Bizarre Creations Speaks Out About Making Games for Activision

"We weren’t an independent studio making ‘our’ games anymore – we were making games to fill slots. Although we did all believe in them, they were more the products of committees and analysts. The culture we’d worked on for so long gradually eroded just enough so that it wasn’t ‘ours’ anymore", said the Creative Director with Bizarre Creations Martyn Chudley during an interview with Edge where regrets and the option to buy Bizarre back after Activision closed the 17 year studio in February 2011 were explained.

During the interview Chudley details how it was making games for Activision and that they were just "fill slots".

 "I don’t think the atmosphere differed too much during the years before Activision.  We were always proudly independent. However, when Activision took over, we really felt that they would leave our culture alone, and for a while it was fine, but slowly the feeling did start to change....”

Gareth Wilson, the former Design Manager chimed in and concluded that it was difficult managing a team without someone feeling left out.

"...just the reality of managing so many people. It’s a challenge for any studio these days to make everyone on the team feel like they’re really contributing to a game when there could be well over 100 people on a single game in production.”

An interesting tidbit brought up during the interview was made by Chudley who claimed that they had the opportunity to buy the company back.

"Without going into details, yes, there was [an opportunity], but I personally thought there was far greater potential for the security and well-being of the company if a third party could come in."

Some former staff members of the defunt studio that brought such hits to game shelves such as the Project Gotham Racing series and Geometry Wars announced that they formed a new studio called, "Hogrocket" which will focus on games for the iPhone, iPad, PC, and Mac.

via Edge