Codemasters Guildford Studio to close!

[max power 21]

Either way you supported it with your purchase (probably at full price too). :D

How was he supposed to know it sucked until he tried it? I wonder what your point is...

The majority of people who object to Codemasters' OFP games on this forum do so because they are selling a name without any substance, and are taking a name that a lot of us really love and are shitting all over it. Someone buying something based on a brandname / franchise name and realizing it is dog poo is PRECISELY the reason for this. If you are suggesting that he is stupid because he bought an OFP game before he knew what kind of circus Codemasters was running, you can GTFO. ... which brings us back to the topic at hand. What kind of circus was codemasters running? The closed kind. The broke kind. The failed kind. The closing down FPSs and focussing on racing games kind. And what were the people at the helm saying about OFP DR's popularity and sales? Oh, of course it was the best game ever. That's why they changed it into an MW clone. It was THAT good.

Edited September 16, 2011 by Max Power

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I loved how everyone raved OPF: DR before it came out. Then on release date everyone was in a rage and even threatening lawsuits.

I just stick with my Arma 2. :D

Please remove me from "everyone." Last time I checked, I was cynical before, cynical during, and cynical afterwards.

[kernriver 4]

Yeah, I guess solidsnake meant everyone on CM forums etc., there sure wasn't much love for DR/RR on these boards. :D

[HomerPepsi 10]

How was he supposed to know it sucked until he tried it? I wonder what your point is...

The majority of people who object to Codemasters' OFP games on this forum do so because they are selling a name without any substance, and are taking a name that a lot of us really love and are shitting all over it. Someone buying something based on a brandname / franchise name and realizing it is dog poo is PRECISELY the reason for this. If you are suggesting that he is stupid because he bought an OFP game before he knew what kind of circus Codemasters was running, you can GTFO. ... which brings us back to the topic at hand. What kind of circus was codemasters running? The closed kind. The broke kind. The failed kind. The closing down FPSs and focussing on racing games kind. And what were the people at the helm saying about OFP DR's popularity and sales? Oh, of course it was the best game ever. That's why they changed it into an MW clone. It was THAT good.

Wow, will you ever be able to on past the OFP name? I bought DR because of the screens and gameplay videos I saw, not because it was called "OFP". I also bet the majority of people who bought it on console weren't buying it because they play OFP Elite back in the day. I don't think anyone expected it to be OFP. Get over the name! Quit living in the past. It's like your positioning the name Operation Flashpoint on the same level as Half-Life. Lets be honest, no one outside of these forums gave a crap about the name. MOVE ON.

Anyways, I loved DR (even more so with the mods that fixed it), didnt like the linear RR, never bought bodycount. And I am by no means saying that codemasters is good, because they are crap. PERIOD.

And, for the record, I've bought/finished/enjoyed OFP, Red Hammer, Resistance, ARMA, QG, ARMA 2, OA, and both DLC's, and will be buying ARMA III.

Edited September 16, 2011 by HomerPepsi

[jw custom 56]

Wow, will you ever be able to on past the OFP name? I bought DR because of the screens and gameplay videos I saw, not because it was called "OFP".

Really, i bought DR just because of that, the nice videos, pics, hype and features(which of course were not there :confused:).

Why the hell would i buy the game if i knew it would be a pile of crap :confused:

I have bought games before where i were disappointed, but with DR i felt ripped :eek:

[Tankbuster 1746]

I find it disturbing that you see the lost livelyhoods of 66 people as an acceptable side effect of Codemasters discontinuing the making of games that have but a miniscule impact on your life outside slagging them off in appropriate forum threads.

Well said.

[froggyluv 2136]

Oh the irony -be disturbed at CM's business practice and end result treatment of it's employees.

[HomerPepsi 10]

Oh the irony -be disturbed at CM's business practice and end result treatment of it's employees.

Yup, they're pretty much a perfect model of how not to make your company.

[JdB 151]

"The output from the studios on the Warwickshire campus and in Birmingham is on the increase with multiple continuing game series, brand extensions and new racing IPs in production."

When a company chooses words like that to describe it's future titles to customers that in the gaming industry are more like fans of a football club supporting their side even if things don't always their way rather than critical customers that actually want the best possible deal for their money, you can't really be surprised that they're doing so poorly. When buying a new TV, dishwasher or car, people will be looking for a deal, best quality at the best price and the specific brand that they'll be getting is a secondary concern for any but the most determined (or rich) people. In the gaming industry, if there's "Call of Duty" on the box, along with some artwork of US soldiers, most people will buy it at full price without any hesitation, the quality may range from ok to awesome, innovation non-existent to plentiful, none of which is really a concern for most people that buy games like CoD. The CM management is far removed from it's potential customerbase that they haven't got a clue what it takes to sell videogames, they're applying general economical principles, but in this case they don't apply like they do in most other parts of the capitalist world. You have to make a really, really poor product to piss off a substantial amount of today's gamers, they're far easier to please, thankfully shelling out money to buy substandard products at full price.

