Bizarre Creations
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| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired, then dissolved |
| Successor(s) | Lucid Games Hogrocket Grubby Hands |
| Founded | 1988 (as Raising Hell Software) 1994 (as Bizarre Creations) |
| Defunct | 18 February 2011 |
| Headquarters | Liverpool, United Kingdom |
| Products | Geometry Wars Project Gotham Racing |
| Parent | Activision |
Bizarre Creations was a video game development studio, best known for their racing titles: Metropolis Street Racer (Dreamcast) and the followup Project Gotham Racing series (Xbox, Xbox 360). The company has also developed games in other genres, including the Geometry Wars arcade series, plus third-person shooters Fur Fighters and The Club. Bizarre Creations was acquired by publisher Activision in 2007, and subsequently completed its racer Blur in May 2010.
On 20 January 2011, Activision announced Bizarre Creations would close, and later confirmed the date. Bizarre marked the closure by releasing a retrospective video of its life's work.[1]
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[edit] History
Bizarre Creations started as Raising Hell Software, founded by Martyn Chudley. Sega scorned "Hell", and the company went nameless for a short time. In 1994, a pending submission to Psygnosis/Sony forced the decision of a new name. The founder tentatively left "Weird Concepts" on the submission documentation. Then a staff member used Microsoft Word's thesaurus, and "Bizarre Creations" stuck.
The Bizarre Creations team was initially five strong, and worked on a concept project called "Slaughter". After seeing the demo, Psygnosis signed the team onto Formula 1 (for PlayStation). Formula 1 went on to become the best selling game in Europe in 1996.
In 2006, the studio announced a break in its racing genre sequence with The Club. A third-person shooter, the game was released on 7 February 2008.
On 26 September 2007, publisher Activision acquired Bizarre Creations.[2] Activision announced that Project Gotham Racing 4 would be Bizarre Creations' last game for Microsoft Game Studios,[3] and Activision did not pursue the rights for the Project Gotham Racing franchise.
On 16 November 2010, Activision announced it was considering closing Bizzare and "exploring our options regarding the future of the studio, including a potential sale of the business".[4] Activision later stated that no buyer could be found and that the studio would close.[5]
[edit] Succession
On 26 February 2011, GameSpot reported that a group of senior members of Bizarre Creations were forming a new independent gaming studio known as Lucid Games.[6]
On 23 March 2011, Geometry Wars creator Stephen Cakebread; Peter Collier, a level designer on Blood Stone; and Bizarre Creation's former community manager Ben Ward announced that they were starting a new company, Hogrocket.[7]
In May 2011, the one-man-studio, Grubby Hands was founded by the Company Director Dr Danny Pearce: taking on the role of programmer, games-designer, artist and animator. Pearce was a Senior Programmer at Bizarre Creations where he worked on multi-platform titles: The Club, Blur and James Bond 007: Blood Stone.
On 10 June 2011, Grubby Hands released their first iPhone game: David Haye’s Knockout. David Haye’s Knockout immediately topped the iPhone App Store Charts: reaching #1 in the Sports Chart, #3 in the Action Chart, #5 in the Games Chart and #8 in the App Chart. On 21st December, Grubby Hands released their second iPhone game Boy Loves Girl, which unlike David Haye’s Knockout is the perfect game of love.
On 21 July 2011, Matt Cavanagh, former lead designer at Bizarre Creations, announced that he had formed Totem Games Ltd [8]. While at Bizarre Cavanagh worked on the titles James Bond 007: Blood Stone, The Club, and Fur Fighters among others. Totem's first title is SpaceOff which will be released early 2012.
[edit] Games
as Raising Hell Software:
- The Killing Game Show / Fatal Rewind — Amiga (1990), Atari ST (1990), Mega Drive (1991)
- Wiz 'n' Liz — Amiga, Mega Drive (1993)
as Bizarre Creations:
- Formula One — PlayStation, PC (1996)
- Formula 1 97 / Formula One: Championship Edition — PlayStation, PC (1997)
- Metropolis Street Racer — Dreamcast (2000)
- Fur Fighters — Dreamcast, PC (2000)
- Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge — PlayStation 2 (2001)
- Project Gotham Racing — Xbox (2001)
- Treasure Planet — PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance (2002)
- Project Gotham Racing 2 — Xbox (2003)
- Project Gotham Racing 3 — Xbox 360 (2005)
- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved — Xbox Live Arcade (2005), Windows Vista (2007), Windows XP (via Steam) (2007)
- Boom Boom Rocket — Xbox Live Arcade (2007)
- Project Gotham Racing 4 - Xbox 360 (2007)
- Geometry Wars: Galaxies - Nintendo DS, Wii (2007)
- The Club — Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC (2008)
- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 — Xbox Live Arcade (2008)
- Geometry Wars: Touch - iOS4 (via iTunes App Store) (2010)
- Blur - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC (2010)
- James Bond 007: Blood Stone - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC (2010)[9][10]
[edit] References
- ^ Wesley Yin-Poole (2011-02-18). "Bizarre says goodbye with farewell video News - - Page 1". Eurogamer.net. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-18-bizarre-says-goodbye-with-farewell-video#cm-2156706. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
- ^ Studio News - Bizarre Creations
- ^ "Activision buys Bizarre - News". www.developmag.com. 2007-09-26. http://www.developmag.com/news/28531/Activision-acquires-Bizarre-Creations. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
- ^ Rainier (2010-11-16). "Activision Looking To Close Or Sell Bizarre Creations". WorthPlaying. http://worthplaying.com/article/2010/11/16/news/78258/. Retrieved 2010-11-16.
- ^ Fred Dutton (2011-01-19). "Activision finalises Bizarre closure News - - Page 1". Eurogamer.net. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-01-19-activision-finalises-bizarre-closure. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
- ^ "Bizarre Creations vets form Lucid". Gamespot. http://asia.gamespot.com/news/6300942.html. Retrieved 26 February 2011.
- ^ "New Studio Emerges from Ex-Bizarre Staff". IGN.com. http://games.ign.com/articles/115/1157189p1.html. Retrieved March 24, 2011.
- ^ "Interview: Totem Games' Cavanagh On Moving From AAA To iPhone". http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35799/Interview_Totem_Games_Cavanagh_On_Moving_From_AAA_To_iPhone.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29&utm_content=Twitter.
- ^ "James Bond 007: Blood Stone Leaks". IGN. 2010-07-16. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/110/1106580p1.html. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
- ^ "James Bond 007: Bloodstone confirmed". GameSpot. 2010-07-16. http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/driving/jamesbondbloodstone/news.html?sid=6269363. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
[edit] External links
- Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived July 16, 2011)
- Lucid Games
- Hogrocket
- Totem Games Ltd
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