Black Rock Studio Limited was a British

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It was a division of

Disney Interactive Studios Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher owned by The Walt Disney Company through Disney Interactive. Prior to its closure in 2016, it developed and distributed multi-platform video games and interac ...

. The studio was founded by Tony Beckwith in 1998 as Pixel Planet. It was acquired by the

Climax Group Climax Studios is a British video game developer based in Portsmouth that is best known for their work on the 2004 action role-playing game ''Sudeki'' and the 2007 and 2009 survival horror video games '' Silent Hill: Origins'' and '' Silent Hi ...

in 1999 and was renamed Climax Brighton. In 2004, it became Climax Racing, as the Climax Group rebranded its studios. On 28 September 2006, it was acquired by DIS (formerly known as Buena Vista Games in that time) and was eventually renamed Black Rock Studio in 2007. The last game the studio developed for the Climax Group was ''

MotoGP '07 ''MotoGP '07'' is the fifth game in THQ's MotoGP series for Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and mobile phones (the latter released as ''MotoGP 4''). The purchase of the Climax Racing studio, developer of most of the previous titles in the series, f ...

'', which was completed after its acquisition by Buena Vista Games. The name is derived from a district in Brighton. In early 2011, the company faced lay-offs and was forced to abandon sequels for '' Pure'' and '' Split/Second''. Despite good reviews for both games, Disney turned down both sequels to focus on

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ...

content. 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 has 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 BossAlien is a game developer based in Brighton, UK. BossAlien was founded by ex-employees of Disney's Black Rock Studio in June, 2011. In July 2012 BossAlien Ltd was acquired by NaturalMotion Games Ltd. In January 2014 Zynga acquired NaturalMot ...

Games

References

External links

Official Black Rock Studio website
Companies based in Brighton and Hove Former subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company Video game companies established in 1998 Video game companies disestablished in 2011 Defunct video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies Defunct companies of England 1999 mergers and acquisitions 2006 mergers and acquisitions {{UK-videogame-company-stub