Bizarre Creations discusses Microsoft relationship, Activision acquisition

by David Hinkle { May 7th 2009 at 12:45PM }

Bizarre Creations and Microsoft used to be BFF. Together, the two produced a number of great racing games, the latest being two racers for the Xbox 360 -- PGR3 and PGR4. In October of 2008, however, Bizarre Creations found itself under the caring wing of mother bird Activision, and creative director Martyn Chudley told Edge that the studio has been better off because of it.

Chudley described Microsoft's presence near the end as "corporate and cocky," attributing most of that to the shift in power between Microsoft and Sony this generation. He added that the company has always been too focused on the Forza games, seemingly neglecting to give the PGR franchise the marketing push and focus Bizarre Creations always felt it deserved.

Enter Activision, which showed a lot of interest, especially considering the lack of a proven racing franchise to call its own. Bizarre Creations hopes to produce such a hit with Blur, its first title following its acqusition by Activision. We expect to see more of the game -- including that franchise potential -- during this year's E3.

Tags: activision, bizarre, bizarre-creations, blur, microsoft, microsoft-game-studios

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Zerokku @ May 7th 2009 12:57PM

I think kotaku said it best -

"Perfectly understandable, and stupid of Microsoft to let one of their better studios get away like that. But, uh, why the deal with Activision, of all people? How can the publisher that makes exploitation of a franchise a core business aim be any better?"

Adriaan @ May 7th 2009 1:08PM

Couldn't agree more. I do hope that eventually we see a new PGR. Although at this point it's unlikely.

waves @ May 7th 2009 1:09PM

It seems like the main complaint here is that MS wasn't exploiting PGR enough for their tastes.

Zerokku @ May 7th 2009 1:15PM

@ Waves

The same article on kotaku mentions that MS was pushing them to release PGR4 before it was ready.

Dr. @ May 7th 2009 1:15PM

Well, bend over and strap in, Bizarre, it's time to learn what 'exploit' means.

tenor77 @ May 7th 2009 1:20PM

Exactly my thoughts. Lately Activision is just as bad, or worse than EA. While I love BC's games they don't have the power of studios like Bioware to truely maintain their identity in the corporate machine.

Noshino @ May 7th 2009 1:26PM

uh, then the guys at Kotaku lack commonsense.

Like they explained with lots of details on the source article, Microsoft was treating them as the testing dummies, they weren't given a lot of freedom nor support, yet they were still expected to sale hardware units.

"We were there at launch for Xbox with PGR1, PGR2 was about the Live service, and that crippled us. Everybody thought, ‘I’m not buying that,’ because they promoted it as a Live game, but it wasn’t Live only. Then PGR3 was 360 launch game."

Not only that, but like they also explained on the article, Microsoft has been wanting to take down Sony, and so they put more focus on Forza, the sim racer, rather in PGR, the arcade racer, to fight Gran Turismo.

Seriously, go read the article, they actually explain in full length why they left, and why they decided to go with Activision.

Rocketboy @ May 7th 2009 1:05PM

How Bizarre.... how bizarre...

FraGNeM @ May 7th 2009 2:26PM

Oooh, baby

Ordeith @ May 7th 2009 2:32PM

These comments are making me crazy.

joeybeast @ May 7th 2009 1:11PM

What's up with 4-letter racing games?
Dirt, Grid, Fuel, Pure, Blur what's next? RACE?

Haon @ May 7th 2009 1:15PM

Race 07 - http://www.race-game.org/race07/index.php

Rocketboy @ May 7th 2009 1:39PM

I thought that was a war game?

David Hinkle @ May 7th 2009 1:41PM

Tire, featuring dynamic PSI-based action, where the player must maintain proper tire pressure or die in a fiery wreck!

Bump, featuring dynamic speed bump-based gameplay, where the player must properly navigate an endless mire of speed bumps, or risk damage to the car's shocks.

Rent, featuring dynamic rent-a-car-and-beat-the-ever-loving-crap-out-of-it action. Make sure you get the renter's insurance!

Dirty @ May 7th 2009 2:36PM

Boot - The driver must contend with a parking boot before they can go race.

RagingStormX @ May 7th 2009 3:35PM

SKID, ZOOM, ROLL, TURN, RevX.....GO!! (lol) ....ok I'll stop now.

P.S - I honestly think SKID is up next though lol..

joeybeast @ May 7th 2009 5:00PM

We all missed the obvious FaST

protofunc @ May 7th 2009 5:06PM

And it's prequel: SLoW.

KFelon @ May 8th 2009 8:09AM

I'm still waiting on Ride. This time with less pimping and less Xzibit.

ExMcCloud @ May 7th 2009 1:13PM

Soooooo.....They were mad because the better developer got more marketing? lol...They must be mad Bungie gets more money too?

Vidikron @ May 7th 2009 1:25PM

I disagree about the better developer.

