Activision shuts down Bizarre Creations

[ras el hanout]

is the word "or" missing between two of those sentences?

like so:

Because, surely it's the later that was to blame for any perceived "failure" on the part of Blur. They tried to give people what they thought they wanted. Turns out they wanted PGR5.

also, it got confused with Split/Second wink.gif

I think PGR2 was the pinnacle of the series. It went downhill from there. Nobody really wanted PGR5 or Blur.

[Hawkeye]

If you're a subservient wimp, maybe, but I'd rather see Bizarre close their doors than end up churning out shit they have no love for. Good on 'em for telling Kotick where to stick his Nascar license.

That's fine if you're an independent and your willing to live and die by the project you push knowing full well that the continuation of the company depends on it's success. It's crazy when your one division of many that the parent company can just decide you're now surplus to requirements.

The sad truth is since PGR2 they haven't had anything that's been seen as a "big hit". If either PGR3 or PGR4 had done the numbers expected Microsoft would have still been all over them. Outside a few folk Blur never really seemed to capture peoples imagination. Sadly despite them having a decent record over the last few years I don't see a queue of folk waiting to snap them up, with current development costs and risks "decent" is a huge gamble to take when every publisher wants a mega-hit.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

If people wanted PGR5, they would have bought PGR4. As far as I know, PGR4 was a commercial disaster. I loved the game and think it's the best in the series (well, maybe PGR2 is better or came at a better time), but the online multiplayer was a barren wasteland because nobody bought / played it.

[SeanR]

I think PGR2 was the pinnacle of the series. It went downhill from there. Nobody really wanted PGR5 or Blur.

no, they* want more NFS games, Thanks EA, THEA.

* you know who I mean...

[scottcr]

This. I know business is business sometimes but fuck me these companies have enough cash to show a little heart to the lower level peeps. Thoughts to those famalies that are going affected by this - I don't know them - think I played Blur with one of the level designers through Hooded Claw - but it must be horrible to be loosing your job in the current climate and in this market as well.

I faced redundancy over christmas as well - in this case, because of the amount of people affected - they'll get the full 3 months consultation. After that comes the notification - then after that, you get whatever notice is due to you. They'll continue to be paid up until about March probably.

I imagine that during the consultation there will be talks about setting up another company, transferring IP rights and general help with finding a job elsewhere.

It's still horrible though...

why would anyone want to work in that industry?

[SeanR]

That's fine if you're an independent and your willing to live and die by the project you push knowing full well that the continuation of the company depends on it's success. It's crazy when your one division of many that the parent company can just decide you're now surplus to requirements.

The sad truth is since PGR2 they haven't had anything that's been seen as a "big hit". If either PGR3 or PGR4 had done the numbers expected Microsoft would have still been all over them. Outside a few folk Blur never really seemed to capture peoples imagination. Sadly despite them having a decent record over the last few years I don't see a queue of folk waiting to snap them up, with current development costs and risks "decent" is a huge gamble to take when every publisher wants a mega-hit.

you're

[squirtle]

See you say irrespective but I don't think you can say that. The game wasn't very good, the game they made before that wasn't very good. They seem to have been getting worse for a while. How long do they have to go on making not very good games before we don't care if they all get the sack.

Somebody said "Oh no this shows how crap the british game industry is!"

Surely it would be worse if devs were kept funded because they made great games 7 years ago.

If there recent games had been smash hits or even great games I'm sure they wouldn't have all be fired.

Have you played Blur? Have you read the thread? Everyone rated it massively highly. People also really liked The Club. So Bloodstone is the first kinda average game they've made in ages. MSR, PGR 1, 2, 3 and 4, The Club and Blur were all great. One average game and that's that? Really?

I know you like to think you're some paragon of harsh reality on here, but you're really talking utter tripe here.

[scottcr]

PGR went down hill as soon as they insisted that all the cars would be a particular level of power and speed... completely forgetting that the most popular cars to batter about in with PGR2 were the minis and the elises on the tight tracks, like Edinburgh.

jeez - I loved that track.

