Activision considers Bizarre Creations sale
Publisher admits new IP Blur failed commercially and is "exploring options" for Liverpool racing studio
Respected UK racing studio Bizarre Creations may be sold by owner Activision, after its most recent new IP, Blur, failed to find a commercial audience.
Activision has today said that it is exploring options for the business, after rumours emerged of lay-offs and a possible closure.
"Over the past three years since our purchase of Bizarre Creations, the fundamentals of the racing genre have changed significantly," said the publisher in a statement.
"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."
Activision bought Bizarre Creations in 2007. The studio is best known for its work on the Project Gotham series for Microsoft, but since being acquired has worked on Blur and a new James Bond game.
Staff at the studio are now on 90 days notice while their fate is considered.
Blur just wasn't an appealing game, and got very mixed reviews. It was okay, but okay doesn't sell anymore, especially for a completely new license.
They just need to do better, period.
The game was good, It just wasn't worth Its price tag and its not going to be a big seller if no one knows about it, Iv seen far worse games sell more because of their marketing.
Blur has a metacritic of 82 with only 7 mixed reviews out of 78 total- 72 positive and 0 negative (using metacritic's criteria).
82 is the same metacritic rating as Split/Second incidentally. And a good average for any game.
Don't see how this adds up to "very mixed reviews" and the game just being "okay"?
Not only that, but Bizarre also proved their flexibility with Geometry Wars. Given the budget to try something new I have no doubt they would have created something awesome.
Good luck guys, and feel free to come and work for Turbulenz :) (http://www.turbulenz.com/biz/careers)
"Although we made a substantial investment in creating a new IP, Blur, it did not find a commercial audience."
..stinks of:
"See! Told you new IP doesn't make money. We did the right thing and look what happens. Only Call of Duty and Hero games forever now."
A little more consistency into one of the two directions (either making a Sci-Fi-Racer with Sci-Fi-Powerups, or making a Real-Setting Racer with Real-Setting-Powerups like Hot Pursuit) would have prevented consumer-confusion. Blur screwed up on it's fundamental concept.
Very sad to see *any* studio in this position, but particularly Bizarre as I've always had a soft spot for 'em. Been a huge PGR fan since the original MSR and although I did feel the series lost a little of its charm with the 4th iteration, I found Geometry Wars, The Club, Blur - hell, even Boom Boom Rocket - a lot of fun!
All the best to the team, hope you find a way to come out of this situation intact. Teaming with Microsoft to continue the PGR series as your bread and butter, with some smaller experimental IP on the sides, would be very nice from this fans point of view ;)
The timing was most definitely wrong, as was the whole concept of Blur, like Peter Kraus pointed out in his comment.
It shouldn't be altogether surprising, but it sucks seeing a developer get closed shortly after its bought since another suitor could have potentially kept it open longer. Maybe it was the marketing, maybe it was just the game itself, or maybe it was just the release. There's a reason why it didn't sell, and as far as Activision is concerned, it seems like its Bizarre's fault.
The fact that Bizarre's last 2 games weren't as big as Project Gotham shouldn't mean that 200 people could be made redundant.
There will be some fantastic programmers, artists and designers there. Don't scatter them to the wind - go in there, change things, get them a better product to work on and do something positive with the situation.
I really hope something positive happens for those guys.
If not, there'll be another 50-60 people going to Canada - and it'll be the cream of Bizarre's devs who go.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Stefan Pettersson on 17th November 2010 8:27am
Metacritic is a very useful tool for those within the industry, and to a small vocal minority of gamers, but to everyone else they probably don't pay it much mind.
As for the news on Bizarre, there is a huge wealth of talent that needs to remain in the industry and I wish them all well whatever happens.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Mike Kebby on 17th November 2010 8:34am
But from my point of view Bizarre were bought by Activision, and as such they should have been given longer than 2 years to produce the 'hit' Acti were counting on. Blur 2 could have be exceptional, but there was not opportunity for iteration.
Bizarre are/were one of the UK's biggest devs since 1994, with bundles of personality (check out the staff quotes page on their website http://www.bizarrecreations.com/staff_qu... I'm just gutted to see them disperse like this.
It's interesting to see if Criterion make another Burnout - or if EA can only sustain one racing game franchise. I see NFS: Shift 2 has just been announced too.
It's interesting times for the industry, at the moment. Lots of studios either closing, downsizing or being sold off. I hope it's just a blip and that it picks up soon.
I would like to see it get a sequel with some iteration and refinement, and I think it would snowball and turn into a solid franchise for Activision. It is, of course, worth bearing in mind that we are still in the midst of global financial problems, and most new IPs this year have underperformed.
