Bobby Kotick says PGR & Geometry Wars’ Bizarre Creations was ‘a bad acquisition’ for Activision

Kotick says buying the Geometry Wars and Blur developer was “an expensive lesson”

Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has said the company’s decision to acquire British Project Gotham Racing studio Bizarre Creations was a bad one.

The accalimed Liverpool-based studio, which was closed in 2011, was best known for its racing games. After developing the first two Formula 1 games on the PS1, it went on to create cult classic Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast, which was notable for its realistic recreations of real-world cities.

This would evolve into the Project Gotham Racing series, which was exclusive to Xbox and lasted for four games, until Activision bought the studio in 2007 for a deal worth an initial $67.4 million, followed by a further $40 million if it hit certain goals within 5 years.

However, following the buyout, Bizarre wouldn’t even go on to last five years, with Activision announcing in 2010 that it was closing the studio down. Its only games released as an Activision studio were Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Blur, and James Bond 007: Blood Stone.

In a newly recorded interview with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Kotick appeared to cite the acquisition of Bizarre Creations as an example of a bad decision that had been made but was unable to name the studio, its location, or its leader.

After Kleiner Perkins advisor (and former EA COO) Bing Gordon asked Kotick what his trick was for always making good acquisitions, he replied that they weren’t always positive, in his opinion.

“We actually had a bad acquisition,” he replied. “The company that was, um… in Manchester, that did the driving game for Xbox, and it was called, um…”

Although Kotick wasn’t able to name the studio and got its location wrong, given that Activision didn’t acquire any other UK-based racing developers, it’s clear he was referring to Bizarre Creations.

“They had a good guy, who was running the day-to-day,” Kotick went on, seemingly referring to studio head Brian Woodhouse, who says he “negotiated and delivered the Activision acquisition of Bizarre Creations” on his LinkedIn page.

Kotick described him as “a brilliant guy, like a McKinsey guy, he was into strat planning,” referring to the McKinsey 7-S Model for strategic planning. However, he added: “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.”

In 2011 a number of Bizarre Creations employees founded Lucid Games, whose titles have included Geometry Wars 3 in 2014 and Destruction AllStars in 2021.

In 2023, the studio announced that it was working with Rare, providing ongoing support work on Sea of Thieves.