Activision closes 7 Studios

By Fred Dutton Published 10 February, 2011

DJ Hero support studio canned.

The bodycount from Activision's house-cleaning exercise yesterday continues to mount up, with LA-based 7 Studios the latest confirmed dead.

A Tweet from staffer Alex Victory, spotted by Joystiq, read, "Activision is shutting down the Guitar Hero business as of today. This includes my studio. Anyone know of any open associate producer jobs?"

Creative director Dan Lehrich later chimed in on his own feed, adding, "Lame day, but I'm optimistic about the future & wish the best to all my current/former colleagues. Good luck to all, let me know if I can help."

7 Studios was set up in 1999 and cut its teeth on a string of movie tie-ins, including Fantastic Four, Shrek the Third and Napoleon Dynamite. It was purchased by Activision in 2009, while half way through development on Scratch: The Ultimate DJ.

The publisher of that game, Genius Products, then launched a legal action against Activision, claiming the buy-out was "clearly an attempt to prevent the game from getting to market ahead of its own prospective game" and a "misappropriation of trade secrets".

Soon after all that blew over, Activision made half of the studio redundant.

It's not entirely clear exactly what role the remaining employees had been performing since then, although it's thought the developer provided additional support on DJ Hero 2 and the Guitar Hero franchise.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Scopeh #1 1 year ago

    Misleading Title to the article..

  • NewbieZilla #2 1 year ago

    When I first read this, I thought they had shut down a load of studios. Not one particular one. Seems they were cunts with that studio from the get go.

  • jonharrispro #3 1 year ago

    Could Activision get any more evil.......seriously tempted to stop buying their (and affiliated) products.

  • Eighthours #4 1 year ago

    This is the best factually correct troll headline I've ever seen. You've outdone yourself this time, Fred! :)

  • Bleemo #5 1 year ago

    You just kind of get this image of Emperor Kotick gazing maniacally as his assistant sets alight the model of the Activision studios in his office. All the while he cackles wildly and rocks gently in his office chair holding a copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare.
    Edited by Bleemo at 10/02/11 @ 19:06

  • captain_Carl #6 1 year ago

    Nice misleading title there.

    But yeah still, a gigantic fuck you Activision's way.

  • joelstinton #7 1 year ago

    Does anyone want to open up a studio and give creative control to game developers and designers and call the studio something along the lines of Fuck you Bobby Kotick

  • smirny #8 1 year ago

    bit of an understatement to say that studio got screwed over, christ :/

  • Optyk #9 1 year ago

    Activision are becoming an evil behemoth that needs taking down.

  • INSOMANiAC #10 1 year ago

    Its all very well slagging of cuntivision but these developers are the ones that get into bed with them and allow themselves to be bought, knowing theyll be tossed on the scrapheap sooner or later.

    If these small studios want to do their own thing and continue for years to come dont succumb to greed.

  • Shakey_Jake33 #11 1 year ago

    ^I suppose it made sense at the time. Activision would have seemed like a good source of funding. Then again, looking at what happened to Bizarre Creations, I wonder if they regret turning away from Microsoft.

  • SHPanda #12 1 year ago

    @Insomniac - You know how buy outs work yes? It's not just a case of Activision wants to buy 7 Studios, the staff have a meeting and say yes, and it gets the go ahead. They could have bought the majority of shares, in which case the developer has no say in it. They could have bought the developer from another parent company, or they could have just bought it from an owner who again if he/them is selling it already won't care what happens to the company in the future, they've made their money and walked away. The staff are the ones who suffer, they had no say and it resulted in a loss of their jobs.

    Now the CEOs and heads of say Bizarre going to Acti and then getting canned off is different, they still exist, somewhat like Bungie if their relationship or sales go south they can walk away unscathed monetarily as Activision will have funded development and they can go and find a new publisher. Really what happened to Bizarre is probably the better of scenarios, what happened to 7 Studios isn't.

  • SHPanda #13 1 year ago

    @Insomniac - You know how buy outs work yes? It's not just a case of Activision wants to buy 7 Studios, the staff have a meeting and say yes, and it gets the go ahead. They could have bought the majority of shares, in which case the developer has no say in it. They could have bought the developer from another parent company, or they could have just bought it from an owner who again if he/them is selling it already won't care what happens to the company in the future, they've made their money and walked away. The staff are the ones who suffer, they had no say and it resulted in a loss of their jobs.

