Activision Scoops up UK Game Studio

By Nick Mokey Published September 27, 2007

Activision Scoops up UK Game Studio

Video game publisher Activision finally climbed behind the wheel with racing titles on Wednesday with its purchase of British developer Bizarre Creations, the crew behind the Project Gotham Racing series. Bizarre’s racing games will be among the first in Activision’s extensive portfolio.

Racing games represent 10 percent of the total gaming market and $1.4 billion in sales, and Bizarre is considered a leader in segment for the numerous awards the Project Gotham titles have raked in. Its non-racing titles include Geometry Wars and the upcoming The Club.

Despite the acquisition, Bizarre will still maintain a high level of independence. It will keep its name, continue its current developments, and wield full creative control over its titles.

Financial details of the arrangement weren’t announced. Bizarre stated that its first Activision releases would be a character game and a racing games, which Activision expects will be released some time in the 2009 fiscal year.

Managing Editor

As Digital Trends’ Managing Editor, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team delivering definitive reviews, enlightening…

Gaming

Activision forms studio to develop new narrative-driven franchise

Soldiers battle in an abandoned airport.

Activision is known as the Call of Duty publisher, but now it's trying something different. The company announced Thursday that it's formed a new internal studio called Elsewhere Entertainment that is dedicated to developing a "new narrative-based and genre-defining AAA franchise."

An official blog post notes that Elsewhere is a "standalone studio" inside the company and headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. It's employing a number of games industry veterans who've worked on franchises like Uncharted, Cyberpunk, Destiny, and others. According to LinkedIn, this includes Michal Madej, who worked on the original Witcher at CD Projekt Red and has been with Activision for the past few years. He's currently listed as a game director.

Gaming

If you grew up playing typing games, you’ll adore Cryptmaster

A floating head looks in a box in Cryptmaster.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on the kinds of games I played as a kid growing up in the 1990s. That’s not just for nostalgia’s sake; several new releases this month hark back to that era. Crow Country is a throwback to PlayStation 1 horror games, while Endless Ocean: Luminous almost plays like a big-budget educational game. But nothing has brought me back more than Cryptmaster.

Published by Akupara Games, Cryptmaster is a traditional dungeon crawler with a very untraditional twist: It’s a typing game. If you instantly know what that means, there’s a good chance you’re nursing some mid-30s back pain right now. Games that taught kids how to type on a keyboard had a mainstream moment in the 1990s thanks to high profile games like Mario Teaches Typing.

Gaming

Xbox Games Showcase coming this summer alongside mysterious game reveal

Indiana jones buried in the sand.

Microsoft has set the date for its Xbox Games Showcase this June. It's also teasing a Direct that will immediately follow the showcase, but won't say what that's for just yet.

The Xbox Games Showcase will return at 10 a.m. PT on June 9. Like all of its showcases, Microsoft plans to stream this presentation across its YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook, although it will also give away tickets to see the show in person via Xbox FanFest. According to the Xbox Wire post announcing the livestream, this is Microsoft's "first Showcase featuring games from our portfolio of studios across Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda, and Xbox Game Studios, in addition to titles from our third-party partners."