Sony has closed one of the UK’s oldest video game studios following a review of its operations.

Sony Liverpool employed about 100 workers. It dated back to 1984 when it was known as Psygnosis. The Japanese company bought the developer in 1993. Original post here.

So here is the icon posted on thier FB page. Is it just me that can see the what this icon really looks like? You decide..

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Are you suggesting it looks like the old middle finger salute?

It sucks, they’d been working hard on a couple of games including the PS4 version of WipEout. Always sad (and from a personal point of view slightly alarming) when another good studio closes. 🙁

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/sony-to-close-wipeout-game-studio

I don’t doubt the ‘hidden meaning’ in that graphic was wholly intentional. End of an era.

Ha! – that’s funny

I thought it was telling that when the news stories broke, they would say “responsible for Wipeout, x, y, z) and x, y, and z were always very average games that didn’t really sustain sequels or make much of an impact on the market.

Names like Destruction Derby, G-Police, …erm Discworld
In fact the only game mentioned which I remember being popular was Shadow of the Beast – another game which sold mostly on graphics rather than substance.

I had a 4-day interview with them back in 1998 for a ‘level designer’ and it was clear they wanted people who could churn out generic levels as quickly as possible. Basically, they chose the guys who had been making Quake levels all day long, whether they were good or not. (yes, I’m bitter lol).

WipeOut hit the market at exactly the right time. Whoever chose the music and decided to outsource the art to Designer’s Republic got it absolutely spot-on. But they’ve struggled to repeat it ever since.

Sony’s direction (strategic or otherwise) has been questionable for the past 15 years – this is just another nail in their coffin. Which is a terrible shame.

Oi! G-Police was ace! Apart from when you got halfway through the game, and the difficulty massively ramped up unexpectedly…

iirc g-police was made by psygnosis stroud not liverpool.

G-Police was developed at Psygnosis’ Stroud Studio.[17] Psygnosis’ co-founder Ian Hetherington called the studio in the South of England one of their “microstudios.”[18] Staff consisted of around 70 people who were also responsible for developing Overboard! at the same time.[18]

Alex, too young for Lemmings I assume?

Lemmings was DMA studios I think, based in Dundee

Sad though wipEout was iconic. First game I owned on the original Playstation

dma design + psygnosis wasn’t it?

Pook – Member

dma design + psygnosis wasn’t it?

It had the metallic owl psygnosis logo at startup on the Amiga* I recall.

*I feel old now.

Psygnosis liverpool did F1 and F1 98 for PS1 didn’t they? The first F1 game was brilliant. Spend ages chasing a car down to make a small mistake and have it all to do again.

Lemmings was developed by DMA published by Psygnosis.

Amiga 500+

BEST. COMPUTER. EVER.

one of my customers worked there, great cha p who said it was good place towork and lots of new games to play.

Yep, Psygnosis was the publisher – I don’t think they had anything to do with development of Lemmings.

Definitely not too young for it btw – I remember the launch of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong 🙂

I remember the F1 games being well received, so I’ll concede that one.