EA Completes Codemasters Takeover Worth $1.2 Billion
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
- 143 comments
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Yes, because they're definitely going to spend 1.2 billion and just end up with a few developers out of it.
I know hating on EA is the cool thing to do and don't get me wrong, some of their past actions and decisions stink, but it's not like everything they touch turns to poop as is being made out. There are plenty of successful, long-standing EA developers and franchises. Plus it's all too easy to push blame for some things on the publisher when in reality there are pure developer faults as well.
Right, because that would be in the best interests of the FIA, EA and Codemasters. Destroy the reputation built up and see money down the drain purely because EA must = arcade in whatever they do, Codemasters will be forced to forget how they made Dirt Rally and countless other rally games and just churn out WRC: Sega Rally. That would definitely what they'll be aiming for....
I mean I thought I was cynical and pessimistic, some of you are taking it to new levels.
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- 3,458
- Gdynia
- MroczMR
To be honest? Latest Star Wars Squadrons without any micro transaction, and very niche and deep game makes me not worrying at all about this take over. EA may be the evil company but they also have a lot of decent and fun IP's which are played by many even those who criticize them. I think codemasters won't be lost or anything. It will still be there and i doubt it will change much.
MagpieRacer
Premium
- 17,243
- Wymondham, Norfolk
- Seagull_Racer
Yes, because they're definitely going to spend 1.2 billion and just end up with a few developers out of it.
I know hating on EA is the cool thing to do and don't get me wrong, some of their past actions and decisions stink, but it's not like everything they touch turns to poop as is being made out. There are plenty of successful, long-standing EA developers and franchises. Plus it's all too easy to push blame for some things on the publisher when in reality there are pure developer faults as well.
Right, because that would be in the best interests of the FIA, EA and Codemasters. Destroy the reputation built up and see money down the drain purely because EA must = arcade in whatever they do, Codemasters will be forced to forget how they made Dirt Rally and countless other rally games and just churn out WRC: Sega Rally. That would definitely what they'll be aiming for....
I mean I thought I was cynical and pessimistic, some of you are taking it to new levels.
All of this.
Yes, there will undoubtedly be some subtle and not so subtle changes. But considering how huge and how successful Dirt is, how acclaimed the most recent F1 games are (2020 incidentally receiving the highest metacritic rating for an F1 game since, yep, an EA F1 game). People doing the typical whining about microtransactions and DLC strategies forget that DR2.0 sold back old content (I didn't mind this as it had been seriously upgraded but I'm in a minority), F1 2020 has a heavy microstransaction presence etc sobits hardly a new concept to Codemasters. If EA wanted to do F1 ultimate team (which I doubt they will) then it will likely be a separate mode within the game, just like in FIFA, which doesn't hurt the core of the game. Ultimately I don't think the Codemasters core IPs will be massively affected by EA. They bring in players and big chunks of cash perfectly fine as is, particularly Dirt and F1. And I'm sure WRC will as well.
What will change then? I hear you ask. Well clearly EA want to revitalise their own racing game division and boost their own offering. Think using CM engines and tech, certain studios for projects when they can (I mean the Dirt 5 studio making a Need for Speed game would basically be Driveclub reincarnate). Perhaps reboot the Shift franchise in place of Grid or something (as Grid 2019 was poorly received, this would be an easy move). And perhaps that would allow Project Cars 4 to take the correct direction back toward sim racing.
All of this is theoretical of course, but it's not the apocalyptic end that many seem to think it is. In fact, I can only see this as predominantly positive, giving EA extra resources to distribute to studios who want to create racing games (Criterion for example) as well as giving financial and publishing clout to further push Codemasters forward. And in truth we won't know the true impact of EA and the acquisition for a good few years yet, 3-5 maybe? When we think about what will already in development, the next 2 F1 games, the next Dirt Rally, the foundations of WRC along with that, the next Project Cars. Likewise within licensing and agreements already being in place with F1 and WRC, which may have stipulations inside contracts and agreements that effectively protect them or whatever and any affect EA want to have there may not be feasible until new agreements can be written up and EA can then have influence, should they want it (monetisation, free to play components, spin off titles, set release windows, etc).
- 1,455
- Oak Bay, NB, Canada
- Bic44
I don't like EA. Not even a tiny bit. But I DO like some of their games. I'm just basically echoing the past few comments, but this just might be a good thing. EA has their arcade racer already, I can't see them trying to turn all their racing games into arcadey-ness. They might be a hated company, but they're not stupid
- 40,692
Actually, in this context they would "end up with a few developers," Codemasters' existing licence agreements and all of their intellectual property (which includes internal multiplatformn game engines and franchises).Yes, because they're definitely going to spend 1.2 billion and just end up with a few developers out of it.
