(This was written a few weeks back, Typepad didn't want to put this on the main blog.)
It wasn't really the perfect way to end the day. I was going through the usual final 10 minute ritual of backing up files I had tinkered with before heading on home. The shiny Windows 7 progress bar can only hold so much of my attention, so I drift online. I often hit the excellent Giant Bomb site to see what's been going on in the world of videogaming. My jaw dropped at the following headline -
"Bizarre Creations Is Closed"
I read through the story with a disbelief. How can this be? The same Bizarre Creations which has been around for all my gaming life? That Bizarre Creations which has a long development history and a wealth of extremely talented individuals? The same Liverpool-based company which has brought us all those PGR games and, more recently, Blur and Blood Stone?
Yep. That one. I was in shock, and yet not surprised as Activision were responsible; the videogame industry equivalent of a surly Skeletor, they buy and kill studios with no regard as to the livelihoods of the devs within. Almost Christmas? Perfect time to stop the income of your employees. Could they have timed it any better to cause the worst financial impact? Walking home, it was hard not to shake off the sadness of losing one of the more established and characterful UK devcos out there. Maybe Blur and Blood Stone were two games too far? I pondered this as I left the office.
Arriving back home, I jumped straight online to see what the chatter was - and almost instantly saw that the Giant Bomb headline had changed to "Bizarre Creations Is Closing" (edit - now it's "Activision Is 'Exploring Its Options' Regarding The Future Of Bizarre Creations") followed by some amendments to the previously more-dramatic news item. Essentially Activision are "thinking about what to do with Bizarre" and closure is an option. Of course, Activision can't close Bizarre instantly. There's this pesky thing called UK Law which stops them doing that. Skeletor must be annoyed that those dev-leeches are going to take three more months of pay before they can close them down for good, right?
I have been in that position before, and it wasn't nice at all. When Midway was in the process of going belly-up, we had the same kind of deal - the wait for a possible buyer of the company or certain death awaited us. It was definitely a rollercoaster ride of emotions - days of extreme optimism and darkest depression, to the point where some people had enough and left for less volatile roles in more stable companies. The point I'm making is that if a buyer isn't found for Bizarre in the first few weeks, the company could well start to haemorrhage staff members in the same way Midway Newcastle did.
The cold, harsh reasoning for this decision is one which can only make sense if seen through the eyes of shareholders - Blur and Blood Stone didn't do that well, we're closing the studio. It can be argued that Blur's release clashed with the release of Disney Interactive's Split/Second while 007 Blood Stone clashed with the release of not only Goldeneye on the Wii, but also the release of the Activision behemoth known as Call of Duty : Black Ops. A press release coldly calculates that the racing genre is kind of dead now that everyone is playing these war-fuelled FPS multiplayer extravaganzas. No one plays racing games any more, right?
GT5's out now and it's huge. It's a racing game. I don't really see the logic in that press release. It seems like a lame-ass excuse. Blood Stone was unfortunate in that the movie which it was associated with never saw the light of day and Bizarre had to finish what they started. When Activision bought Bizarre Creations, I had serious reservations. I always likened Bizarre to be a devco with a certain amount of independance. Decisions could be made without any larger corporations sticking their oars in.
Reading back on this Shacknews story when Activision bought Bizarre in September 2007, there's some quotes from Ben Ward - Bizarre's Community Lead - which now seem quite, quite naive indeed:
- "Bizarre isn't a developer in financial trouble, and we're certainly not looking to be 'saved' by a bigger corporation. We're a dev looking to take our games to the next level, and make the absolute best products we can possibly make. Likewise, Activision is not in the business of 'buying out' struggling developers either."
- "We will have absolutely no redundancies."
Today is a sad day for the games industry - and not only because of the position Bizarre find themselves in. Activision saw fit to kill off another studio outright - Budcat Creations. Again, the reasoning is that the music gaming genre is dying and they need to cut their loses; not just that, but LucasArts are also reporting layoffs no doubt fuelled by the lukewarm response to The Force Unleashed 2. The year has seen a lot of development studios die off or severely cut their workforce - Realtime Worlds, Robomodo and Krome Studios to name but three.
Maybe the sad truth is that some development houses don't fit in the gaming landscape these days and can be considered dead weight by those suited arseholes in the upper echelons of management. They don't understand that we've grown up with these development houses - that they have a character, a soul and a bunch of people who depend on them to pay a mortage or feed their kids. The suits answer to shareholders and they are ruthlessly business-minded. It makes even less sense when you consider that Black Ops has become the most successful entertainment launch ever.
I have a lot of love for the Bizarre guys. They've given me a lot of gaming joy over the years - Metropolis Street Racer, Fur Fighters, Geometry Wars and all the PGRs. I think I'm more saddened that I've seen the company develop and grow, especially with the MSR and PGR titles; to see advancements, improvements and leaps ahead in gameplay and technology.
I think this is a wake-up call for the industry as a whole - the time has come to go back to the origins of all this. Go back to the bedrooms and keep your team size small. Code and create art with passion and no outside influence from focus groups and marketing teams. Distribute your releases online and make games which cause a buzz which no money can buy.
Hell, it worked for this guy.
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