[Hawkeye]

Because, surely it's the later that was to blame for any perceived "failure" on the part of Blur. They tried to give people what they thought they wanted. Turns out they wanted PGR5.

also, it got confused with* Split/Second wink.gif

* mistaken for

I honestly don't think Blur or Split/Second would have ever been huge sellers, even if marketed to death. They both sat in an awkward place in the racing genre that few have an interest in.

Also PGR5 really? It seems to be a franchise on a fast decline after 2. PGR4 seemed to bomb compared with what was expected from it in terms of sales, and was very quickly a bargin bin and pack-in title.

[Varnsen]

Have you played Blur? Have you read the thread? Everyone rated it massively highly. People also really liked The Club. So Bloodstone is the first kinda average game they've made in ages. MSR, PGR 1, 2, 3 and 4, The Club and Blur were all great. One average game and that's that? Really?

I know you like to think you're some paragon of harsh reality on here, but you're really talking utter tripe here.

Blur was one of my favourite games of this year, PGR4 was great and yet from the looks of it, sales wise, average would be generous especially given the generally good reputation the developer has.

[SeanR]

I honestly don't think Blur or Split/Second would have ever been huge sellers, even if marketed to death. They both sat in an awkward place in the racing genre that few have an interest in.

Also PGR5 really? It seems to be a franchise on a fast decline after 2. PGR4 seemed to bomb compared with what was expected from it in terms of sales, and was very quickly a bargin bin and pack-in title.

Yes... Cars with weapons, pointless, why race when you can just shoot each other instead?

"Turns out they wanted PGR5". More cities, more cars, that sort of thing. Could have been a chance to revisit what made PGR2 great*, and improve on it. They didn't take the oppotunity.

PGR3 was a rush-job for the 360 launch.

PGR4 was the good bits of 3 (what good bits? lol!)

DYS?

* not chicago, in the rain, with american muscle, that's for sure!

[SeanR]

anyhoo, lets not speculate on where/why they went wrong. Instead, let us all make increasing speculative posts on what they should/will do next.

And lets not forget to neg anyone who disagrees with our opinions, ok people?

[cavalcade]

PGR4 sold 2 million copies, the highest selling iteration in the franchise since the first. I'm not sure why anyone would say it was a failure, either commercially or critically.

Blur was a big risk. It didn't pay off. I'd say there were a few factors:

1) Previews were remorselessly rubbish. First hands on impressions across magazines and podcasts almost universally panned it. There was a culture of negativity about it for months before the beta turned things around. How many people didn't even bother to try the beta?

2) Split/Second. The elephant in the room. Consistently previewed well, and benefited most from the Blur/Oasis style rivalry the press tried to create between the two. Blur sold 500k worldwide, S/S about 550k. Both were considered failures, but if only one of the two existed I think their sales would have pushed into respectable territory.

3) Marketing. Activision clearly didn't know how to market Blur. The box art is great. The name is great. But the fact it's essentially a kart racer with licensed cars is a hard sell. Too grown-up for the kiddies, too "weird" for the driving game crowd.

4) The beta. It was a big risk. Nearly everyone who played it, loved it. But I wonder if people gorged on it, and decided to hold off on paying full retail for the game. I think a limited demo might have been a better bet.

5) RRP. Blur would have been an ideal game to benefit from a reduced RRP, but Activision insisted on marking it up at full price and sent it out against strong titles.

6) Platform - strangely for Activision it was restricted to HD consoles. For the brand I'm surprised they didn't smear Blur across PSP, DS and iPhone. This shows they were fairly cautious, and I suspect Activision themselves through it was going to be a disaster along with the people doing first play impressions.

[Quest]

Yeah, well done to the management of Bizarre Creations for putting all of their employees out of a job because they were picky about the kind of driving games they wanted to make.

What can I say? I admire the stubborn irresponsibility. It almost makes games seem like any other creative endeavour, where people are able to base their decisions about the kind of work they want to do on something other than just money.

[ras el hanout]

Have you played Blur? Have you read the thread? Everyone rated it massively highly. People also really liked The Club. So Bloodstone is the first kinda average game they've made in ages. MSR, PGR 1, 2, 3 and 4, The Club and Blur were all great. One average game and that's that? Really?

