Activision acquires Bizarre Creations, two new games under development

Activision has just sent out a press wire announcing their recent purchase of UK video game developer Bizarre Creations. As some may be speculating, could the purchase be a sign that the studio’s in some sort of financial trouble? That doesn’t seem to be the case, based on a complementing announcement made by Bizarre’s Ben Ward over at the studio’s official site.

Ward explained that the move was made so that the studio could push for the development of even better games in the near future. In light of the sale, Ward also explained how the arrangement between Bizarre and Activision was going to play out, specifically regarding their ongoing work on Project Gotham Racing 4 and The Club:

• Bizarre Creations continues to exist as is. We won’t become Activision Liverpool or anything like that.
• We will have absolutely no redundancies.
• All of our teams continue to exist exactly how they are at the moment. Amax team (PGR4) and Shitstorm team (The Club) will move onto new games, whilst our Shared Technology team will use this opportunity to take our experience and tech to new levels and new formats.
• The Activision way of running things is “hands off”. Bizarre continue to have creative control over what we do, we still run the studio how we see fit, and we still get to run our own web site and do all sorts of fun community things!

So, could this new relationship mean we’ll be looking at a multi-platform port of PGR4 in the near future? We’re not too sure, although Ward noted that the the aforementioned Amax and Shitstorm teams would each be working on two new titles for Activision – one a racing game, the other a character game. And while there weren’t any exact details on these new projects (much less a name), Ward did state that more information will be unveiled in the near future. And in case you’re wondering, here’s what Ward said about how their Bizarre’s current titles will be handled:

What about the now? Firstly, Geometry Wars will remain unaffected; we’ll continue to expand and advance the series just as we were going to do before. The Club will still be released with SEGA, Geometry Wars Galaxies will still be released with Sierra, and PGR4 will continue to be supported after its launch in October. No massive changes here then…

PGR4 for the Xbox 360 is currently scheduled for an October 12 release in the UK, while The Club for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC is expected early next year. We’ll let you know if this news bit picks up any further updates – especially regarding Bizarre Creations’ two new mystery projects.

Activision has just sent out a press wire announcing their recent purchase of UK video game developer Bizarre Creations. As some may be speculating, could the purchase be a sign that the studio’s in some sort of financial trouble? That doesn’t seem to be the case, based on a complementing announcement made by Bizarre’s Ben Ward over at the studio’s official site.

Ward explained that the move was made so that the studio could push for the development of even better games in the near future. In light of the sale, Ward also explained how the arrangement between Bizarre and Activision was going to play out, specifically regarding their ongoing work on Project Gotham Racing 4 and The Club:

• Bizarre Creations continues to exist as is. We won’t become Activision Liverpool or anything like that.
• We will have absolutely no redundancies.
• All of our teams continue to exist exactly how they are at the moment. Amax team (PGR4) and Shitstorm team (The Club) will move onto new games, whilst our Shared Technology team will use this opportunity to take our experience and tech to new levels and new formats.
• The Activision way of running things is “hands off”. Bizarre continue to have creative control over what we do, we still run the studio how we see fit, and we still get to run our own web site and do all sorts of fun community things!

So, could this new relationship mean we’ll be looking at a multi-platform port of PGR4 in the near future? We’re not too sure, although Ward noted that the the aforementioned Amax and Shitstorm teams would each be working on two new titles for Activision – one a racing game, the other a character game. And while there weren’t any exact details on these new projects (much less a name), Ward did state that more information will be unveiled in the near future. And in case you’re wondering, here’s what Ward said about how their Bizarre’s current titles will be handled:

What about the now? Firstly, Geometry Wars will remain unaffected; we’ll continue to expand and advance the series just as we were going to do before. The Club will still be released with SEGA, Geometry Wars Galaxies will still be released with Sierra, and PGR4 will continue to be supported after its launch in October. No massive changes here then…

PGR4 for the Xbox 360 is currently scheduled for an October 12 release in the UK, while The Club for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC is expected early next year. We’ll let you know if this news bit picks up any further updates – especially regarding Bizarre Creations’ two new mystery projects.