Giga says.

It’s great that politicians want to do a lot of talk about globalization and protecting the high tech employer, but when it comes to putting a bit of investment into those claims, they’re nowhere to be found. As usual.

@27 That’s not really neccesary.

Kudos

@30 or your meant not Kudos to that(the closing of bizarre i mean), i hope is the later,

Another one bites the dust. The best of luck to all those losing their jobs. It proves that Big publisher = hasnt a fucking clue

wow, i feel bad for the bond series as blood stone was left open for a sequel… and i thought bizzare did a brilliant job of recreating the world of james bond… they revived the bond franchise IMO and then the doors close… wow, this is the second studio to close where i loved their last game they ever made… bizzare with blood stone and pandemic with the saboteur…

i guess i’ll just have to cling on to blood stone as i am not so sure we’ll see another decent bond game for many many years…

The saddest thing was that they didnt deserve this. Blur was addicting and WAY underrated and Blood Stone wasnt that bad. Actually was the best MODERN James Bond game.

Activision grabbed Bizzare like a sponge and left the studio falling and needing a home.

Should of stayed with Microsoft. Just saying.

Bungie might be next…

Bizzare’s games weren’t marketed enough, hence why their sales where low, due to them wanting to pump up Call of Modern Warfarre of Duty Honour 234.

The guys didn’t deserve it as they are some of the most talented people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Just think what will happen if Activision ends up buying 2K, rockstar should take a hard look in the mirror in order to dont let that happen.

Blur had potential. It could have gone the way of Dead Space. Solid but not spectacular reviews for part 1 and then 90 ratings all round and mega sales for part 2.

You need to give a franchise room to grow, for atleast one sequel if the frist game is good.
EA gets that, Activission is more foccused on short term proffit. That works great for the shareholders and is a viabel buisenss strategy.
Unfortunatly a side effect of that is a graveyard full of franchises prematurely run into the ground and a a serial killer style studio body count.

beautiful vid

Thanks Bizarre, for all those great games!

so they made those games…that is bad man!
Now that they’ve closed down, Microsoft have nothing to go against GT series

er, the second Dead Space got basically the same reviews as the original.. the games have a 0.1 diff on Metacritic ;o

and, RIP. they were an exceptional developer.

That’s because meta critic is a nonsensical way to gather information, it agragates everything untill the nuance is gone.

EG is more representative of the general response Dead Space 1 got, 7/10. Good but has some issues and is repetative. Sales reflected that.
Dead Space 2, 9/10, improved the game in the right places, lots of positive buzz, great sales.

The new Medal of Honor, same thing. The reboot was a verry mixed bag but there was something there to build on. The second one will probably be excelent.
Or long story short: it often takes a sequel for a developer to get it right.

@Freek
‘That’s because meta critic is a nonsensical way to gather information, it agragates everything untill the nuance is gone.’

ah, that’s true then, I agree.

although I don’t see how it could possibly affect the sales.. going by games like Sniper GW or K&L 2. I would rather believe it was the recession being at it’s peak in 2008.