Activision shuts down Bizarre Creations

[Padlocked]

500,000 combined sales, times, say 40 quid per game roughly = 20 mil? thats a healthy fucking chunk of cash.

The average revenue per copy will be far lower than that following various discounts at retail (wasn't it half price less than a month after release?). That revenue then needs to be split between the retailer, wholesaler, platform manufacturer and Activision.

Activision will only see around 1/4 to 1/3 of that revenue, but also bear responsibility for marketing it. I bet they didn't make 20 million over both formats.

[Varnsen]

500,000 combined sales, times, say 40 quid per game roughly = 20 mil? thats a healthy fucking chunk of cash.

I heard they needed something like 1.5 million sales to break even though.

edit> i should clarify that's a rumour but I've heard similar projections for other games that they need sales like that just to break even.

[BrerLappin]

The average price won't be anywhere near £40. I bought it new and sealed from Amazon for a tenner.

im just going on what i saw at retail, and in gamestop its still 45 euro or thereabouts.

[Varnsen]

im just going on what i saw at retail, and in gamestop its still 45 euro or thereabouts.

yeah but as was said above, that's not the full amount going to Activision and by extension Bizarre. Dev costs are big enough on their own with marketing/distribution.

[Uncle Mike]

I and all my friends recently (within the last three weeks) picked up Blur, sealed and brand new, from a variety of major online outlets. None of us paid more than £15. I'd guess most of any sales it's doing now are at a lot less than £40.

Having played Blur for a few weeks (online, mostly) I'll be really gutted if the team gets screwed. I loved PGR2 to death, and Blur is so well balanced and conceived as a game. It's really solid. Admittedly, I don't think the structure of it stands up to much, but as a balanced game experience, it's really well thought through. Activision not being able to sell it should stand as their failure rather than BC's.

[waddie]

im just going on what i saw at retail, and in gamestop its still 45 euro or thereabouts.

Right, but a lot of copies will have been sold online, where £40 is probably the most it was ever listed for and where the price dropped a lot, fast.

It's beside the point really: Activision's cut is presumably the same either way. If they needed to sell 1.5m to break even, 500k was a disaster.

[son_of_helvetica]

Picked up Blur for £12 today from Tesco. Yep, I felt guilty not buying it for full price

[Soo Denim]

500,000 combined sales, times, say 40 quid per game roughly = 20 mil? thats a healthy fucking chunk of cash.

No it's not.

Game will have cost close to 12m to make. Factor in another 5m in marketing and you have a hurdle rate of 17m

As for an rrp of £40 well take 12 as a retail mark up. Take 9 as a platform royalty paid to Sony or Microsoft. Thus Activision probably made £20 from each sale.

They need to do close to 1M for the game to cover it's costs.

J

[mr_woo]

Picked up Blur for £12 today from Tesco. Yep, I felt guilty not buying it for full price

You picked up a cracking game for just over £10, nothing to feel guilty about there and getting a bargain in the process.

[Dudley]

Picked up Blur for £12 today from Tesco. Yep, I felt guilty not buying it for full price

If it helps, I paid full price and I thought it a hateful game.

So let's swap prices and we'll both feel better for the deal.

[The Bag]

I know it has its own thread, but having just played Blood Stone I think it's a quality product. Not world-beating or genre-defining, but it captures the essence of Bond fantastically and doesn't overreach itself.

I only mention this as I've seen people in this thread talk about the game like it's a bad one or a developmental failure, but having played it I got the impression it was limited by budget and schedule more than the developer's ability; what's there is very polished. I'd have been very happy to see where Bizarre could take the license next, although evidently that's not going to happen now.

I've heard from a couple of places that's Blood Stone was a year late in shipping.

[Ferine]

I've heard from a couple of places that's Blood Stone was a year late in shipping.

Who's to say why, though? Blood Stone was only officially announced in July this year, and MGM's issues could have played a part in stifling/restarting development. I seem to remember it was originally rumoured as a pure racing game, too, so...

Generally I'll give the developer the benefit of the doubt in these situations.

[son_of_helvetica]

If it helps, I paid full price and I thought it a hateful game.

So let's swap prices and we'll both feel better for the deal.

I'm beginning to understand why you say such things - the difficulty curve in Blur gets too high way too quickly.

