Activision recommends Bizarre Creations closure

[Sharky]

Publisher tells Develop it had 'a lot of leads but no interested parties'; Bizarre 'has indicated it will accept recommendation'

Bizarre Creations' chances of being bought by another company were shattered today, as Activision issued to the group a recommendation for studio closure.

It means the Liverpool-based studio's likelihood of running under a new publisher are near-certainly over.

Bizarre staff have indicated they will accept the recommendation, an Activision executive told Develop.

Last year the studio housed around 200 staff.

Coddy Johnson, Activision Worldwide Studios’ chief operating officer, said the publisher had “looked at all options” before recommending to close the group.  

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3679 ... re-closure

I remember back when we were at SegaNerds and we had the option to interview these guys... and we very bluntly asked.
'Why the fuck would you join Activision.'
The guys looked shocked and replied,
'Why wouldn't we?'

... Yeah.

[cube_b3]

Games don't sell studios get shuttered remember Sega Racing Studio?

[Sharky]

At least with Sega Racing Sudio Sega didn't buy a long running and well loved developer only to close them down after just one moderate failure. SRS were created by and killed by Sega. Pretty much all staff were also found a home either with in Sega Euorpe, Creative Assembly or CodeMasters.

[Cox_of_Seagulls]

You know, I don't think there's anything Activision could do to make me loathe them any more than I already do.

[cube_b3]

Activision gave them 2 games. One they had 100% percent autonomy with and the other a license.

You think a good license would sell even if the game is bad, strange as the game was above average and that is like AAA for that genre.

Either way I won't be blaming Activision, they shared the reality of the situation with Bizarre and put them up for auction. If no one wants to buy them and Activison can no longer take risks it isn't anything evil, but a very rational decision.

If Bizarre was independent they would've probably shuttered after BLUR failed, with Activision they got 2 Strikes.

Secret Level was castrated after 2 strikes and shuttered after their 3rd strike, would you like it if Activision only fired 80% of Bizarre's staff and kept the studio around?

[George]

Oh Cube get out. All 007 games have failed outside Golden Eye on consoles. Not to mention Bloodstone was rushed, sucked and not advertised. Blur did fail, but did sell 1 million world wide last I heard and had critical praise.

Not bad.

Stop hating hater.

[cube_b3]

:S I am not hating anyone.

I respect Bizarre for merging with Activision, I think it was a good decision. They wanted cash injection, and work on new ips they accomplished that.

They've just been unlucky as their last three games were commercial failures.

I understand Activision's decision of removing a studio which hasn't been profitable, or broken even. They looked at options, how is it their fault no publisher wanted them?

He told Develop: “I want to be clear, our first choice was to try and keep this group together and find a buyer for the studio."
“This decision comes after a few months of exhausted examination of a number of different options across the board.”
He added: “We of course care about this team. We’re offering the studio as many resources as possible, including counselling, external placement services and external career fairs.”
In November, Bizarre was put in a 90 day consultation period, giving Activision the option to close the studio or sell it to another group.
Develop discovered that, just a day after Activision revealed its intention to sell the business, a number of companies were interested in acquiring the group. An anonymous source from inside the studio said “there’s multiple parties interested in buying us.”
But talks in acquiring the studio from Activision appear to have fallen through.
Today Johnson told Develop the group has “explored a lot of leads – pretty much anyone you can imagine in the industry”.
“But unfortunately, so far we’ve not been able to find any interested parties. So we’ve made as a last resort, a recommendation to the team for closure,” he added.
Activision's decision to consider Bizarre’s closure came after disappointing sales of the studio’s key project, Blur.
Activision said at the time that, “although we made a substantial investment in creating a new IP, Blur, it did not find a commercial audience.”
At the time of going to press, the consoltation period is still technically ongoing - it is thought Bizarre will accept the recommendation to close.

[George]

So you are OK with Activision to get rid of Bizarre because they are not 'making money' for a company that is the most profitable in the industry.

Yet you want SEGA to keep making games with 'old teams' that also didn't make money, even though SEGA consumer business is losing money?

Cool logic.

[cube_b3]

Bizarre Creations knew what they were in for and they spent a very brief time.

Yuji Naka joined Sega right after school, he didn't even get a degree.
People like Yu Suzuki dedicated their entire life how can you even compare?
I can go on and on but the bottom line is that I grew up with those Sega SuperStars, they are the color blue in Sega's logo without them Sega is simply not the same company.

Man, George you've gotten me all emotional now, lol.

[Sega Uranus]

Yuji Naka originally tried to work at Namco, but they did not think he had enough experience.

He is also the biggest fucking asshole who ever did important stuff at SEGA ever, he called some of the best staff there useless and other hateful things and caused a large amount of SEGA's staff to leave entirely.