Ideally EA probably would prefer not being "forced" to decimate another development studio under the nebulous designation of "support studio" at the first sign of a game they lead not performing to expectations, but no one should pretend that the value that EA gets out of this deal isn't overwhelmingly Codemasters' IP and existing deals; even if EA isn't as bad about it as Activision's infamous Call of Duty mines are.
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Its ea though they will never go for the sim route. Its not their audience and doesnt generate the sales they are after.
Yes star wars fallen order was hard and old school and for me it was the best game of the last generation but i cant see them doing that with a racing game.
They never did in the past. Who knows maybe they have changed but ill sit back and wait to be convinced before i believe the marketing guff.
Yes star wars fallen order was hard and old school and for me it was the best game of the last generation but i cant see them doing that with a racing game.
They never did in the past. Who knows maybe they have changed but ill sit back and wait to be convinced before i believe the marketing guff.
- 255
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
The whole point of EA buying Codemasters was to inherit their racing portfolio/talents and add their publishing power to bring the racing genre back to the forefront. It's no secret that right now racing games, casual, hardcore or otherwise, are not wildly popular. GT7 is literally the only track racing game currently announced for PS5, there is nothing else, just the ported rally games.
Also as covered many times, sim =/= hard. I'll grant you that Dirt Rally games are not easy and accessible games but that's what the regular Dirt series is there for. EA want to cover all of the markets, whereas right now they cover only the crowd that NFS games cater to.
Again I'm not saying EA are perfect, far from it, but they didn't get where they are making billion dollar mistakes. If they can bring more great racing titles to market and put them back towards the top of the market, I'm all for it. I just do not see them going the way many are suggesting, you don't buy up all of that just to bolster your current games and bin/kill the rest. Then they just end up back at square one.
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- 345
- United Kingdom
- MK-Kraken
What I find rather funny, is SMS went so far out their way to "distance them selves from EA" after SHIFT 2 to go onto create PCARS 1, and now look at this...completely full circle back to where they came from under EA once again. Bet they didn't see that coming, I wonder if they will "depart ways" again from CM/EA? What we gonna call them now, Codea? Electrocode? Whatever it is, crazy times.
LeGeNd-1
Premium
- 7,264
- Australia
- GTP_LeGeNd-1
I think the problem is, the last few racing games from Codies and EA haven't exactly been great. And marrying those 2 companies, doesn't give much hope that things are going to improve, but a lot of history that shows things could get worse (both from a microtransaction/season pass/DLC perspective and game quality).
- GRID 2019 tanked.
- DIRT 5 tanked (on Steam even DR1 still has more players).
- Onrush tanked and Evo Studio execs got booted out.
- PCARS 3 tanked (admittedly, this is SMS' fault for changing game direction and trying to convince the community otherwise).
- F1 is the only series that's doing ok, and even so it has limited appeal only to F1 fans. And being a yearly sports game, it has limited scope for innovation in terms of content/breadth.
- NFS has been steadily getting worse since Criterion handed it over to Ghost. Heat is a step in the right direction but still feels half assed in so many areas and they killed off support after just 1 overpriced DLC. Now they're saying Ghost is merging back to Criterion, but so far we've only seen a Hot Pursuit remaster.
- WRC license will be Codies soon, and that's another yearly release added to their ever burgeoning roster. Game development isn't getting any easier with each generation, so when quantity goes up, quality inevitably goes down.
So you see, I think people aren't being pessimistic or doom mongering, but just looking at history and being realistic, there isn't a lot to be overly excited about. This isn't PD and Turn 10 joining forces, or Kunos and Reiza doing a collab. At best things will stay as they are (which is to say, mediocre), at worst we will probably lose 3-4 decent racing franchises by the end of the next console generation.
- GRID 2019 tanked.
- DIRT 5 tanked (on Steam even DR1 still has more players).
- Onrush tanked and Evo Studio execs got booted out.
- PCARS 3 tanked (admittedly, this is SMS' fault for changing game direction and trying to convince the community otherwise).
- F1 is the only series that's doing ok, and even so it has limited appeal only to F1 fans. And being a yearly sports game, it has limited scope for innovation in terms of content/breadth.