[Guest]

I'm beginning to understand why you say such things - the difficulty curve in Blur gets too high way too quickly.

Funny that, same thing happened on PGR1...

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I bought Blur some time ago on the cheap(ish), played it probably once, got sidetracked and now assume it's pretty obsolete now that we got NFS:Hot Pursuit. You can't win them all.

[Dudley]

I'm beginning to understand why you say such things - the difficulty curve in Blur gets too high way too quickly.

To be honest my problem was more that it appeared to be utterly soulless and lifeless, bear in mind I usually play single player it appeared to have been thrown together by people who didn't care anymore who had been told to take something from the nadir Need for Speed reached somewhere around "Underground 2" and wedge generic video game power ups into it.

Well that and the fact that you have to grind multiplayer to get the power ups that everyone you're racing against already has, which is one hell of a barrier to entry.

To be fair the result wasn't "bad", just to me at least not remotely compelling to play. In retrospect maybe I should have taken it as a warning of this event because at their best (at least 2 of the PGR games, Geo Wars, MSR despite its gigantic flaws, F1 / F1 97) bizarre were superb and maybe it was just Activision meddling.

[son_of_helvetica]

I agree that Bizarre have been better with the PGR franchise than anything - MSR was a tantalising but flawed pre-PGR experience. I had a huge amount of fun with PGR2 online, PGR3 practically persuaded me to buy a 360 and PGR4 had some interesting gameplay twists. Blur isn't completely lifeless though - maybe it's down to the people-less streets? I just think that maybe more causal people were put off by the fact Blur's bastard tough.

[Corleth the Fey]

To be honest my problem was more that it appeared to be utterly soulless and lifeless, bear in mind I usually play single player it appeared to have been thrown together by people who didn't care anymore who had been told to take something from the nadir Need for Speed reached somewhere around "Underground 2" and wedge generic video game power ups into it.

Well that and the fact that you have to grind multiplayer to get the power ups that everyone you're racing against already has, which is one hell of a barrier to entry.

To be fair the result wasn't "bad", just to me at least not remotely compelling to play. In retrospect maybe I should have taken it as a warning of this event because at their best (at least 2 of the PGR games, Geo Wars, MSR despite its gigantic flaws, F1 / F1 97) bizarre were superb and maybe it was just Activision meddling.

You pick the power ups up off of the track - you didn't play it much at all did you.

And if you're finding it tough - stick it on easy. I did!

[Uncle Mike]

He meant the mods, obviously.

[Dudley]

You pick the power ups up off of the track - you didn't play it much at all did you.

And if you're finding it tough - stick it on easy. I did!

Yes, whatever the hell the game calls them, Mike's probably right. The point is you can't have a fair race in multiplayer unless you've grinded forever.

And it's not that it was hard, it was that it was painfully dull to me in single player.

[son_of_helvetica]

I'm doing a significant amount of grinding in single player too - in that I continue to lose so I get the fans I acquired and then spend them on hopefully better cars. Most races I now don't care for position and just acquire as many fans as possible for this very task.

[Major Britten]

I agree that Bizarre have been better with the PGR franchise than anything - MSR was a tantalising but flawed pre-PGR experience. I had a huge amount of fun with PGR2 online, PGR3 practically persuaded me to buy a 360 and PGR4 had some interesting gameplay twists. Blur isn't completely lifeless though - maybe it's down to the people-less streets? I just think that maybe more causal people were put off by the fact Blur's bastard tough.

MSR was probably my favourite Bizarre game, I love the PGR series but it always missed something. MSR was very vibrant (compared to PGR) and seemed more arcadey. PGR4 is by far the best in terms of features and such but the 1 player career mode was damn awful and I didnt like the front end menus and music.

[son_of_helvetica]

MSR was probably my favourite Bizarre game, I love the PGR series but it always missed something. MSR was very vibrant (compared to PGR) and seemed more arcadey. PGR4 is by far the best in terms of features and such but the 1 player career mode was damn awful and I didnt like the front end menus and music.

I have very fond memories of not only seeing the Cars promo for MSR at a Sega cinema screening during ECTS, but also grabbing it with a steering wheel and being amazed that I was driving around Japan listening to Japanese radio. It had been a long time in development, and it felt great to follow the course of the game to sweet completion. I just think it's sad that Bizarre has had so much heritage and history and they're being flung aside for the sake of shareholders. Yeah, it's business but it sucks a fat one.

