Activision has put Bizarre Creations on notice, notifying the company of a potential sale or closure. In the wake of this development, we've compared the situation to another recent publisher-developer divorce proceeding--that of Viacom and Harmonix.
Earlier today, Activision Blizzard put out a statement regarding its intention to change its current ownership of the U.K-based Bizarre Creations--the developer of Geometry Wars and Blur. Here's what the publisher had to say about its current relationship with Bizarre:
"Bizarre is a very talented team of developers, however, because of the broader economic factors impacting the market, we are exploring our options regarding the future of the studio, including a potential sale of the business."
With both situations having serious reverberations within the industry, we thought it would be prudent to compare and contrast the two potential splits.
How they're similar:
- Both partnerships may be dissolved before they reach their fifth anniversary. Activision acquired Bizarre Creations in September of 2007 while Viacom purchased Harmonix a year earlier.
- Both development teams were best known for being at the helm franchise with a different publisher (Bizarre worked on the first four Project Gotham racing games while Harmonix created the first two Guitar Hero music games). Upon acquisition, both teams' primary project was to develop a new franchise within the same genre. The fruits of both teams' labors (Blur and Rock Band, respectively) have been failed to outsell competitors released at the same timeframe, as Split/Second matched Blur's debut while Guitar Hero's yearly iterations have outsold Rock Band from 2007-2009 (2010's sales figures for Rock Band have yet to be divulged).
- Both developers final project before the announcement of their potential partnership conclusion have been new IPs for their publisher -- Activision released the James Bond game Blood Stone from Bizarre while Viacom published Dance Central from Harmonix.
How they differ:
- Viacom's acquisition of Harmonix was the media giant's first development studio purchase. Bizarre Creations was the 20th of 24 Activision studio acquisitions.
- While serving as publisher of the Rock Band series, Viacom has deferred publishing duties to Electronic Arts. All of the games created by Bizarre since Actvision's purchase have been published directly.
- Viacom's public statement of sale intent revealed that the parent company hopes to refocus on other forms of media upon exiting the video game market. Activision's current situation with Bizzare cites "economic factors" as the reason for the potential change in relationship status.
As the relationships between both publisher-developer duos change, we'll be sure to keep you updated. For now, what other similarities and differences do you see between Harmonix and Blizzard's current situations?
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Source: Daily News from GamePro.com
Tuesday, November 16, 2010