Brighton-based Black Rock will make 40 staff redundant
Disney is closing its UK games development studio the publisher has confirmed to Develop this morning.
Black Rock, the racing studio it bought from Climax in late 2006, will close after five years of Disney ownership.
40 remaining staff will be made redundant - the studio had already laid off a number of staff earlier this year, Eurogamer reports.
A statement reads: “Disney Interactive Studios confirms that Black Rock Studios’ current project has not been greenlit for further development, consequently the company informed employees yesterday of the intent to enter a consultation process on the proposal to close the studios.”
Disney's move into the UK games development space was much hyped and well funded. The publisher was convinced the studio would help it build an audience in the racing genre, which has real core and casual gamer appeal.
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Under Disney, the studio released two 360/PS3 games - Pure and Split/Second. Neither were blockbuster hits Disney was probably expecting in the racing space, despite good intentions to introduce new IPs that nevertheless reviewed well.
We reported last week that the remaining staff were clearly eyeing new social and mobile platforms, with job ads seeking Unity-proficient staff for a free-to-play game.
But presumably the transition wasn't quick enough, and Disney has decided to cut its loses.
It's not the first large publisher to withdraw from UK games development: in the last year Bizarre Creations (Activison) and THQ Digital Warrington (THQ) have also closed.
Please take the 'we are hiring' advert for Blackrock down, its not in good taste
Dear Klemens,
do you think this is interesting as ure was still a success, not a blockbuster?
Regards
Pierre
Good spot... yeah, that advert is unfortunate.
I feel bad for the guys who are out of a job (I met a few of them, seemed good) but I feel especially bad for anyone who was hired recently, as that banner implies may have happened. A bit out of order for the company to be hiring right up to the point it closes IMO.
Split Second not reviewed good? I must of been playing another version. Split Second was an Excellent Game!!!!!!1
I'm so furious with the powers that be at Disney. This was a great studio to work for, and the team worked hard on new ideas that fulfilled whatever the latest brief/strategy our publisher had decided to follow this week (blockbuster IP one minute, social games the next...). This wasn't how we'd planned to be treated.
Have been playing Split/Second to death and its a really really great game. So so so under-rated.
Bad move Disney, your loss. All these guys are top of their game, and will simply take the knowledge and experience gained under Black Rock and start up their own successes.
Why? Why this company? Was it because they did something new? Something fresh? Split Second is a really great game and at nisute we were trying to push it. But the PR and the publisher dint want to help with a tournament we had set up.
Now we see this great game go down with no hope on a new version. Is Disney so blind to see that they had another Burnout successor on their hands.
Its a shame. and i wish the guys from blackrock all the best. i hope to see you around at the gamescom, tokio gameshow or next years E3.
With kind regards from the Nisute team. Good luck guys!
This is what Disney does. They're so out of touch with what people actually want so they continually sink large money into mediocre projects only to have them cave a few years later. They did it with their animation studios so why would it be different for the game studios? Come on Disney, instead of screwing up peoples lives why don't you put a bit of effort into your studios? There's a whole building full of talent there. Just because the racing genre isn't working doesn't mean you can't switch it up and produce any other type of game. But of course not. As long as that mighty dollar isn't flowing just pull the plug and turn a blind eye. You're so good at it.
A real shame, a historic studio going down is really sad.
But to all those people affected come and join some cool games people tonight for a drink and a chat at the Victory from 6pm, you never know what you may get from it.
In attendance are Relentless, Full Moon, Roundcube, ZoeMode, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Universally Speaking (obviously) and more.. and I know two of those companies are hiring.
Best of luck, people.
