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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]

Game: Don King Presents: PrizefighterReader Score: 3.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: NDS / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 10 - View All
Don King Presents: Prizefighter Videos
Member Comments
# 1 aholbert32 @ 07/02/08 08:18 PM
I guess that means no patch or downloadable content
 
# 2 JayBee74 @ 07/02/08 11:29 PM
That REEKS a bit no matter what your opinion of the game is.
 
# 3 Complex @ 07/03/08 10:03 PM
Did they give a reason?
 
# 4 SHAKYR @ 07/03/08 11:50 PM
There goes competition. I wish Visual Concepts pick up...actually redo...come up with a better boxing game. We need competition.
 
# 5 JayBee74 @ 07/08/08 10:52 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by metallicatz
This is a good thing. Venom makes bad games. Simple as that. Too bad they didn't get the axe before PF was released. I'd love to see a VC boxing game, but 2K needs to lick its wounds after the atrocious showing of PF. Even Kelly Pavlik dissed the game.
The game has it's merits, so let's not go black or white on it. When did Kelly dis the game?
 
# 6 JayBee74 @ 07/08/08 11:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon22
I wonder how the game sold?
Based on the Leaderboards which even track offline activity such as high scores in individual training sessions, at best 45,000 or so. By comparison Fight Night Round 3 was the 10th best selling game of 2006 against any genre getting rid of 620,000 units.
 
# 7 Money99 @ 07/09/08 10:20 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JayBee74
Based on the Leaderboards which even track offline activity such as high scores in individual training sessions, at best 45,000 or so. By comparison Fight Night Round 3 was the 10th best selling game of 2006 against any genre getting rid of 620,000 units.
Jaybee send Slizeezyc a PM ASAP. He needs to speak with you.
 
# 8 iLLmatic @ 07/14/08 05:54 PM
The game sucked on so many levels. they hyped the shilt outta of it with its new career mode as well as the new boxing mechanics and after all that BS, the game BLEW. Good riddance. Consider us all saved from more hype and BS about the next Prizefighter coming out. I dont get how these $400 systems have game developers rushing games out, having to make patches because they didnt take care of these problems during the creation process. Stop hiring these game testers who only play sports games because its a way to get a check. Get some ACTUAL SPORTS gamers in there to test these games. From Madden, to all the 2K games the list goes on and on. Goodbye Venom and take your weak *** over hyped piece of ish game
with you. (I am now stepping off of my soap box)
 
# 9 Money99 @ 07/15/08 04:29 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JayBee74
The game has it's merits, so let's not go black or white on it. When did Kelly dis the game?
I agree. The game has some good points and some bad.
I'm still enjoying it as a fun boxing title - not as the end-all, be-all of boxing games.

Since it's now official that the Venom studio's are closing, it's speculated that this move was coming well before PF was released. It would explain why there really wasn't a whole lot of hype behind the game.
Yes, they pimped their documentary style career mode quite a bit, but we barely saw any gameplay vids and really, there wasn't much news until a week before the game came out.

Chances are, Venom just recycled their Rocky engine and slapped some lipstick on it.

If VC ever gets another crack at making a boxing game I think they could make a good one.
But that remains to be seen at this point seeing that EA is still trying to buy 2K games.
 

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