- NFS has been steadily getting worse since Criterion handed it over to Ghost. Heat is a step in the right direction but still feels half assed in so many areas and they killed off support after just 1 overpriced DLC. Now they're saying Ghost is merging back to Criterion, but so far we've only seen a Hot Pursuit remaster.
- WRC license will be Codies soon, and that's another yearly release added to their ever burgeoning roster. Game development isn't getting any easier with each generation, so when quantity goes up, quality inevitably goes down.
So you see, I think people aren't being pessimistic or doom mongering, but just looking at history and being realistic, there isn't a lot to be overly excited about. This isn't PD and Turn 10 joining forces, or Kunos and Reiza doing a collab. At best things will stay as they are (which is to say, mediocre), at worst we will probably lose 3-4 decent racing franchises by the end of the next console generation.
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- 3,458
- Gdynia
- MroczMR
Codemasters was never "Extreamly realistic sim" developer. They have been something between sim racing and arcade racing from Colin Macrae Rally 1 and TOCA 1 as far as I remember. So yes. Ea won't be making super realistic sims but nothing actually will change. Even Project Cars 2 is considered sim but it isn't seen as such by many players. Lets hope EA will decide to make one or two franchises to be very realistic.
Yeah I know Dirt Rally is really realistic but nos as much realistic as Richard Burns Rally or something.
Yeah I know Dirt Rally is really realistic but nos as much realistic as Richard Burns Rally or something.
- 13,839
- Adelaide
- Neomone
You'd think so, but I'd say that the F1 series is one of the best as far as steadily expanding what a single player career based racing experience can be. If you compare the career structure of something like FM7 or GTS to F1 2020 it's pretty astonishing, and it's miles away from where they started in F1 2010. Yeah, they've released 11 games in that time when other studios might have released at best a handful, but that doesn't mean that they haven't made significant progress.
If Gran Turismo or Forza could implement even a watered down version of the F1 2020 career mode they'd make a lot of people very happy.
- 24,612
- Anoka, MN
The only real successes Codies (and by extension of taking them over, SMS) have had last generation have been more sim-leaning, every arcade release from both companies have been rather unsuccessful. Buying Codemasters to make arcade titles and only arcade titles just doesn't make sense because that hasn't been where their success has come from.
I'm not saying that it won't happen because obviously I have no clue what the powers that be at EA have planned, but my initial impression at least is they want a piece of the (relatively) small, yet super loyal simulation fanbase. Plus their business model doesn't really seem that different to that of Codies, it's just that they get more press due to their titles being higher profile.
MagpieRacer
Premium
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- Wymondham, Norfolk
- Seagull_Racer
A good watch, not directly related to the Codemasters acquisition, but a great insight into how EA want to progress. Sounds promising to me if they hold themselves true.
LeGeNd-1
Premium
- 7,264
- Australia
- GTP_LeGeNd-1
Yes I'm aware the F1 career mode structure is fantastic, and it's one of the things Codies has gotten progressively better at. What I meant to say was, an F1 game will have limited scope to expand into other areas (like cars/tracks not related to the series). Even with the historic F1 content, they won't be able to get everything in the past because of licensing issues etc. So the game will always only appeal to a limited fanbase.
- 13,839
- Adelaide
- Neomone
I guess so, if you assume that only F1 fans will buy an F1 game. But you could also think of it that even people that aren't F1 fans will buy an F1 game if it's good enough. Just like historically people who aren't particularly racing fans buy Gran Turismo because it's a good game. Yes, there are limits on the content that it can contain but we've seen that with all racing games at various times in the past (Porsche, Toyota, etc.). It sucks but it's not a game breaker if the rest of the game is fun.
If sweaty sim nerds and hardcore car collectors were the only people buying Gran Turismo it would have died out long ago. Mostly people just want to have fun playing a game, and an F1 game is as capable of delivering that as anything else. It's one of the things that Gran Turismo has been pretty poor at recognising: that a game can be good more or less independently of how much content it has, and that more content doesn't automatically make a game good. See Gran Turismo 6, the biggest and arguably worst Gran Turismo game.
