Bobby Kotick Says Acquiring Project Gotham Racing Studio Bizarre Creations Was Bad for Activision - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 February 2025 / 3,406 Views
Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick in an interview with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins stated the acquisition of Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations was a bad decision for the company.
"We actually had a bad acquisition," said Kotick (via VideoGamesChronicle). "The company that was, um… in Manchester, that did the driving game for Xbox, and it was called, um…"
Kotick couldn't think of the name of the studio and the location was wrong, however, Bizarre Creations was the only studio Activision acquired based in the UK.
"They had a good guy, who was running the day-to-day," Kotick continued. "[He was] a brilliant guy, like a McKinsey guy, he was into strat planning. It was $80 million, and we wrote it off two years later. Everything about it violated all our principles. That guy was an expensive lesson."
Bizarre Creations was founded in 1988 as Raising Hell Software and was later renamed in 1994. The studio was best known for developing racing games like the Xbox exclusive Project Gotham Racing, as well as Geometry Wars.
The studio was acquired by Activision in 2007 and would be shut down in 2011.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Bluesky.
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Blur and Geometry Wars were both amazing...
ABK dropped the ball
I only ever played Geometry Wars in the Gotham Racing 2 minigame lol
Geo Wars 2 we the first Xbox Arcade game I ever bought, and I probably put nearly 100 hours into it lmao
Great studio, you just mismanaged them Bobby. Not every game needs to be CoD lol
I remember thinking it was a bad idea to let Activision acquire them. Then again Activision and EA are ruthless for the way they acquired studios expecting them to make a big hit game and then axing them quickly after.
The only game I played of theirs was 007: Blood Stone which I believe was their last game and the last (good) 007 game to date. I was sad to hear Activision closed them down.
Bizarre Creations was a great racing games studio. They did Metropoli Street Racing for the Dreamcast, a very much celebrated racing game by early 2000s. It was the "GT" racing game for the console.
Metropoli Street Racing was the direct precedent of Project Gotham series, and those series were the seed of Forza Motorsport (and Horizon) series, inside Microsoft Studios, when BC were bought by Activision and Gotham was abandoned.
But before that, they ALSO did the original F1 and the sequel F1 '97 for Playstation, produced by Psygnosis, subsidiary of Sony. Those games were the first 2 official releases of Sony's F1 series, being highly rated and recommended in the press as the best racing games for PSX (before GT1).
EA got the rights of F1 some years later and both series competed during some years in the turn of the millenium. By some reason EA withdraw around 2003 and Sony series continued alone until 2006 season, when they also discontinued its own series. After 2 seasons without any F1 games, EA got the rights again for the 2009 season, and have been producing the official game until now).
PSX success with F1 series make Nintendo do the same during the 97 and 98 seasons. Nintendo produced 2 games: F1 WGP and F1 WGP II for N64. They were developed by Paradigm, experts in 3D simulation (the same guys of Pilotwings 64), working for Video System. Those F1 games were amazing.
They were so successful, Video System used that name again to produce other "F1 WGP" for Dreamcast, PSX and PC. But those last titles were not developed by Paradigm, and of course were not produced by Nintendo. Video System closed soon after those, in 2001.
"After 2 seasons without any F1 games, EA got the rights again for the 2009 season, and have been producing the official game until now)."
Not quite correct, EA bought Codemasters in 2021 mainly so they had the F1 licence which was in Codemaster's hands since 2009, who has been making and publishing them since then.
Easier just to buy the company who has the licence and has a good studio ready to make them and slap your branding on that winning the contract and setting up a new studio to make the games. :P
oooh... yes, you are totally right! Codemasters had the rights those years and not EA! . Thanks, I totally forgot it! I do not followed too much F1 in general since about 15 years ago, so, i had no interest in the games anymore, that's why i didn't recall that right. Thanks so much for the correction, really. Totally forgot.
I remember Codemasters being buyed around 2021-2022, yes. Take 2 was interested to buy them until EA made a better offer. Was maybe the last old british company from the 80s and 90s to fall. And if not the last... one of the few remaining independent classic ones, after the massive collapse of the brit companies in the late 90s, early 2000s (many being buyed by other companyes or just folded). The only one I remember as independent now is Team17, but was much smaller than others in that era, being basically the "Worms" company.
Codemasters made great racing games since ever, but they focussed a lot on them since the 2010s. I supposed they just couldn't make any other things anymore, if they wanted to be profitable with the evermore expensive developments.
Do you know where in the video that is mentioned? Timestamp? I'd like to see the context of the questioning and if he adds anything more.
They bought them, had them make 1 racing game and a few other games or licenced ones then gave up. So, they had a good/brilliant guy running the day to day stuff that apparently somehow cost them the studio? If they survived, they would have been making CoD games within a few years.
Considering he didn't even remember the studio or location, he might be misremembering the entire thing. :P
Bizarre Creations was an amazing studio that Activision mismanaged. Geometry Wars was a game series I went back to (and still check out) to this day.
Don't think I can forgive Activision for closing Bizarre Creations. One of the worst acquisitions ever (up there with Microsoft buying Rare), Blur was great though and deserved way better, I really enjoyed playing it alongside Mario Kart. MSR/ PGR was such a fun series and a shame Microsoft abandoned it. I enjoy Forza Horizon but it's not Project Gotham Racing. Also I can't be the only one who thinks these business decisions have hollowed out the gaming industry, so many great studios just don't exist now and what's left releases less than ever.
