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.
Reader Comments (41)
Posted: May 7th 2009 12:57PM zerokku said
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?"
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"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?"
Posted: May 7th 2009 1:08PM (Unverified) said
Couldn't agree more. I do hope that eventually we see a new PGR. Although at this point it's unlikely.
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Posted: May 7th 2009 1:09PM SpacePenguinBot said
It seems like the main complaint here is that MS wasn't exploiting PGR enough for their tastes.
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Posted: May 7th 2009 1:20PM Cap Morgan said
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.
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Posted: May 7th 2009 1:26PM (Unverified) said
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.
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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.
Posted: May 7th 2009 1:41PM Dave Hinkle said
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!
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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!
Posted: May 7th 2009 3:35PM RagingStormX said
SKID, ZOOM, ROLL, TURN, RevX.....GO!! (lol) ....ok I'll stop now.
P.S - I honestly think SKID is up next though lol..
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P.S - I honestly think SKID is up next though lol..
Posted: May 7th 2009 1:32PM (Unverified) said
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...
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Posted: May 7th 2009 1:48PM Snowblind said
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.
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Posted: May 7th 2009 1:59PM spin cycle said
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.
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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.
Posted: May 7th 2009 1:14PM Chibi Chaingun said
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.
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Posted: May 7th 2009 2:12PM Jack Tretton said
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.
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Posted: May 7th 2009 3:43PM chex said
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.
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Posted: May 7th 2009 2:40PM (Unverified) said
Hey guys, its still not too late to bring Geo Wars to the PS3....
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Posted: May 7th 2009 4:52PM (Unverified) said
They acquired the hit 90s Britpop band? Good move
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Posted: May 7th 2009 7:24PM jcar302 said
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.
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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.
Posted: May 9th 2009 2:29AM (Unverified) said
Thought this was going to be Geometry Wars 3 news :[
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