Bizarre Creations to be sold by Activision

Craigy

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Developers of Blur, The Club, Geo Wars, PGR series and Metropolis Street Racer have been shut down.

Hopefully the split from MS wasn't bitter and they can be persuaded to make another PGR.

Until then sorry to those affected by the cull. :(

Update, Activision denying they have shut the studio, but don't want it.

"Over the past three years since our purchase of Bizarre Creations, the fundamentals of the racing genre have changed significantly," said a spokesperson for the publisher.

"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."
 
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I have been a huge Bizarre fan since MSR on the dreamcast and have purchased all bar one of their racing games (and blur is on my xmas wish list for the outlaws).

In terms of finding the balance between shallow arcade racers which you can only play for short periods of time, and "proper" racing games which put off a lot of people for being too fiddly I think PGR finds the perfect balance and is without doubt in my mind the best racer of its type ever made. It will be a sad day for arcade racing fans if they get disbanded .
 
Another here who has been playing their games since MSR, and I've been on the much underrated Blur this week. I hope they find a buyer, would be a shame to see these guys go to the wall.

And I've amended the title to reflect the fact it's a sale rather than a closure for now.
 
It was went wrong when they stopped the day/night cycle from MSR :D

Or when they didn't bring Edinburgh back to the masses in PGR3 or 4...

I hope this doesn't mean the end for Geometry Wars!!!!!
 
It's a shame that Blur never did well for them as it was fun, if a little lightweight. They released it at a bad time too.

Would love to see them back with MS for PGR5. No other racing game comes close to the PGR series for me, even Forza 3 which, as amazing as it is, is a bit po faced and anoraky for my liking.
 
Activision released Blur alongside Split/Second, and Bond against Codblops, neither with a decent marketing push. They don't seem to exactly have been keen to sell them in the first place.
 
Activision released Blur alongside Split/Second, and Bond against Codblops, neither with a decent marketing push. They don't seem to exactly have been keen to sell them in the first place.

Bond? Has there been a new one released? (as if to prove the point about a lack of marketing!)
 
Blood Stone is a decent game IMO. I completed it and immediately started it again on the 007 skill level, which is unlocked after your first play through. I've never done that before with a game. Unfortunately, the person I borrowed it off wanted it back, so I didn't get to finish it twice.

I'd like to see MS buy BC and get PGR5 made. PGR4 is still one of my favourite racing games.
 
Thanks for info Iain.

Must admit that I found PGR4 fun but I hated how long it took to navigate through the menus and then finally find folk to race against, if they do do PGR5 I hope they get the finger out on this side of things...



...and redo Edinburgh in HD :thumbsup:
 
Activision are so short sighted it's unreal. It's always down to the bottom line with them, rather than "that game was really good but underperformed, let's try again" it's "that game didn't sell enough, you're all fired". Activision are to blame for Blur's failure, not Bizarre.
I'm in the minority in not really seeing the need for another PGR but i really liked Blur. The timing of release was idiotic on that game, having it go head to head with Split Second probably halved the sales of both games as people wanting a good arcade racer flipped a coin and just bought one (i got Blur as i prefered the demo). Just releasing them 3 months apart would have increased sales of both.
MS are the no brainer choice for either a purchase of Bizarre or for MS to fund a new in house studio with members of Bizarre's staff.
PGR5 and another Geometry Wars would make a lot of Xbox players very happy
 
Thanks for info Iain.

Must admit that I found PGR4 fun but I hated how long it took to navigate through the menus and then finally find folk to race against, if they do do PGR5 I hope they get the finger out on this side of things...



...and redo Edinburgh in HD :thumbsup:

Nah, they should do Greenock.... :laugh:

As for the online side of PGR4, I totally agree. It was (still is!) an absolute nightmare getting an online game even though I was pretty much always up against the same bunch of players. In the end up we all FR'd one another and ended up sticking to private lobbies.

I hope that if PGR5 does go ahead they keep in the daily and weekly tournaments though - loooooove them and still play them occasionally on PGR4.

Anyway, if anyone is up for private races on PGR4 just drop me a FR. :thumbsup:
 
Not sure if this news is good news or not, i've played most of Bizarre's games and have enjoyed all of them, even The Club (for a very short time it must be said) but tbh the games released after the Activision takeover were all worse than the released beforehand.

I still live the dream that one day i'll fire up the xbox to be greeted with the message "PGR2-HD now available to download" maybe it'll happen, maybe....
 
Bizarre have made some of my favourite racers and it would be a shame to see them disappear and it wouldn't be good for the UK game industry either as Bizarre seems to be a big...ish studio (as they develop a lot of games and I would imagine development time on some of them would overlap).

I also think Blur was an underrated game.

rumours starting to surface that MS could be interested they are looking for a dev for PGR5 yes please, make it happen

News: Microsoft interested in Bizarre buyout - Source - ComputerAndVideoGames.com

:clap::clap:

If Microsoft acquire Bizarre and get them working on PGR5 it would be good news to me as long as Microsoft give Bizarre enough time and resources to do it. Also if they buy Bizarre and just have Bizarre as a racing game studio making several game franchises (and the occasional Geometry Wars style arcade game) I would be pretty happy.
 
I was surprised we haven't had news on a new Geometry Wars.
I know when GW2 came out the developer said they had so many ideas for that GW3 would be a given.

Now it looks we either wont see one (unlikely) or it will be made by someone else.
Shame loved both GW's, quite a hardcore highly addictive arcade game. Watch some of the You Tube videos, particularly one of the best players called Karnage :eek:

As others have said Activision are being hated more and more. Not surprising when they treat Developers like that.:rolleyes:
 
If Microsoft acquire Bizarre and get them working on PGR5 it would be good news to me as long as Microsoft give Bizarre enough time and resources to do it. Also if they buy Bizarre and just have Bizarre as a racing game studio making several game franchises (and the occasional Geometry Wars style arcade game) I would be pretty happy.

I'm hoping this comes true, PGR2 is my favourite racer of all time. I'd rush home from work almost every night because i couldn't wait for my daily fix, i think i clocked over 500 hours online, and most of that was probably spent racing the 911 GT1 around the Nurburgring.
If given the right amount of time (please take a long look at PGR2), PGR5 could be one awesome launch title for the new xbox in 3 years time, so come on MS, do the right thing :lease:
 
Have always loved the PGR racing games, so much that I never played a Forza as PGR just held my attention too much! Hopefully they'll keep going and be bought up by someone who gives them the freedom to create the games they're capable of. GW on the iPad is phenomenal!
 
Does anyone know what's happened with Bizarre? Seems to have gone quiet since that announcement in November. I'd love to see MS buy them and get them working on PGR5. Or even better, but the F1 licence off Codies and get Bizarre working on a decent F1 game.
 
the codies F1 game is awesome! best i've played in a long long time. needs some refinement but if they do that for the enxt one then it'll be brilliant
 
This makes me really angry.
Activision are the only party to blame for this, Blur was released head to head with a very similar game in split second and both were overshadowed by red dead redemtion which got all the attention in that period and both flopped as a result despite both being really good games.
The Bond game was sent out to die with no promotion whatsoever, it's apparently not that great anyway but that could be due to deadlines and release windows
Any other developer that sells out to Activision after this and the Infinity Ward debacle needs their head reading (unless the owners don't care what happens once they get their cash)
 
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hmmmm, i wonder if bizarre could pull a harmonix and buy themselves back to become an independent studio again.
they are clearly a talented bunch that should be able to make more profitable games without the buffoons at activision involved and presumably the founders still have most of that activision cash, they could probably buy bizarre back for sod all
 

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