Activision adquiere Bizarre Creations

Hello from Bizarre Creations! You may remember us as one of the largest independent developers left in the UK, well-known for both the Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars series. We've just finished up on PGR4, and we're putting the final touches onto The Club as we speak. We've got a couple of announcements to make, so pull up a chair and listen closely...

It's not easy being independent. Signing new games is tough, and bringing new IPs to market as an indie (like we're doing with The Club) is one of the most challenging things our company has ever faced. As I'm sure you can imagine, the most dangerous time for any independent is the period in between projects (or more precisely in between publishers).

Our management team have been preparing for the future for some time now. We've finally found a solution which allows us to not only stay as secure and profitable as we already are as a company, but also to continue to create kickass games in exactly the same way as we're doing now.

The perfect solution for us is to join the ranks of Activision, alongside their other talented studios. It's a pretty incredible chance for Bizarre to improve ourselves and make the most of all the fantastic new opportunities this opens up. Also, given the excellent support Activision offer this can mean only one thing: better games.

This is fundamentally a different deal than some you've seen around the industry recently. Bizarre isn't a developer in financial trouble, and we're certainly not looking to be "saved" by a bigger corporation. We're a dev looking to take our games to the next level, and make the absolute best products we can possibly make. Likewise, Activision is not in the business of "buying out" struggling developers either.

As you can imagine then, Bizarre are very happy with this move. Here's the lowdown:

- Bizarre Creations continues to exist as is. We won't become Activision Liverpool or anything like that.
- We will have absolutely no redundancies.
- All of our teams continue to exist exactly how they are at the moment. Amax team (PGR4) and Shitstorm team (The Club) will move onto new games, whilst our Shared Technology team will use this opportunity to take our experience and tech to new levels and new formats.
- The Activision way of running things is "hands off". Bizarre continue to have creative control over what we do, we still run the studio how we see fit, and we still get to run our own web site and do all sorts of fun community things!

Let's talk games then... that's why we're all here after all. Well, we're no longer tied to just one platform for starters. Our future titles can be on whatever we please - we are a truly multiplatform studio now. Of course that doesn't mean that we'll be forced to make a port of every game to every console in existence... we simply have that option available to us.

Both of our two main game teams are about to start work on two new AAA titles for Activision. One will be a racing game, and the other a character game. Of course we'll make some more detailed announcements in the future, but be prepared for something big and exciting!

What about the now? Firstly, Geometry Wars will remain unaffected; we'll continue to expand and advance the series just as we were going to do before. The Club will still be released with SEGA, Geometry Wars Galaxies will still be released with Sierra, and PGR4 will continue to be supported after its launch in October. No massive changes here then...

So that's pretty much the idea behind it. Bizarre are happy because it means we're completely safe as a company, we all get to stay exactly the same, and we now have the opportunity to stretch our legs with some brand new game concepts. This is going to be fun...

ACTIVISION ACQUIRES U.K. GAME DEVELOPER BIZARRE CREATIONS

Activision Enters $1.4 Billion Racing Genre Market, Representing More than 10% of Worldwide Video Game Market

Santa Monica, CA -- September 26, 2007 -- Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced that it has acquired U.K.-based video game developer Bizarre Creations, one of the world's premier video game developers and a leader in the racing category, a $1.4 billion market that is the fourth most popular videogame genre and represents more than 10% of the total video game market worldwide.

This acquisition represents the latest step in Activision's ongoing strategy to enter new genres. Last year, Activision entered the music rhythm genre through its acquisition of RedOctane's Guitar Hero franchise, which is one of the fastest growing franchises in the video game industry.

With more than 10 years' experience in the racing genre, Bizarre Creations is the developer of the innovative multi-million unit franchise Project Gotham Racing, a critically-acclaimed series for the Xbox(r) and Xbox 360(r). The Project Gotham Racing franchise currently has an average game rating of 89%, according to GameRankings.com and has sold more than 4.5 million units in North America and Europe, according to The NPD Group, Charttrack and Gfk.
Bizarre Creations is currently finishing development on the highly-anticipated third-person action game, The Club, for SEGA, which is due to be released early 2008. They are also the creators of the top-selling arcade game series Geometry Wars on Xbox Live Arcade(r).

Bizarre Creations and its games have won numerous industry awards including: Best Racing Game for Project Gotham Racing 2 from the prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA); the Industry Grand Prix Award from Develop; MCV's UK Development Team 2006 award; Best Racing/Driving Game from IGN; Game of the Year from OXM and Gamespy for Project Gotham Racing 3; and IGN's Best XBLA Game for Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.

"Activision continues to grow and drive greater value for our shareholders by broadening our portfolio and entering new gaming categories with strong global appeal," said Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO of Activision, Inc. "Bizarre Creations is the leading independent developer with a proven track record in developing highly successful and influential original properties, especially in the racing field. They are one of the most innovative and creative studios in the industry, and we are very excited to welcome this talented creative team to Activision."

Mike Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing, Inc., added, "Bizarre Creations will play an important role in our growth strategy as we develop an original new intellectual property for this important racing segment, expand our portfolio in other genres and utilize their proprietary technology for cross platform development."

Martyn Chudley, Managing Director of Bizarre Creations said, "Our goal at Bizarre Creations has always been to do all we can to nurture our creative and passionate teams, who excel at and enjoy what they do. Activision's independent studio model will continue giving us creative freedom to build exciting new brands. Their financial support and marketing prowess will also enable us to build upon the commercial success that we currently enjoy, and take the company - and our games - to an even higher level."

Under the terms of the acquisition, Bizarre Creations will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision and company's management team and employees continue with the company as their teams start to develop two new AAA titles alongside their current projects. The 160-person development studio is located in Liverpool, England. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Activision expects that its first game from Bizarre Creations will be released after fiscal year 2009.