The cover star of the latest issue of Edge, which comes out today in shops in the UK, is Blur. Bizarre Creations’ new racer is the studio's first major title for new owner, Activision, since its acquisition in October 2008. On visiting the Liverpool-based studio, we had the opportunity to talk at length with creative director Martyn Chudley (who was previously managing director of the company) and commercial director Sarah Chudley (who is also wife to Martyn) about the reasons behind the sale, and the effects on their studio.

What was behind your decision go from independence to being part of a major publisher?
MC We were talking throughout the whole of that year about what we were going to do. I’m not going to slag [Microsoft] off in an evil way, but obviously we worked on PGR4 for them, and I think that PGR4 was the strongest Gotham game we did – the most fully rounded. But towards the end of that project they wanted us to bring it in early, to chop six weeks off development. But the way we work is really right up to the wire, so basically the game is nowhere near finished at six weeks to go, so we had to dig our heels in and say that our contract said that we’re to bring the game in on this day, and that’s what we were going to do because we cannot compromise the work that the lads have been doing, and the quality of the game. They didn’t realise how bad a situation it would have been – we needed that extra six weeks, and it got us concerned with the future with Microsoft. We were talking with Activision, and then they were the third biggest publisher in the world and with no racing studio, or racing title; they tried for ten years to come up with a racing franchise and hadn’t managed it. We were getting disillusioned with Microsoft and they were getting corporate and cocky as well because of the shift in power between them and Sony.

SC And their main focus was always on the Forza team.

MC And that was at the expense of us. They brought out the Forza [Xbox 360 console] bundle. And that was disappointing, because the guys worked so hard on [PGR4]. It just didn’t get the exposure and the marketing – it got the critical acclaim, but wasn’t as commercially successful as the other projects. We knew that Activision didn’t have this racing title that it wanted and we got closer and closer and eventually instead of us working for them on other projects, the whole acquisition came about. At that point we were around 160 people, and the bank balance was shrinking – still sustainable but we could see that instead of having three years of buffer, we would have six months of buffer. So we thought that it made sense for Activision to basically take all of our projects, with the racing game being the primary focus.



Was remaining independent important to you?
MC Absolutely. That was part of the Activision thing, because it operates under the independent studio model, which basically allows us to run just as we work. All they do is to put in the financial hooks and we take on one person [in-house] who’s the direct link to the financial part.

SC They said ‘How do you do your budgeting?’ and we said, ‘Well, people go to Martyn and he either goes, ‘No you’re taking the piss,’ or ‘Yes, let’s go and buy it’.’

MC So we’ve got more formal on that, and that’s about it. The rest of it is ours. That’s what we were promised, pre-acquisition, and that’s what’s happened. We couldn’t be happier to run as a publisher/developer relationship. If we’d gone to EA, they’d have assimilated us; we’d have become EA North or something. And we’d have had to adopt their culture, but we’re retaining our own culture, and the stuff that makes our games what they are, good or bad. Just the way that we do them.

SC And we’re getting unbelievable marketing and PR support.

MC That was part of it. They were the third biggest publisher at the time, and they can market and promote a game far in excess of what Microsoft did. They’re really strong, and that’s something we’ve really desired. Microsoft always had – I’m painting a bad picture; we had a really good relationship right up to the very end – but they always had other agendas, which were primarily about selling Xbox. We were there at launch for Xbox with PGR1, PGR2 was about the Live service, and that crippled us. Everybody thought, ‘I’m not buying that,’ because they promoted it as a Live game, but it wasn’t Live only. Then PGR3 was 360 launch game.

Which suffered from a small installed base?
SC Yeah.

MC And we only got the hardware less than six months before it was on the floor, which was crazy and painful at the same time. PGR4 was the first game that we had the full ability to do what the game requires. We still had to sell Xboxes, and still try to be technical and clever and whizzy and show the power of the console and the Live service. But obviously Forza was hanging over it and they had a much greater stake in that.