Black Rock Studio

## History

**Black Rock Studio Limited**, formerly Climax Brighton (Climax Racing) or Pixel Planet, was a video game development studio founded by Tony Beckwith, based in Brighton, England. They were acquired by Disney Interactive Studios on the 28th of September 2006 and formed into Black Rock in 2007. After their acquisition, they went on to make *Pure* (2008), an ATV freestyling game based off of their ATV Offroad Fury background. Their second and last game as Black Rock was *Split/Second: Velocity* in 2010. The studio shut down just a year after the game's release due to low sales performance and a shift to mobile freemium games by Disney.

Originally formed in 1998 as Pixel Planet, the studio was bought and turned into Climax Brighton by Climax Group in 1999, then renamed to Climax Racing in 2004. During 2006, Disney Interactive Studios, known as Buena Vista Games, acquired Climax Racing and went onto rename the studio to Black Rock Studio Limited in 2007. The name Black Rock is derived from a district in Brighton. During it's closure in early 2011, the company faced lay-offs and was forced to abandon sequels for Pure and Split/Second.

## As Pixel Planet

Founded by Tony Beckwith in 1998 with the intent to focus and specialise in the development of racing games, they were acquired by Climax Group in the November of 1999 and renamed to Climax Brighton. It is currently unknown if Pixel Planet had done anything before they were merged with Climax Group.

It's likely that Black Rock got most of its ex-Acclaim talent during this period. Nick Baynes was working on Re-Volt at the time while Tony Beckwith had left Acclaim to form Pixel Planet.

## As Climax Brighton/Climax Racing

As a part of Climax, they specialised in racing games only, responsible for award winning and yearly releasing titles such as the ATV Offroad Fury and MotoGP series. They were also responsible for many HotWheels games at the time, though their most important game as Climax would be *Crash 'n' Burn*, which carried over design elements and features over to Split/Second.

On the 28th of September 2006, Climax Racing was acquired by Disney Interactive Studios (formerly known as Buena Vista Games) and was eventually renamed Black Rock Studio in 2007.

The last game the studio developed for the Climax Group was *MotoGP '07*, which was completed after its acquisition by Buena Vista Games.

## As Black Rock Studio

Under Disney, Black Rock had a bigger budget and had earned talent from studios such as Criterion and Acclaim throughout the years. With their gained expertise in racing games and a set of classics under their belt, Black Rock's first title was a spiritual successor to the ATV Offroad Fury games. *Pure* (stylized as PURE), is an ATV freestyling and racing game that came out on the 16th of September 2008 to critical succes, financial performance unknown. It's important to note that both Pure and Crash 'n' Burn carry over features and ideas into Split/Second, having some unused remnants and leftovers aswell.

Their second game as Black Rock was an idea waiting to be made since the release of Re-Volt in 1999. *Split/Second: Velocity* is an action oriented arcade-racer released on the 18th of May 2010, after a 4 month delay. The game focuses on setting off explosives, named PowerPlays, around the track to wreck opponents and alter the track, earning victory in the process.

Many factors lead into the failure of Split/Second and into Black Rock's demise. Disney's new-found interest to focus on freemium games meant they were keen on abandoning the studio, and the game's low marketing budget along with the busy release date meant that the game, while successful critically, performed terrible financially. After releasing multiple DLC packs for the game, Black Rock Studio Limited closed their doors, resulting in the cancellation of Pure 2 and Split/Second 2.

An important note to remember is that Black Rock, likely during the delay period of Split/Second, forced crunch on their employees. Forcing them to work on weekends.

### Games:

 2008
 2010

## After Black Rock

On 30 June 2011, Disney Interactive Studios announced their intent to enter a consultation process on the proposal to close the studios. It was later confirmed that the studio had been shut down and that several 300 ex-employees have formed new studios, including Studio Gobo, West Pier Studio, Roundcube Entertainment, ShortRound Games, and Boss Alien.

Out of these studios, BigBit Ltd. had a role in the aftermath of Split/Second, making a mobile game prototype using Downtown as the map and the Ryback Mohawk as the player car. They also re-uploaded Split/Second 2 footage dating back to 2011.

Surprisingly, a Split/Second advergame was released 2 years after the death of Black Rock. Split/Second Arcade Edition: Wangan is the January 13, 2012 sequel to May 11th 2010's Split/Second: Arcade Edition. Both are advergames made by Silent Bay Studios on the Adobe Shockwave engine and both are published by ESPN Arcade. This was likely due to the original Arcade Edition's success, gaining over a million plays in a short amount of time.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-beckwith-b50936/details/experience/
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Rock\_Studio
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/@BigBitLtd
4. ↑ https://silent-bay.fandom.com/wiki/Split\_Second:\_Arcade\_Edition
5. ↑ https://silent-bay.fandom.com/wiki/Split\_Second:\_Wangan