Mirrors Edge was a classic example of this - scored well at review, maybe could have done with a bit more marketing, but I remember reading countless forum posts in the runup to that particular Christmas with folks posting their wish lists, and ME was on all of them, but almost to a man people bought MW2 because they knew it was going to be epic, it was a known quantity.
The trouble is people nowadays just don't have the disposable income to take a chance on new IP, especially if it comes at a time when an established IP is releasing a sequel.
It was marketed, but not correctly in my opinion, and the ideal while off the wall, could have attracted a lot of people. LBP is a mix of platforming, scoial networking and level modding and no harm came to that franchise as it was not just marketed appropriately, but previewed appropriately for about 2 years before release. same with Assassin's Creed. Proven now....but if someone told you that you were to develop a free running game set in the middle ages with no guns, shooting ro typical 1st and 3rd person mechanics, while hardocre would have lapped it up, do you not think a lot of others would be skeptical. New concepts DO work, you just need to make sure your consumers UNDERSTAND these new concepts to get them bought in!
I've not seen anything for Blood Stone and singularity I didn't see any advertising (and that was a very good game). This has got to be instrumental to the demise of these products???
Someone should really buy Bizarre - with the right games and backing, they could turn their fortunes around.
It seems to be the norm these days to wipe clean studios which have had heritage and a lot of talent. It doesn't bode well at all for the future, especially for the UK dev industry.
Call of Duty had several iterations before it finally broke into the 'mainstream', it seems unrealistic to expect Blur to immediately dominate the racing game market on its first release, as well as strange to give up on it after one attempt when the design showed so much potential.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Matt Lowe on 17th November 2010 2:44pm
We can spin it out to a number of other factors, but that's basically the long and short of it, and why some folk are rather angry with Activision over the whole sorry affair.
- Couldn't agree more. Hope you're well :)
The strange thing is Blur then ended up getting great reviews. We actually discussed this at the time of release; WHY have a review embargo if the scores top 80+?!?
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Stefan Pettersson on 17th November 2010 4:16pm
I agree, and I think there's a balance to be maintained; I mean, of course people are going to want to buy sequels to their favourite games (I can't wait for sequels early next year like LBP2, Dead Space 2 and Trine 2), but we should also make the effort to support new franchises too. This year has been a mixture for me - I've loved titles like Demon's Souls, Heavy Rain and 3D Dot Game Heroes, and I've also indulged in the more typical sequels such as GoWIII and Red Dead.
"Mirrors Edge was a classic example of this"
Yeah, I really enjoyed MEdge - if any game this gen is crying out for a sequel, it's this one. It was definitely flawed in ways, but achieved some really clever ideas very smoothly and confidently in my opinion. The potential for a follow-up would be huge.
Three racing games, three combat racing games in 14 days in particular, and Red Dead was just unfortunate or poor planning or a combination of both.
Still, Bizarre is a talented studio and their history and pedigree should have been enough for this not be a problem. Not every game is going to sell 10 million units.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Jason Sartor on 17th November 2010 5:40pm
People still watch TV?!
I reckon it was a stupid concept (from a marketing standpoint) well executed. I love racing games and love PGR but have zero interest in Blur.
I do however think Bizarre are awesome and hopefully someone can come in with the funds to save them!
If you do not have a concept or name that sells, then you need a game that's awesome. Not just good, awesome. And Blur wasn't, period (you may have found it amazing, but it's not like there was a huge wave of amazed reviews out there crying for everyone to try it out).
The racing genre is clearly overcrowded, and Blur clearly had difficulties to stand out as a "pay full price" alternative to others.
Blur was so amazing that it didn't generate any buzz nor had a long tail, so please excuse me for pointing out that it's too easy to blame it on the lack of marketing.
I'm not saying that Blur was a bad game (and by no means do I say that Bizarre is a bad studio, they've done some amazing games!), but it's pretty clear to me that this particular game just didn't have what it takes to get people on board.
You may disagree with Activision's decision, but on the other hand, it's not your money at stake, and they're not running a charity.
Bizarre is a great studio, I can only hope someone will be inspired (and rich) enough to get them moving.
BC is one of my favorite devs to support and i buy most of thier games when i can.
good luck guys
as for a buyer a 2nd that MS should buy them...would do them well...
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Krasimir Koichev on 28th November 2010 3:26pm
I'd have to disagree with you there. Personally I thought that mixing a realistic racer, with the arcade-style fun of games like Mario Kart was a great idea, and a really cool concept.
BurnOut isn't all that realistic if you think about it, but who cares if it's fun?
That said, vanilla racing games bore me to tears, so I might not be the audience that they really need to hit with a title like that.