http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/218252/top-story-bizarre-creations-final-farewell/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarre_Creations

sad..............

The inevitable and unenviable fate of an Activision studio.

They wanted to be part of Activision, to play the risky game of blockbuster game development, and then made two bad games in a row. It sucks for them and no one should lose their job, but it's not exactly completely out of nowhere.

It's more Activision's fault though. If you buy a studio known for fantastic racing games like Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing then you get them to make racing games. You don't farm them out making licenced Bond rubbish. Activision could have used them to produce a multi-format racer to compete with Need For Speed but were only interested in the usual FRANCHISE, FRANCHISE, FRANCHISE. I'm not too worried though, i'm sure there will be a new UK studio in a few months and they might even end up as EA Partners.

blur was good but cant say the same for the james bond game but kill it off for two bad games??

Well that's certainly true... plus they didn't market the Bond game at all.

Well, one bad game. And like Delixe says, they weren't the ideal studio for a Bond title. It's just that Activision had already killed off all the more applicable studios or saddled them with COD. So yeah.

But really it's not such a bad thing. At least the Bizarre guys are now free of Activision. Neither of Bizarre's games. They also barely distributed them too. Same goes for Raven. Make no mistake about it, Activision is very deliberately killing itself off. Why, I don't know but it's not something I have a problem with.

Independent studios generally die after one flop (see Free Radical). This is probably more leeway than they would have gotten by themselves.

No Geometry Wars 2 on PC = screw everyone involved.

Yet even through DD the games barely exist. If that's their plan then they need to step it up a notch.

It does seem they are rapidly running out of studios. People often complain about EA's actions in the past but Activision have taken it to a whole new level. They buy studios and almost immediatley start downsizing them and farming them out on projects they are not suited for. Do Raven games even exist as an entity anymore? I was under the impression there is nothing but a skeleton team there doing COD map packs.

That was reported once, but recently it has all but been confirmed they are working on a new Bond game to go with the 2012 movie.

So if one or two games don't sell the best, kill it? If Activision has some sort of plan, I can't see it at all. I wonder if it will come down to the point where booby gets fired (Good thing).

Booby will continue to make $2Million a year with bonuses as long as he keeps the Shareholders happy. Closing studios, sacking staff and therefore overheads while maximizing profits keeps Shareholders very happy.