Microsoft "wasn't in the right place" to buy Bizarre Creations

Speaking to VG247 at Develop today, Bizarre Creations head Sarah Chudley said that Activision, and not Microsoft, bought the Gotham developer as Microsoft's "internal structure probably wasn't in the right place to buy things at the time."

"Obviously as the publisher they had to know what was going on, but their internal structure probably wasn't in the right place to buy things at the time," she said.

"And they're a single format. OK, Xbox is doing fantastically, but who knows what's going to happen in the future?

"Multi-platform is the only way."

Chudley said that the approach from Activision came as a surprise but forced the developer to take a reality check.

"We weren't up for sale. We absolutely weren't up for sale. It wasn't a case of, 'Let's go and pitch and sell ourselves,'" said the exec.

"We just got to the point where we were looking forward. The Club took us about a year to sign up. A year is a long time when you've got 50 staff sitting there twiddling their thumbs in early development stages, because obviously the publisher has quite an influence into what type of game is made.

"We've got a lot of money in the bank, but that used to be five years' worth of money, and then three year's worth of money. And then you think, 'Well, there are a lot of people resting on this.'"

Chudley told us that selling the firm had allowed her and husband - Martin Chudley - to get back to what they enjoyed about the games industry in the first place.

"We're not big business people," she said. "We didn't get into the games industry to be all-powerful, all expanding. It got to the point where we weren't enjoying it."

Develop concludes today.