06:46 PM - July 2, 2008 by ChaseB
Venom Games will be closing at the end of July, CVG learned today. The company most recently developed Don King Presents: Prizefighter and before that had worked on the relatively recent Rocky games.
According to CVG, the employees learned earlier today that the studio would be closing. Since there was no warning before the announcement and this closing comes a mere few weeks after Prizefighter released, it seems like this may have been set-in-motion long ago.
So the question is: Was Prizefighter rushed out the door before it was ready? It only came to one platform after all, and the media build-up was far from substantial -- not to mention the game was critically blasted on a technical level, which would signify that there was not enough polishing time.
CVG also found out that Venom Games was originally working on Bioshock for the PS3 (originally it was going to be released at the same time as the 360 version) but the coders said that it could not be done. So with that in mind it does make sense why there is no PS3 version of the game.
Still, the media blitz for this game came abnormally late in the development cycle. Also the window which the game released during was a bit strange when you consider that Top Spin (another 2K game) released almost on top of it, even though there was not a new Fight Night to compete with.
The Wii version of Prizefighter is not supposed to come out until September, but presumably Venom Games was developing that version as well, which leaves a whole bunch of other questions unanswered.
Venom Games is located in Newcastle, UK and was founded back in 2003. CVG contacted 2K about the closing but received a "no comment" as the only response.
Venom Games set to close [CVG]
According to CVG, the employees learned earlier today that the studio would be closing. Since there was no warning before the announcement and this closing comes a mere few weeks after Prizefighter released, it seems like this may have been set-in-motion long ago.
So the question is: Was Prizefighter rushed out the door before it was ready? It only came to one platform after all, and the media build-up was far from substantial -- not to mention the game was critically blasted on a technical level, which would signify that there was not enough polishing time.
CVG also found out that Venom Games was originally working on Bioshock for the PS3 (originally it was going to be released at the same time as the 360 version) but the coders said that it could not be done. So with that in mind it does make sense why there is no PS3 version of the game.
Still, the media blitz for this game came abnormally late in the development cycle. Also the window which the game released during was a bit strange when you consider that Top Spin (another 2K game) released almost on top of it, even though there was not a new Fight Night to compete with.
The Wii version of Prizefighter is not supposed to come out until September, but presumably Venom Games was developing that version as well, which leaves a whole bunch of other questions unanswered.
Venom Games is located in Newcastle, UK and was founded back in 2003. CVG contacted 2K about the closing but received a "no comment" as the only response.
Venom Games set to close [CVG]