Codemasters bought by Take-Two Interactive. Cancel that. EA

Guest2 said:
Bring back all the good companies before they merged / were bought out

Psygnosis
Ocean
Team 17
Probe
Rainbow Arts

Any of these logos and some basic music meant a great game was in store

Edit. I guess the fate of all companies is either survive by buying others out or merge. Didnt DMA Design eventually form into what is now known as Rockstar?
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Where's Bullfrog and Westwood on that list? They're the 2 I would love to have back most.
 
Guest2 said:
Of course, Theme hospital, Dungeon Keeper and Redalert and some of my favourite games.

The ones I listed were specifically from late 80s, early 90s (Amiga developers mostly I think)
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don't forget syndicate, think that was bullfrog and at the time that game was awesome, almost cost me graduating back in the day as I spent way too much time playing syndicateand sim city 2000 think that was Maxis ? They got hoovered up by EA also I think in the late 90's, every simcity type game since then has been gash.
 
wildman said:
don't forget syndicate, think that was bullfrog and at the time that game was awesome, almost cost me graduating back in the day as I spent way too much time playing syndicateand sim city 2000 think that was Maxis ? They got hoovered up by EA also I think in the late 90's, every simcity type game since then has been gash.
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Just had a look, I forgot Bullfrog went back into the late 80s with Magic carpet, populus and theme park. If only great developers like Bullfrog had backing from publishers other than the likes of EA.

It would have been better if some rich individuals had pumped money into these developers instead of publishers or at least some smaller publishers had appered on the scene. Guess its all about money, if the companies like Bullfrog and many others didnt want to big boys as publishers they wouldnt have been rushed and eventually aquired but without they probably wouldnt have sold as many copies or became rich (or at least well paid) catch 22

This is interesting

During the development of Theme Park, artist Gary Carr left Bullfrog after a disagreement with Molyneux on the game; Molyneux wanted gaily coloured graphics that would appeal to a Japanese market, but Carr disapproved believing it would not work.[11][18] He joined The Bitmap Brothers,[19] but returned in 1995 to work on Dungeon Keeper, although he ended up working on Theme Hospital instead as the lead artist.[19]
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and later this. Sad

The final title released under the Bullfrog brand, Theme Park Inc, was published in 2001.[11] By the time the game was in development, most of the Bullfrog teams had become part of EA UK, and much of the development was handled by another company.[11] What remained of Bullfrog Productions was then incorporated and merged into EA UK, effectively closing the studio
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Guest2 said:
Just had a look, I forgot Bullfrog went back into the late 80s with Magic carpet, populus and theme park. If only great developers like Bullfrog had backing from publishers other than the likes of EA.

It would have been better if some rich individuals had pumped money into these developers instead of publishers or at least some smaller publishers had appered on the scene. Guess its all about money, if the companies like Bullfrog and many others didnt want to big boys as publishers they wouldnt have been rushed and eventually aquired but without they probably wouldnt have sold as many copies or became rich (or at least well paid) catch 22

This is interesting



and later this. Sad
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I remember playing populous: the beginning when I was a young kid for hours and hours on my dads pc! What a game!
 
Megahurtz400 said:
I remember playing populous: the beginning when I was a young kid for hours and hours on my dads pc! What a game!
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Same, but on my PC it ran like a dog. Pentium 133Mhz, 16MB RAM, 2MB on board graphics. PC from 1996
I would have been 14 when Populus came out. I think around that time I was washing cars and saving money for a new PC, Voodoo 3dfx card ...and cidre

It's on GOG minimum requirements are 1800Mhz, 512MB RAM :D
https://www.gog.com/game/populous_the_beginning?pp=43095da636f8f89ffb3c77322c35f66b828ad2bb
 
Guest2 said:
Same, but on my PC it ran like a dog. Pentium 133Mhz, 16MB RAM, 2MB on board graphics. PC from 1996
I would have been 14 when Populus came out. I think around that time I was washing cars and saving money for a new PC, Voodoo 3dfx card ...and cidre

It's on GOG minimum requirements are 1800Mhz, 512MB RAM :D
https://www.gog.com/game/populous_the_beginning?pp=43095da636f8f89ffb3c77322c35f66b828ad2bb
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Is it just me that can still hear the shouts your shaman used to do when you cast spells?

And the sound of your gatherers sprinting around when an enemy shaman filled your village with bees? :D

Doing a bit of googling it appears there's still a community online for it!

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/meet-the-superfans-still-playing-populous-the-beginning
 
kevman said:
Maybe I am naive but I was hoping that the EA takeover may finally bankroll a VR version of F1 franchise given the recent release of star wars squadrons?
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The serious answer is that Codemasters pumped themselves up with new license, renewals, and a studio acquisition making it practically a given (hope) that a sports franchise player would come in for them. They were getting by on the F1 sales im sure, but with everything else they'd done being mediocre and poorly received, and with Dirt Rally having nowhere to go with the official WRC game powering on beyond it, it was looking like a busted flush.

My heart tells me though the the racing genre in general has been falling flat to the commercial market for quite some time, and the spark that reignites is VR and EA are aware of that. Once the unwashed masses get their hands on cheaper affordable hmd's as the VR market soldiers on, racers will be back on the top tier again for both fun and the serious business, EA know they will make big bank.
 
OM3GA said:
Agreed, emulators never feel the same even with modern games that are emulated from console to pc.
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I bought what appears to be a great late 90s vintage machine :)
Pics to come later this week when it arrives and will post in the 'Retro Gaming and Vintage Computing' sub
 
lokiss said:
The serious answer is that Codemasters pumped themselves up with new license, renewals, and a studio acquisition making it practically a given (hope) that a sports franchise player would come in for them. They were getting by on the F1 sales im sure, but with everything else they'd done being mediocre and poorly received, and with Dirt Rally having nowhere to go with the official WRC game powering on beyond it, it was looking like a busted flush.

My heart tells me though the the racing genre in general has been falling flat to the commercial market for quite some time, and the spark that reignites is VR and EA are aware of that. Once the unwashed masses get their hands on cheaper affordable hmd's as the VR market soldiers on, racers will be back on the top tier again for both fun and the serious business, EA know they will make big bank.
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I agree with this, but motion sickness in racing games is no joke to the uninitiated. You need to build up to it, and the mainstream market aren't really ready for that yet imo.
 
I don't know why the F1 series is rated so highly by some people, it's similar to the Fifa release schedule both with minor changes each year.
 
Devrij said:
You need to build up to it, and the mainstream market aren't really ready for that yet imo.
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We're all built differently i know, but of all the less likely reasons it's referential cockpits in simulator games that's the path of least resistance to overcoming that. The recent conformation of the PSVR2 pretty much nails on a F1 release from EA if the PS5 is up to the task. EA have already thrown Squadrons out the door with no considerations to problems people might have with motion sickness.

That's mainstream enough for me, EA bringing the F1 licence to VR if the PSVR2 can handle it.
 
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Sad times, kind of.

I only really liked Codemasters for their 8bit stuff and TOCA.

Saying that, they just published the 8bit stuff, did not develop much of it.

On the upside, maybe this frees up the TOCA licence?
 
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