I know you like to think you're some paragon of harsh reality on here, but you're really talking utter tripe here.

No I didn't play Blur, then nor did anybody else. It never appealed to me or to many other people. So I can appreciate some people played it and enjoyed it and rated it MASSIVELY HIGHLY but most people weren't tempted by it. So I'd question how great it actually was. Most, like I did, found the whole idea of the game unappealing. So it;s the game buying public at fault. Not Bizarre for making great games nobody wants to play.

[Harsin]

3) Marketing. Activision clearly didn't know how to market Blur. The box art is great. The name is great.

I'd disagree on that point. I admit that you're kind of limited in your choices when it comes to making a cover to a racing game. But still, the Blur cover always struck me as more the sort of thing you see on those PS2 games you've never heard of for £4.99 in a big bin in Morrisons next to discounted fitness DVDs by ex-Soap Stars,

[NecroMorrius]

People bought it on the strength of the previous game, didn't they? I don't know anyone who's actually happy with the game. Treyarch made CoD games are like the odd numbered Star Trek films.

Uhh, quite a lot of people in the two threads think it's pretty good? Not to mention the metacritic score is hovering around 90.

Don't be fooled by the loudest of voices, there are literally millions of younger or less uhh, 'cultured' players out there who probably think it's the best thing ever. I'd wager fuckloads of them don't even know the difference between Infinity Ward and Treyarch.

[squirtle]

No I didn't play Blur, then nor did anybody else. It never appealed to me or to many other people. So I can appreciate some people played it and enjoyed it and rated it MASSIVELY HIGHLY but most people weren't tempted by it. So I'd question how great it actually was. Most, like I did, found the whole idea of the game unappealing. So it;s the game buying public at fault. Not Bizarre for making great games nobody wants to play.

Yet the game was commissioned by Activision as they owned them?

So the people who played it loved it. It got decent reviews. Yet it didn't sell well. Shouldn't the blame therefore lie at the feet of the publisher who commissioned the game in the first place? I mean, BC did everything right with the game, but surely a decent publisher would know that it was never going to sell well and should have therefore not wasted the money in having it created in the first place.

What else could BC do exactly?

[cavalcade]

I'd disagree on that point. I admit that you're kind of limited in your choices when it comes to making a cover to a racing game. But still, the Blur cover always struck me as more the sort of thing you see on those PS2 games you've never heard of for £4.99 in a big bin in Morrisons next to discounted fitness DVDs by ex-Soap Stars,

Mmm! Perhaps! I think I meant (he said, backtracking....) the use of neon like in Geometry Wars. It's quite distinctive. I can remember the look and feel of the Blur "brand" a lot more than I can the Split/Second one for instance.

[SeanR]

What else could BC do exactly?

What they did when they were told to make a NASCAR game?

LOL!

[ras el hanout]

Yet the game was commissioned by Activision as they owned them?

So the people who played it loved it. It got decent reviews. Yet it didn't sell well. Shouldn't the blame therefore lie at the feet of the publisher who commissioned the game in the first place? I mean, BC did everything right with the game, but surely a decent publisher would know that it was never going to sell well and should have therefore not wasted the money in having it created in the first place.

What else could BC do exactly?

BC could possibly have made the game so great that it was appealing to a wide audience. Or maybe they couldn't, it doesn't matter.

If Bizarre are just making the games exactly as they're told to make them then THEY'RE ALREADY DEAD. So again, what exactly are we upset about? Any dev could make an unappealing game at the behest of an evil publisher.

[cavalcade]

No I didn't play Blur, then nor did anybody else. It never appealed to me or to many other people. So I can appreciate some people played it and enjoyed it and rated it MASSIVELY HIGHLY but most people weren't tempted by it. So I'd question how great it actually was. Most, like I did, found the whole idea of the game unappealing. So it;s the game buying public at fault. Not Bizarre for making great games nobody wants to play.

The distinction between someone being tempted enough to buy something, and the absolute nature of that thing's greatness are two separate things, surely? I don't buy Arcade Fire albums, but I'm aware they're very good.

