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| Formerly | Raising Hell Software Limited (1988–1994) |
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| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1988; 38 years ago (1988) |
| Founder | Martyn Chudley |
| Defunct | 2011; 15 years ago (2011) |
| Headquarters | Liverpool, England |
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Number of employees | 200[1] (2011) |
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| Website | www |
Bizarre Creations Limited was a British video game development studio based inLiverpool, best known for theirracing titlesMetropolis Street Racer (Dreamcast) and the follow-upProject Gotham Racing series (Xbox,Xbox 360, mobile phones andZune HD). The company has also developed games in other genres, including theGeometry Wars arcade series, plus the third-person shootersFur Fighters andThe Club. Bizarre Creations was acquired by publisherActivision in 2007, and subsequently completed its racerBlur in May 2010.
On 20 January 2011, Activision announced Bizarre Creations would close, and later confirmed the date. Bizarre marked the closure by releasing a retrospective video of its work.[2]
Bizarre Creations started as Raising Hell Software, founded by Martyn Chudley.Sega scorned "Hell", and the company went nameless for a short time. In 1994, a pending submission toPsygnosis/Sony forced the decision of a new name. The founder tentatively left "Weird Concepts" on the submission documentation. Then a staff member usedMicrosoft Word's thesaurus, and "Bizarre Creations" stuck.
The Bizarre Creations team was initially five strong, and worked on a concept project called "Slaughter". After seeing the demo,Psygnosis signed the team ontoFormula 1 forPlayStation.Formula 1 went on to become the best-selling game in Europe in 1996.
On 26 September 2007, publisherActivision acquired Bizarre Creations[3] for $107.4m; $67.4m immediately payable with a further $40m contingent hitting certain goals over a 5-year period.[4]
Activision announced thatProject Gotham Racing 4 would be Bizarre Creations' last game forMicrosoft Game Studios,[5] and Microsoft did retain the rights for theProject Gotham Racing franchise.
On 16 November 2010, Activision announced it was considering closing Bizarre and "exploring our options regarding the future of the studio, including a potential sale of the business".[6] Activision later stated that no buyer could be found and that the studio would close.[7] The studio would conclude with a two-minute farewell video, put together by in-house editor Eamon Urtone.[2][8][9][10]
Pete Collier, Ben Ward and Stephen Cakebread of Bizarre Creations foundedmobile game developer Hogrocket in 2011, and shut it down the following year.[11] A week after the closure of the studio, many former employees went on to foundLucid Games, which continued development on the Geometry Wars franchise, among various other ventures.[12]
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