Microsoft, hurry up and buy them already.

[Corleth the Fey]

Yes, whatever the hell the game calls them, Mike's probably right. The point is you can't have a fair race in multiplayer unless you've grinded forever.

And it's not that it was hard, it was that it was painfully dull to me in single player.

But you're wrong about that too. The game is designed to be played without the mods. The game progression actually takes those mods away when you legend. You're not doing badly at the game because of the mods or cars that are locked away from you. Your skill level is simply not good enough. It's proficiency at the game you need - not the mods. A better player at the game will beat you when they are level 1 - even if you're level 50.

If you don't like the game - fair enough. But don't blame the structure of the game - which you quite clearly don't understand.

[Sie]

I think PGR2, specifically online, is the pinnacle of Bizarres's output for me. Didn't care for the game (or any of the PGRs for that matter) offline but sunk a ridiculous amount of hours into it online. I do remember playing an awful lot of single player MSR though.

Also kudos for Bizarre Creations for this little ditty. Seems appropriate for some of us in the UK at the moment.

[Major Britten]

I have very fond memories of not only seeing the Cars promo for MSR at a Sega cinema screening during ECTS, but also grabbing it with a steering wheel and being amazed that I was driving around Japan listening to Japanese radio. It had been a long time in development, and it felt great to follow the course of the game to sweet completion. I just think it's sad that Bizarre has had so much heritage and history and they're being flung aside for the sake of shareholders. Yeah, it's business but it sucks a fat one.

Microsoft, hurry up and buy them already.

To be honest I would rather MS didnt buy them out

[Major Britten]

Brings back memories, it was the little touches that really added to the game like the radio DJs, if you went into a tunnel the radio would fade out and also using the Dreamcast's clock to have the real time of day in each city.

[cavalcade]

But you're wrong about that too. The game is designed to be played without the mods. The game progression actually takes those mods away when you legend. You're not doing badly at the game because of the mods or cars that are locked away from you. Your skill level is simply not good enough. It's proficiency at the game you need - not the mods. A better player at the game will beat you when they are level 1 - even if you're level 50.

If you don't like the game - fair enough. But don't blame the structure of the game - which you quite clearly don't understand.

This is absolutely true. I came to Blur from Split/Second where I'd managed to claw my way up the ranking to hit the top. It was a harsh lesson that the skills you gain in one arcade racer don't automatically translate to another. To begin with in both Blur single player and multiplayer I was schooled repeatedly. But slowly I started to key into the mechanics of the game - the fact that compared to the chess-like strategic play in Split/Second, Blur was more like taking part in a bar room brawl. Where everyone has a baseball bat. And the bar is on fire.

I've played a few hours online now, and have a few victories under my belt. I've played with guys using mods and those not using any mods at all and I have to say the distinguishing events between those who won and lost usually boiled down to 80% skill, 19% luck and 1% use of mods. The game is exquisitely balanced. I can only imagine the amount of playtesting that went into it. It also has very subtle or non-existent catch up mechanics/rubber banding and yet almost always serves up races where the entire field cross the line only seconds apart which is incredibly difficult to engineer. Twin this with the superb structure that constantly gives you targets to aim for; the large racing fields and the scaled rewards given to the player whether you win or not and it's a very, very kind and forgiving racer for novices. I can't think of many games that are as satisfying to play even if you're playing badly.

To begin with I really wasn't feeling it, but now I have a slowly emerging feeling of grudging admiration for it, which I can quite see turning into unabashed fan love after another few hours of play.

If it's to be Bizarre's legacy, then I think it's a superb game to go out on, that will be played (and appreciated) for years to come. It's sad it won't have a sequel, but then I'm not even sure it needs one.

[HeyMykie]

Dude u guys are doing it all wrong. I played blur on easy as well. Blur is really not that hard. I was shit when I started blur. But I got better with practice. I didn't grind for cars. After about level 10 u can do most missions with what u have especially with destruction events ur not looking to have the fastest car.

[son_of_helvetica]

To be honest I would rather MS didnt buy them out

If it's a choice between Microsoft buying them and Bizarre disappearing completely, I'd take Microsoft.