It's only a matter of time before a whole lot more CM employees can start looking for a new job.

Edited September 16, 2011 by JdB

[DaveP 66]

This is a real bloody shame, Guildford's reputation for games development companies has slowly eroded away over the years. Remember being driven past the Bullfrog offices when I was a kid with my parents and it seemed like such a great place to work

[Fox '09 14]

[icebreakr 3159]

JW Custom: well, I'm sorry to hear that you bought that game (even pre-order, since you didn't read the reviews?). Because you (and many others for sure) bought that game we had to endure through another gaming Coddies gem... OFP: Menstruation :)

[UKWFMental 10]

Shame about the devs losing their jobs. Hope Sion Lenton never gets another job in the gaming industry however.

[HomerPepsi 10]

Hope Sion Lenton never gets another job in the gaming industry however.

We can hope, but according to his twitter, he didn't lose his job. Which is a shame.

[icebreakr 3159]

According to his twitter he's doing nothing but twitting... and playing with his iphone :) nothing new then... @sionlenton :)

[nodunit 397]

So the people who had no say in how the game went lost their jobs but the people in charge who steered the direction of the game kept theirs. What a victory.

[sv5000 127]

its just a shame that the ofp name will be forever soiled due to the rubbish that CM produced...

[max power 21]

Wow, will you ever be able to on past the OFP name?

Sorry, Dr. Phil. I don't let 15 year olds on the internet tell me what I should and shouldn't care about.

[Warin 0]

eems like a lot of justifiable schadenfreude in this thread!

Even though I havent been active in the community for a good while, I made certain to correct my gamer friends who were excited about OFP products from Codemasters based on their positive opinions of the original BIS product. I refused to buy any of the CM OFP products because deep down I knew they wouldnt meet the standards that BIS set with the original.

It is sad that the people in the studio have lost their jobs. However, I suspect they will not be unemployed long if they are competent designers, artists, and coders.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

It took them way to long to release the game.

I gave up on them after the 1st "restart" of the project.

I actually had high hopes for their game.. (tho it was 6+ years ago).

[mrcash2009 0]

So the people who had no say in how the game went lost their jobs but the people in charge who steered the direction of the game kept theirs. What a victory.

In the business world this is a shock? I suspect that it was successful as a "project" and targets they set for the short term internally. They came, they created, they hyped, they sold units, it wasn't feasible to continue, they move on to other projects. Aside from our views of what we all thought about it. How else could Lenton continue the way he did without that kind of structured plan behind him & the project, its all business in the end crap or not (it was crap though ;) no man working on the love of the genre would kept up that mask until the end).

Just like any team leader or manager you have in wherever you work and then that part of company folds, they came together as a project only, I doubt they came together to change the gaming world or group hug sessions, the contracts would have laid that out clear enough.

BTW this isnt a defence about Lentons way of looking at it all, just the "no shock" side to a project manager or leader moving on even if we thought the project was crap or failed. Lenton just stood out like a business man first and the most to me.

I suspect they will not be unemployed long if they are competent designers, artists, and coders.

Exactly, many areas to go within that company I would imagine and if not other areas. Edited September 17, 2011 by mrcash2009

[Placebo 29]

The less said about CM management the better.

However it's sad for any dev to close these days and I feel especially sorry for those lower down the food chain who work on the core of the games without any real acknowledgement or credit, hope they find jobs at proper companies that appreciate them.

[icebreakr 3159]

So the people who had no say in how the game went lost their jobs but the people in charge who steered the direction of the game kept theirs. What a victory.

Believe me... that is a common occurence in this FUBAR world: hard working staff is let go first ... same as rich people staying in prisons ;) in Croatia for example a wealthy man cut ahalf an Italian couple on a sailboat when he crashed into it with a powerboat. He then changed couple of stories, got amnesia etc.. One month later (yesterday) he walked off the court ;)

As I read on Sion Lenton's twitter he's still having fun, poking his iphone and doing random stuff that makes him "creatively" happy. While getting a big paycheck ;)

Edited September 17, 2011 by IceBreakr

[Hans Ludwig 0]

I'll just leave this here.

" Sion Lenton is the Creative Director at Codemasters Southam Studio, his previous experience at Codemasters was Executive Producer on Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising for XB360, PS3 and PC.

Before this he worked as Project Director at Blitz Games Studios, one of Europe's largest independent developers with almost 230 staff. His last project there was working on the highly successful Burger King games for Microsoft "

[Undeceived 392]

As I read on Sion Lenton's twitter he's still having fun, poking his iphone and doing random stuff that makes him "creatively" happy. While getting a big paycheck ;)

Ask him how his head is.