The fact remains, that almost everyone who has played Blur, especially online, consider it an excellent game. I think the argument is Bizarre did all they could do. They produced an excellent game to a brief that obviously Activision were aware of and signed off. It's up to Activision to say whether or not they think it's a game in a genre they can sell. If not, they should have pulled the plug on the game, not Bizarre, who demonstrably via Metacritic scores, produce good stuff.

This is what I can't quite understand about the publishing partnership model. Really, as a publisher, if you're going into business with a dev house the deal should be more than "we'll give you loads of money up front, you give us a game, we'll try and sell it, if we can't you're fucked". That's the harsh reality of business, sure, but its got to the stage now where studios get basically one shot to get things right. If they don't get a juggernaut smash then it's game over. That's why I really enjoyed the SEGA/Platinum publishing deal. None of the games sold particularly well, but SEGA stuck it out, and gamers benefited from 4 interesting new bits of IP.

[SeanR]

BC could possibly have made the game so great that it was appealing to a wide audience. Or maybe they couldn't, it doesn't matter.

If Bizarre are just making the games exactly as they're told to make them then THEY'RE ALREADY DEAD. So again, what exactly are we upset about? Any dev could make an unappealing game at the behest of an evil publisher.

they took the devils dime, played his tune, danced to it, and paid with their immortal soul.

job done.

[SeanR]

The distinction between someone being tempted enough to buy something, and the absolute nature of that thing's greatness are two separate things, surely? I don't buy Arcade Fire albums, but I'm aware they're very good.

Yeah, previous thread discussions on games have caused me to purchase a copy without any demo time.

The blur thread didn't.

But hey, that's just me, right?

[cavalcade]

Yeah, previous thread discussions on games have caused me to purchase a copy without any demo time.

The blur thread didn't.

But hey, that's just me, right?

It's just you SeanR. Always you.

[makkuwata]

Fur Fighters was fucking shit

I will fight you.

[spatular]

No I didn't play Blur, then nor did anybody else. It never appealed to me or to many other people. So I can appreciate some people played it and enjoyed it and rated it MASSIVELY HIGHLY but most people weren't tempted by it. So I'd question how great it actually was. Most, like I did, found the whole idea of the game unappealing. So it;s the game buying public at fault. Not Bizarre for making great games nobody wants to play.

the idea of blur didn't appeal to me either, i was sad they wern't making pgr5, but i gave it a try because of the developer and it completely proved me wrong, it's brilliant. they've made 3 of the best racing games on the current gen consoles imo, so i hope they'll still be making games for a long time to come, somehow.

[MalevolentPanda]

People are upset because very few studios have a history of making games as consistently good as Bizarre. People didn't care as much when it was Midway. I don't suppose they would if it was Codemasters. Bizarre are different because the quality of their output has been so high for such a long period.

The depressing thing is how foreseeable it all was. Reading that interview about joining Activision is cringe-inducing. If I could predict this coming to pass (in common with everyone else who takes more than a passing interest in the industry), then why couldn't they? Blinded by cash, I suppose.

[wev]

BC could possibly have made the game so great that it was appealing to a wide audience. Or maybe they couldn't, it doesn't matter.

If Bizarre are just making the games exactly as they're told to make them then THEY'RE ALREADY DEAD. So again, what exactly are we upset about? Any dev could make an unappealing game at the behest of an evil publisher.

I can think of a number of games that didn't sell aswell as they should but were great, never underestimate the importance of good marketing aswell as word of mouth.

Even so, certain games will appeal to certain people and not always everybody. Games require a larger investment than any other media, both in terms of cost and time. People are less willing to buy something thats not familiar to them from their own experience or that their friends aren't playing. Thats not the developers fault for trying something new in an attempt to stop a genre from stagnating.

If a store has to be pay more for Game A than Game B they'll buy more of Game B which will obviously then have more profile in a store and be more attractive to the consumer, likewise if Game A costs more for the consumer to buy than Game B then the consumer is going to go for Game B when the two occupy a similar genre (that being an action racer) and they look sort of similar to the consumer.

These issues aren't the developers fault, these issues are caused by the publishers, retailler and ultimately the consumer.

[SeanR]

I will fight you.

it's ok, he's talking about the PS2 version. wink.gif