Noshino @ May 7th 2009 1:32PM

No, they were mad because they were never given the chance, despite proving that their games sell, hell, both PGR 1 and 2 sold better than Forza 1, despite the fact that Forza came out afterwards, not only that, PGR3, a 360 launch game, sold better than Forza 1...

Snowblind @ May 7th 2009 1:48PM

I think the main reason PGR3 sold so well though was because of the fact it was a launch game.. PGR4 sold very poorly, although it was a far better game. It's a shame Bizare are gone, but I'm sure they'll just get someone else to develop PGR5 while Activision get Bizare to pump out yearly updates.

why not the LS2LS7? @ May 7th 2009 1:59PM

PGR4 wasn't a far better game. They added only a little to it and what they added sucked (the bikes).

Also, if you read the messed up English in the menus it was clear it was mostly outsourced. PGR4 didn't sell well because it was a half-assed effort. That and because it was built on PGR3, which wasn't all that great to begin with. On a launch title scale it was great, almost off the carts. But that's a pretty easy scale, PDZ and Kameo got good grades on that scale!

PGR2 was the best of the series. The class racing system was a ton better. In PGR3 and 4 you just ended up driving the same car over and over.

komamura @ May 7th 2009 4:48PM

IMO PGR4 not selling well wasnt becasue it was a crappy game, it didnt sell well becasue MS sent it out to die. less than a month after the release of halo 3 with little to no marketing at all

ExMcCloud @ May 7th 2009 6:00PM

Regardless Turn 10 made a genre defining racer....Its the best SIMULATION racer on the planet right now bar none....PGR isn't in my top 3 arcade racers...lol...Its no comparison. I love PGR but Bizarre's best game is Geometry Wars nuff said..

Cellien @ May 7th 2009 1:14PM

Sounds like they are a tad bitter by getting "overshadowed" by Forza, due to MS's marketing decisions. I personally like PGR more than probably most racing games out there (including Forza), but that's the vibe I get from their comments.

Vidikron @ May 7th 2009 1:26PM

The "vibe"? They came right out and said it.

Jack Tretton @ May 7th 2009 2:12PM

Microsoft approached BC and asked if PGR 4 could be pushed up six weeks, BC said no and that was the end of it. That's the extent of "corporate and cocky" Chudley describes. Like, whatev.

Ordeith @ May 7th 2009 2:29PM

Activision?

Are we going to see a Geometry Wars Hero Advanced Retro III sometime soon?

Maybe a week or so after Geometry Wars Hero II is announced?

Ordeith @ May 7th 2009 2:35PM

Also watignf rot he announcment that Blur is going to be renamed to Racing Hero

Ordeith @ May 7th 2009 2:35PM

Also waiting for the announcement that Blur is going to be renamed to Racing Hero

Paul @ May 7th 2009 3:43PM

normally i get mad and down vote when people have to make a duplicate post because they butchered the grammar or spelling in their first post, but, for once, i am actually glad you did correct your post. i literally could not figure out what you were trying to say at the beginning there.

Ordeith @ May 7th 2009 4:11PM

I agree Paul, Down voted myself.

D_Average @ May 7th 2009 2:40PM

Hey guys, its still not too late to bring Geo Wars to the PS3....

Ken @ May 7th 2009 3:45PM

Call of Hero World Tour Wars

Nicholas Muldoon @ May 7th 2009 4:52PM

They acquired the hit 90s Britpop band? Good move

ccc @ May 7th 2009 4:59PM

Hmm, I'll be watching how this pans out but, I got a bad feeling in the end when Bizzare has had enough of Activisions crap they quit and we will have Neversoft makin the future installments of Geo Wars and PGR.

TrojanGuy @ May 7th 2009 5:07PM

I gotta say, at this point I'm more interested in Split/Second. But Bizarre Creations has always done good work on the PGR series, so Blur could be great.

protofunc @ May 7th 2009 5:11PM

this here, it gave me the lulz.

protofunc @ May 7th 2009 5:13PM

dude, what the hell is up with commenting system?? seriously joystiq, i love you guys, but the way comments are posted needs to be fixed!!

initial comment for Ken.

ecco6t9 @ May 7th 2009 6:53PM

Good to see this team grow up and move on.

jcar302 @ May 7th 2009 7:24PM

If they put out a PGR5, i would buy it immediately.
The game was an all around good game, not weighed down by extra useless crap.

The different tasks they gave you in career kept it fresh and fun, you got to know the tracks without having to run boring lap after boring lap.

The graphics were pretty damn good.
Online play was awesome, until some jackass decided that only good players could play with other good players with the trueskill system. And from then on i couldn't find a damn game.

While you couldn't mod the cars, that was ok, because the playing field was level online, driver vs driver.

And lets not forget in career mode, they didn't make you run 30 races of 50 laps taking up half your life.

In all, pgr4 was a good mix of simulation and arcade.