He has spent the past 4 years literally wasting SEGA's funding on tech demos and games that do not even need to be published, which causes SEGA to only lose money in all ways.

He is one of the worst people in the industry today. His work can be considered phenomenal on many levels, but that does not mean anything when he is all around a terrible person.

He also allowed Iizuka to drill the Sonic franchise and Sonic Team as a whole into the ground.

Screw him.

[cube_b3]

I won't defend his personality.

What counts is in his entire career I can only remember 2 abysmal failures that his studio produced AstroBoy and Shadow 05. His behavior causing someone else (namely STI) harm is a different issue, let's not go there we both feel the same way about it.

The "He spent the last 4 years literally wasting Sega's money is B.S.) all he got was starting capital which was 1 million yen (12,000$), that is really nothing.
The other 9 mill were from his own pocket. Sega just gave 10%.
He spent 4 years getting concepts approved for funding by Sega which as you are well aware never happened besides Let's Tap.

So he went to other publishers, and he may have not created the next Sonic but all his games have been reviewed well, and didn't cost so much to make so they easily would've broken even.

Same for Yu Suzuki, with Shenmue had Sega not discontinued Dreamcast it would've broken even, also when discussion the 70 million investment include Sega Saturn & Dreamcast development costs, also keep in mind a hell of a lot of Shenmue 2 was running on the Saturn.

The game sales suffered because of executive decisions, first the cancellation of Saturn, as a result of a failure from Bernie Stolar to capture American market. Then the corporate decision of SEGA as a whole to leave the hardware business. By the time Shenmue 2 came out in USA it was already outdated in terms of Graphics.

Then he was shipped to China a foreign land, he agreed to make Shenmue-Online and Psy-Phi in America so it is his fault. He did drop the ball. But the Sega Developers have made us Sega fans in the first place.

So Bizarre Creations on the other hand isn't connected to Activison in that way They got 2 chances, failed to bring in money both times.
Activision tried selling them, no body wanted them.
So they are getting them psychological help (counselling), career options by finding jobs individually for them.

Sega did the same thing with SRS, but they only gave them one chance and they got lucky when CodeMaster decided to pick them up. Where as Bizarre didn't.

How is this current situation Activison or Bizarre's fault. If Bizarre wants to stay alive, they can take a loan from the bank and buy the studio from Activision and go independent again, but it appears Bizarre wouldn't take that chance. Cause had bizarre released Blur independently they wouldn't have gotten a 2nd chance, they could've directly filed for bankruptcy.

Of course, the last point is an assumption on my part.

[George]

Man, George you've gotten me all emotional now, lol.

I'm not even going to further discuss this. I just don't see how anyone could sit there, back up a company that is making a ton of profits lay off an entire team of workers and say "YES, THANKS".

A success of a game has to do with more than just the development team, it has to do with the publisher, advertisers and all them. How can you seriously be OK with a GOOD studio, hard workers losing their job?

I just can't wrap my head around it. That is pretty low.

[cube_b3]

I am not "okay", with it. It sucks. I've been playing Bizarre Creations since MSR. I don't want them to shutter the studio, but I understand the decision.

Also BLUR was significantly marketed, I am not into racers and even I noticed it. I assume Project Gotham had more marketing but that is because it was a 1st party game, should I explain why 1st party games are more popular?

Furthermore, It doesn't matter how much money Activision has, I assume they earned it legally through hard work, and an honorable ethical business firm. At least their treatment of Bizarre suggests that.

Think about it this way, your an executive in a firm you have share holders to answer too and they want you to bring maximum profits with the most minimum amount of investment.

Now you have a division that has failed to break even for 3 years?
What do you do with it, continue to potentially lose money Or address the issue?

+ Activision tried for 3 months to find a buyer.
+ Activison got the team psychological help in order to prepare them for the worst.
+ Activision is going to give them a severance package, it won't be like the way Midway ended up.
+ Activision is helping them find jobs, internally and externally.

- They are shutting a division, with 165 very talented employees because they failed to Break Even.

Bizarre is not an orphanage or a charity organization being broken down and an evil corporation is building a 5 star Hotel on it. It is a FOR-PROFIT firm shutting down, after not being profitable.

Bizarre was an independent studio, if they believed in themselves they could've returned to being independent took a loan from the bank and payed Activison off, but they appear to have accepted the severance package instead.

So why would we hate Activision for it, by that logic we should hate every millionaire or billionaire who isn't investing money in talented people that don't make profit.

Lastly, don't worry talented people are always in demand they'll get good jobs. They may even come back with a different name, as a smaller studio. (Grin = FatShark http://www.gamereactor.se/grtv/?id=9661&l=Trailer)