Rumour: Bizzare Creations Closing [Updated]

This is only rumour at this point, but word is circling teh interwebs that UK-based developer Bizarre Creations has been shut down.

The studio, probably best known for the Geometry Wars games, as well as James Bond: Bloodstone and Blur more recently, was acquired by Activision in 2008.

Giant Bomb is reporting that the studio is going through a ”90-day consultation period, statutory redundancy”. And a NeoGAF thread on the subject states that all 200 or so staff at the studio have been made redundant.

Activision is reported to be behind the closure, and according to Develop, they paid $67.4 million to acquire the studio, and they would have had to pay Bizarre an additional $40 million if the studio met its commercial targets by 2012/13.

A press release concerning this whole situation is apparently to be expected, so we’ll keep you updated as we hear things.

Bizarre Creations, based in Liverpool, currently has 200 employees.

Update #1

Activision has released the following statement:

“Over the past three years since our purchase of Bizarre Creations, the fundamentals of the racing genre have changed significantly. Although we made a substantial investment in creating a new IP, Blur, it did not find a commercial audience. 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.”