Layoffs at Codemasters

I realize this is totally irrelevant to the topic, but every time I see the Codemasters logo, I think it looks like "C3" or "MU".  Drives me crazy.

Love that word: "reorganization"....

I remember playing the Celtic Club Football Game, worst soccer game of all time(equal to it's entire Club Football Series)

Haven't made many decent games since 2002

F1 Series , Dirt Series , Grid Series = Perfect.
"?????Codemaster."

My once favorite developer scuttles Operation Flashpoint while alienating and expelling Bohemia Interactive;  abandons the TOCA series;  abandons the Colin McRae name -- then turns the DIRT series into and arcade racer after three games;  sends Stuart Black packing half way through the development of Bodycount and ultimately abandons shooters & action games - the most popular genre of the present day - once and for all in 2011.

21 comments on a front page weekend story about layoffs that'll directly affect it's number one money making series based on the world's most popular form of auto racing.

Anyone see a trend here?

May these folks find prompt employment far, far away from the likes of this company.  Not that it'll be around much longer.

with $4.99 DLC per city track, I can't feel sorry for this company or its people.

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start

hope they find jobs right away

Too bad I love the F1 series, no other series does the authenticity like codemasters.

I hope the folks at Codemasters find new work in the industry. seems many publishers/developers are going under. hopefully they will find work.

I'm not surprised. The F1 series has been an abysmal mess since it was first released. Follow that up with very poor support after release and you have a lot of unhappy fans. All 3 games are buggy and unfinished with some of the main selling points left completely non-functional. Then for the 2012 release they removed all sorts of fan favorites from the game and put in more pointless additions that added nothing to the series. I bought all 3 games ever hopeful that one of them would get it right, but none of them have unfortunately. It's really a shame but you can't keep releasing half baked products and expect your business to grow.

Its a shame, but as long as they release DiRT4 i'll be very happy.

Gotta love 'Outbreak' : )

Sad to see so many companies getting layoffs

I've always thought these guys were great, although I've only played their racing games. I root for them because I really think Forza is an inferior racing experience. But there is always something about Codemaster racing games that makes me want to stop playing: the non-race stuff.

Can I offer some feedback, Codemasters? Your strength is the quality of the racing experience. Forget all that silly story stuff, all those overdone between-race scenes and chatty, overfriendly teammates, etc. Stop trying to turn a racing game into an RPG, and don't listen to the industry nonsense about story. Just keep pumping the racing experience, and you will topple Forza as the rightful heirs. More cars, more tracks, more options. Win.

(Unlocking progressions is fine, but that's as close to development narrative as you need to be. Don't forget we're not all teenage boys. And for god's sake please ignore Forza's shameless copy of your work in Horizon. Two identical bad bets don't make a good one.)

Been a fan of Codemasters since their days of releasing spectrum games for 1.99 - anyone remember ATV simulator? Or any of the "simulator" series? Good times, sad to see them struggling. Always wanted a job there, but there was no internet in those days :)

I hope they can find a way to produce better motor racing games as it is sad to hear about more layoffs in the UK games industry.

Part of the problem is that Codemasters were naive enough to release a FPS to take on the behemoths of COD and Battlefield..and lost.

The official sales figures for Operation Flashpoint Red River was a measly 400,000 units (80% Europe - 20% rest of the world).

Wake up you guys - focus on good market research first and make games of superior quality rather than producing half-assed games for genres you know nothing about and the sales will follow.

It's sad because I love F1 but F1 2011 was terrible and 2012 still full of bugs.

And I don't forget that they didn't want to make a cockpit view in Grid 2. Bad, bad, bad !

I hope Project Cars will be ready for this year.

Is this the next THQ?