As already announced by Activision, Bizarre Creations will end its 15-year-long life as a video game developer after being recommended for closure. Develop has a lengthy obituary on the developer of games like The Club, Fur Fighters and last year’s superpowered racer Blur, along with a few comments from unnamed Activision and Bizarre staffers.
There’s seemingly little bad blood between the owner and its soon-to-be-shuttered studio. One commenter in the Develop story, purportedly from an ex-Bizarre staffer, who places blame on the studio itself. “We had no idea what to do and we ended up doing the wrong thing for nearly four years,” an alleged staffer writes.
“The problem was that we made Blur; real cars in realistic cities with power ups,” they write. “Who were we selling that game to? Marketing had no chance, we didn’t even know how to sell it or who it was aimed at.”
“Then we made Bond, which was destined to be average from the start when we aimed to ‘make it like Uncharted 2, but in half the time and with James Bond in it’.”
Obituary: Bizarre Creations [Develop]
RK
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:25 AMShame. Blur was FANTASTIC but it did get very little marketing support, released at a time of tough competition, and suffered from a crippling multiplayer crash bug for a month after launch, which is the kind of thing that scares people off at the wrong time. But it was just damn fun all the time, and I probably put more hours on it than I put into any other game last year.
AdamD
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 11:52 AMAgree. Blur was fantastic. I’m generally not a big racing game guy but I loved blur. For me it’s a game I can put in when I don’t know what else to play and have a good time.
Aliasalpha
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 11:21 AMWhilst it was a bit rough around the edges, I thojgght Blood Stone was fantastic. Easily the best Bond game ever made (and before anyone goes on about goldeneye, play it again without the nostalgia glasses on, it was average at best)
Yiani Mastrantonas
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 1:46 PMDont be an idiot Goldeneye was the best and because it practically invented console fps and wii remake of goldeneye was far better than bloodstone
sarujin
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 12:32 PMAlas we might not get future Geometry Wars, that by far was the most addictive Bizarre game.
Ben J
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 4:19 PMThat’s a shame. I loved geometry wars, but they said they weren’t gonna take the series any further so it doesn’t have much of an impact on me.
The problem for me with blur was that the price stayed so high for so long! If it had dropped in price quicker then I would have bought it sooner and I’m sure some other people would have aswell.
Steve0410
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 4:35 PMHuge shame. I was always more of a Gran Turismo guy, but no-one likes hearing about a studio closing. Let’s hope they can still run a skeleton crew for Geometry Wars.
Sylver
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 4:45 PMAre you trying to tell me that Blood Stone will not have an ending?
I thoroughly enjoyed it, if only for the movie-esque car chase scenes.
Mr Waffle
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 4:50 PMBlur being released at virtually the same time as the essentially identical Split/Second certainly didn’t help…
I bought Blur, and was utterly disappointed by the singleplayer that was all of 5 minutes long. Tried the multiplayer, ended up just getting pissed off at getting wreaked for things I couldn’t control and stuff like that.
djmcbell
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 6:25 PMShame. To me, Bizarre will always be remembered for MSR/PGR – my favourite racing games by far aside from Mario Kart (and even then it’s tough to say which I’d prefer). The cone challenges in the PGR games – whilst few and far between – are some of the best moments of gaming I’ve played in a while.
I really must get Blur at some point.
djmcbell
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 6:26 PMOh yeah – and The Club. Even though she bought it for me, my girlfriend loved that game. I had a good time playing it too. It was sorta like PGR (different challenges, stringing together combos) but in a third person shooter.
APK31
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:09 PMI agree. I am not familiar with MSR, but I fell in love with PROJECT GOTHAM RACING from the very first moment I played it on the original XBOX. Then, when I got my grubby mitts on an XBOX360 and played PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 3…my god, I was in racing heaven!
I guess it’s hard for me to put a finger on exactly what it was that made the games so good, but it was certainly something unique. The feel of the games were just right, the racing tight and responsive.
And, djmcbell – you’re right. The cone challenges were something special. Yes, I might have been close to smashing the controller a time or two on the hardest difficulty, but they were well worth the effort (and ultimately satisfying).
This is sad news indeed. I’ll miss you, BIZZARE CREATIONS.