Bye bye BlackRock

[Stormy]

"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,

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-01-split-second-dev-black-rock-to-close

Well, turns out disney are a massive bunch of noobs and have screwed over BlackRock. I was in the initial 90 or so redundancy's around a month back but we where told the company would keep going working on a work in progress freemium title for PC but yesterday they sent round an email to the 40 or so folk left saying the hole company was going down - As if those 40 that were left were not stressed enough as it is having to go through the hole volentry redundancy process not knowing if they were going to stay or not. Then big relief knowing they made it... then one month later BAM.

Its clearly something disney had planned for a long time, it turns out that the way they have shut the place down is the cheapest and quickest way of doing things. Firing anymore then 100 in one go calls for a 3 month consultation period rather then just 1 month for any number less then 100. Sad days, Black Rock had a lot of very talented folk working there who had been there many years. But chances are there will be some new start up Developers cropping up Brighton.

 

[StarBob]

That's why you don't get involved with Disney... as much as they like putting on a cutesy face, they're just a money grubbing as any other giant corporation.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Didn't they just make mediocre racers?

 

[Stormy]

They made awesome racers. They reviewed well but had shit marketing

 

[Bad^Hat]

That sucks. Split/Second wasn't really my thing, but you guys made quality games.

 

[StardogChampion]

Didn't they just make mediocre racers?

Pretty much.

 

[Ennui]

Sorry to hear that Stormy. Hope you find yourself better employment!

 

[kupocake]

But chances are there will be some new start up Developers cropping up Brighton.

Hopefully. Didn't Relentless break the umbilical cord they had with Sony? Seems like it's simply best to go it alone in the current climate.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

They made awesome racers. They reviewed well but had shit marketing

Ah my mistake. It's a genre I barely touch sans Blur, whose devs are suffered a similar fate . It seems that racers in general are struggling a great deal right now and a lot of these companies got screwed over because they were pigeon holed into the genre... even if they ****ing succeeded.

I forgot about Split/Second - I played the demo on XBL and really enjoyed it. I'll have to pick it up on console (for le HDTV) now that the price has dropped somewhat.

 

[staticprimer]

I enjoyed Split/Second. I always thought it was bizarre that it ended with a cliffhanger though.