- 355
- Virgin Islands US
The thing is, a lot of Codies’ franchises are either obsolete or redundant at this point. GRID failed because it was trying to be the ‘s00pr srs’ circuit racer but with arcade physics. Dirt 5 failed because it’s just Onrush 2. Onrush failed because it launched within 2 months of a nearly-identical game that had slightly more content (and also failed because literal arcade cabinet-style games just no longer cut it in the home console market outside of very specific niches), and PCars 3 failed for the same reason GRID did.
they’d have to completely revamp their entire approach to try and make sense of this crap, especially now that they’ve got the WRC license. What I’d do is axe the PC franchise because it’s pointless, and redirect the GRID ship back to what it was in the TOCA Race Driver days: a heap of different touring car/outdated formula car championships all rolled into a single game, where you can race through a career in the various championships on their associated circuits. BTCC, WTCC, V8Supercars, Super GT, and whatever else they can license like old DTM/Group C/GT1/F1 chassis. Graphics don’t need to be amazing, and the physics only need to be Codies F1 level. Have good modding support so people can add their own cars and make their own championships like what games like Rfactor cut their teeth doing. Then the F1 games proper can focus on simulating an F1 career and being as Esports Ready™ as best as possible without having to try and appeal to a wider general audience.
Next, roll Dirt Rally and Dirt back into their own single ‘DIRT’ title. Use the same GRID model listed above, but with a focus on off road racing. Rallycross, raid/Baja, hillclimb, outdated WRC cars. Focus on club level rallying in old Polski Fiats and Group 4 Escorts. Again, more focus on mod support and player communities like what RBR was/is. This leaves their new WRC games the room to home in on the best digital representation of current-season WRC they can possibly muster, with again a stronger emphasis on Esports.
GRID/DIRT titles can be on a 5-6 year schedule with occasional DLC to foster passionate community growth, leaving them plenty of time to focus on their main moneymakers in the yearly licensed title releases. A logical cost-effective and consumer friendly business and development model where everybody wins and everything makes sense. Release 1or 2 GRID/DIRT titles every console generation, and then have a skeleton crew running those games in the background as they make the yearly F1/WRC games that are their bread and butter.
- 13,839
- Adelaide
- Neomone
I dunno about obsolete or redundant. I feel like some of the Codies games have just gotten away from what actually made them fun in the first place.
I figure that Dirt Rally just becomes the WRC games, that seems sensible.
Dirt is fine if they get away from the dudebro culture. I think this and Dirt Rally/WRC can make a fine pair to cover the range of hardcore simulation-ists and people who just want to slide cars on dirt with a gamepad.
PCars is fine and has a niche if it goes back to the accessible sim idea of PCars 1 and 2. PCars 3 is another GRID and that's not required.
GRID is fine if they remember what was good about the first one and GRID Autosport. Solid, fun games with not too serious a handling model. Again, PCars and GRID could make a fine pair to cover simulation and casual racers.
All these games have done these things in the past, they're just not doing them now. It's not so much that a revamp is required, as much as just remembering why these games became popular and successful in the first place. I'm not suggesting that they should do like Gran Turismo and blindly make the same game for 20 years, but they shouldn't lose the core of what made the games fun. The latest versions of Dirt, GRID and PCars all suffer from straying too far from the original premise.
- 13,261
- GTPlanet
- Street-King-07
- Quattro Saltire
Codies CEO and CFO have left
- 552
- Italy
- 35,105
- Addison,Texas
- GTP_RACECAR
I see we're just gonna continue to Ignore EA losing recent multiple court cases over their past practices, them admitting they were wrong about live services, both Jedi Fallen Order AND Star Wars Squadrons as well as The Mass Effect Legendary Edition (which is done by one of those "Dead" Studios that are also working on Mass Effect 4)
Seriously tired of this doom and gloom crap, feels like everyone ignores ANY positive development just to continue pushing the Negative narrative.
Seriously tired of this doom and gloom crap, feels like everyone ignores ANY positive development just to continue pushing the Negative narrative.
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MagpieRacer
Premium
- 17,243
- Wymondham, Norfolk
- Seagull_Racer
- 7,937
- Wreckage, Turn 1
- PrecisionXCIV
Agreed - I'd even argue this could provide some benefits to Codemasters.
Lately, I get the impression Codemasters have been so focused on the F1 games that other franchises weren't given the exposure (OnRush) or development time (GRID 2019 and Dirt 4/5) they deserve. If they have new people in charge, hopefully resources will be more evenly split across the various Codemasters studios and we can see more worthwhile releases across the board.
- 35,105
- Addison,Texas
- GTP_RACECAR
That's actually what I've been thinking lately too. With the F1 games, there's a clear impression that time and focus and direction has been given to it whereas you look at those games you mentioned and the design decisions like the single player that just appear repetitive and seemingly feel like they have no real structure towards progress.
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