    Now the CEOs and heads of say Bizarre going to Acti and then getting canned off is different, they still exist, somewhat like Bungie if their relationship or sales go south they can walk away unscathed monetarily as Activision will have funded development and they can go and find a new publisher. Really what happened to Bizarre is probably the better of scenarios, what happened to 7 Studios isn't.

  • Windypops #14 1 year ago

    There was a Napoleon Dynamite movie tie-in?

  • gjgjg #15 1 year ago

    @apx333 buy second hand maybe?

    condolences once more hard working peoples of acti studios

  • FuzzyDuck #16 1 year ago

    Are Acti buying out studios just to shut them down?

  • gooner77 #17 1 year ago

    Bungie must be shitting themselves

  • dj_jenns #18 1 year ago

    [link url=http://www.mcvuk.com/news/42980/Bungie-game-key-to-Activisions-growth
    ]http://www.mcvuk.com/news/42980/Bungie-g...[/link]

    Bungie are safe and I've just had a nauseating thought - Call of Duty MMO developed by Bungie... urgghhhhh

  • lockload #19 1 year ago

    @dj_jenns

    What are you talking about activison does not own bungie they are independent, activisions is jusy the publisher for their game

  • Eldritch #20 1 year ago

    In other news:

    [link url=http://www.mcvuk.com/news/42993/Activision-fined-1m-for-price-fixing?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mcvuk%2FoXMK+%28MCV%3A+games+industry+news%29
    ]http://www.mcvuk.com/news/42993/Activisi...[/link]

    What's next?

  • Mkwone #21 1 year ago

    I don't think they're buying studios to shut them down, they've just looking at each of the developers and being ruthless. Is you're game going to sell say 500k+ copies? No, shut you down/move you onto something that will sell. But that wont help all those loosing their jobs

    It's no suprise so many companies are working on COD, there's still a huge demand for the game and will be for several years even if sales drop there's a long way to go before t doesn't make enough profit.
    Edited by Mkwone at 10/02/11 @ 19:19

  • Toothball #22 1 year ago

    Oh, so that's what happened to Scratch. I had wondered where it had got to.

    Never great to hear about job losses. It'd be nice if Activision stopped haemorrhaging studios soon.

  • lssl17 #23 1 year ago

    No need to boycott Activision dead on - buy their games 2nd hand and screw them sideways!

  • Daeltaja #24 1 year ago

    It's simple, there will be more and more independent studios forming and less as eager to sell out to Scumvision, not that they will be looking to buy these studios anytime in the near future, but still. This could be a good thing for the industry, in a not so obvious way.

  • kongzi #25 1 year ago

    Seems to me Activision is eating itself from the inside out. Could be they expect to lose their case against EA. Reading this, this might be a blessing in disguise (a very ugly one) for these employees because acti never bought them to make games but rather to prevent that. I hope they can find better jobs at healthier companies. Clearly the people in power at Acti are more interested in chopping up and selling off the company than investing in the future.

  • sealofmadness #26 1 year ago

    Whilst redundancies are always going to be messy, Activision seems to have developed a bit of a knack of messing companies around and generally not fulfilling their parts of deals.

    They're playing a very dirty game and will no doubt eventually be found out- I would be very surprised if any developers looking for a publisher talk to Acti if this is how they treat their staff. Once the CoD series starts dipping in popularity, it could be a very rocky road for them.

  • metalangel #27 1 year ago

    I really hope one day I don't read a similar article about Bungie like we have about Bizarre Creations and Activision's numerous other (former) bitches.

  • Phishfood #28 1 year ago

    Activision: Operation Profit?
    1. Indentify a popular game type
    2. Accuire developers/studio that makes games of said game type
    3. Milk the shit out of it
    4. Sack the studio/developers
    5. Go to step 1

  • FortysixterUK #29 1 year ago

    Sounds like Acti were simply buying up the competition , and always intended to shut 'em down.
    It's not just Acti who are like this btw, EA has been doing it for years..I still can't forgive EA for wrecking Westwood studios.

  • Lusterpurge #30 1 year ago

    @Phishfood
    This is the pinnacle of business plans. It is so simple yet so effective. If you manage to pull this off, you are truly a capitalism god. Kotick, say whatever you want about him, is a genius. All hail Lord Kotick!!

  • rprince #31 1 year ago

    I know @Windypops already said this, but there was a Napoleon Dynamite game? I can't even imagine what that would be like. Wii Swingball?