Codemasters to acquire Slightly Mad Studios
- Thread starter Silver Arrows
- 169 comments
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Corsa
Premium
- 2,104
- United States
Saw that this morning Renato is always such a positive guy got to love him.
From what I’m reading across other sites most of the community is seeing this as a good thing.
Here's a good quote from the other side that made me laugh...
"But where, oh where is the drama?? I would have enjoyed a more Ian Bell style announcement, large bottle of bubbly fizzing off the back of a motorboat, stroking a black cat on a lead, announcing 'the greatest ever collaboration in racing games' that sort of understated thing. Yet I just checked the usual social media feeds and he is very quiet, still early days yet."
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- 1,903
- valencia
- Donnced
Completely right!
Look what happened with ex evolution studios...
Sony closed evolution studios, Codemasters aquired Evolution Studios,they made "rush" , the sales of that game were bad and Codemasters disbanded evolution studios.
Seems that SMS didn't learn when they were part of EA games...
Or SMS has financial problems and a solution was to go with Codemasters..
- 341
- Russian Federation
You don 't feel like load and unload wheels in Codemasters games. There 's no such thing, only a bad attempt to mimic it with FFB.
In AC, Pc2, Rfactor2, Iracing - it works the right way as in life. And it gives you the opportunity to use the skills gained in the sim in real life, and vice versa, your experience from real life works in the game as it should be. But it doesn 't work in arcades from Codemasters.
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- 341
- Russian Federation
The FFB is trying to hide it. To feel pure physics, the best way is to turn off the FFB (For a time when you want to test pure physics). Then it becomes clear that the car does not have a weight transfer.
I easily switch between iR, Rf2, AC, ACC. Their physics and ffb are different, but in general they do everything right, and about the same.
When I run Dirt rally, or F1 - immediately feels false. I can 't drive like that. Tried to get over it, and get used to it. Got used...
After that, it becomes difficult to drive in simulators. Because Codemasters prevails the wrong skills - it makes you not feel the car.
I easily switch between iR, Rf2, AC, ACC. Their physics and ffb are different, but in general they do everything right, and about the same.
When I run Dirt rally, or F1 - immediately feels false. I can 't drive like that. Tried to get over it, and get used to it. Got used...
After that, it becomes difficult to drive in simulators. Because Codemasters prevails the wrong skills - it makes you not feel the car.
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- United Kingdom
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- evildave333
Glad its happened personally, hopefully will be the best of both worlds. If it secures SMS future this is ideal as the more driving game producers the better. I liked some elements of project cars 2 but it suffered because of the companies smaller resources, hopefully this merger will allow some crossover between the two companies (live track to codies / interface and controller optimisation to SMS)... Project Cars 3 could be better for this merger in quality terms, although half of it will no doubt be seasonal paid DLC...
- 77
- Kyiv
The good news for the F1,DiRT Rally series and the bad for the pCARS.
- 36,519
- Scotland
- GTP_daan
It is undoubtedly a simulator. The question should be whither it is a accurate simulator or not.
- 385
- Hawkes Bay
- davidb_165
I tend to agree.
- 939
- Zürich
It's the only one we've got for F1, so, yeah, it's a sim - if you can accommodate a good level of suspension of disbelief.
That said it doesn't do too badly, and it gives a very good sense of F1 racing over the full 300KM or so.
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- United States
I personally don't like these two getting together but I do wonder what they will produce. Codemasters hasn't wowed me in a long time.
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- Iowa
- pfei
I was thinking the same thing. But according to CodeRemasters this is not a merger or alliance. They have "acquired" SMS. Has SMS revealed any of the details?
I am sure we will find out the nitty gritty in the next CM financial report to their shareholders.
LeGeNd-1
Premium
- 7,249
- Australia
- GTP_LeGeNd-1
What a bombshell. I'm not really sure what to make of this.
The way I see it, a good outcome would be if Codies gets to use SMS' physics engine and PCARS gets more quality assurance (while Codies recent offerings have not been the best for various reasons, they're generally pretty stable games).
The bad outcome would be if PCARS gets dumbed down to the level of GRID or worse the whole studio disappearing altogether ala Evo Studios after one bad game. Unfortunately given recent Codemasters history, I'm more inclined to think this is the path we're going sadly. Happy to be proven wrong though.
What this shows though is how hard the climate is for racing game developers. We can rant all we want at games not meeting our expectations, but fact of the matter is racing games don't pull in the money like they do. Sim racing is an even narrower slice of the puzzle and with so many sims released in PS3/4 generation it's only inevitable that some of them do not survive or have to be absorbed by bigger studios. I just count my lucky stars that PD goes from strength to strength and smaller devs like Kunos or Reiza are still around. EA...well they will be around whether you like them or not
Codies just needs to get their act together because honestly they have potential to be up there with PD. Don't just focus on F1 games. Get rid of scummy DLC and microtransactions and ship a complete GRID/DIRT game with full content on Day 1 with quality physics. I guarantee the bean counters you will reap the rewards a hundred times over what it is now.
The way I see it, a good outcome would be if Codies gets to use SMS' physics engine and PCARS gets more quality assurance (while Codies recent offerings have not been the best for various reasons, they're generally pretty stable games).
The bad outcome would be if PCARS gets dumbed down to the level of GRID or worse the whole studio disappearing altogether ala Evo Studios after one bad game. Unfortunately given recent Codemasters history, I'm more inclined to think this is the path we're going sadly. Happy to be proven wrong though.
What this shows though is how hard the climate is for racing game developers. We can rant all we want at games not meeting our expectations, but fact of the matter is racing games don't pull in the money like they do. Sim racing is an even narrower slice of the puzzle and with so many sims released in PS3/4 generation it's only inevitable that some of them do not survive or have to be absorbed by bigger studios. I just count my lucky stars that PD goes from strength to strength and smaller devs like Kunos or Reiza are still around. EA...well they will be around whether you like them or not
Codies just needs to get their act together because honestly they have potential to be up there with PD. Don't just focus on F1 games. Get rid of scummy DLC and microtransactions and ship a complete GRID/DIRT game with full content on Day 1 with quality physics. I guarantee the bean counters you will reap the rewards a hundred times over what it is now.
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- 341
- Russian Federation
Are you serious? Sim or arcade is now determined by whether we have the only thing, or not?
Mario cart is the only race about Mario, we don 't have any others. Apparently it 's a sim too?
Codemasters monopoly own the F1 license, and thus deprived sim community of the opportunity to have a high-quality simulation of the most popular racing series. It would be better for SMS to buy Codemasters, and make two simulators - F1 and Rally.
- 9,333
- Denmark
The somewhat forgiving nature of Codemasters own simulation titles is a cause for concern, but Project CARS, on the other hand, could also benefit in some ways. For example, Dirt Rally 2.0 has superb handheld controller integration while Project CARS 2 only manages to make it work to a passable degree. I mostly wonder how this will affect the content lineup in future Project CARS titles. The current game has superb variety, but what if Codemasters decides to shrink the licensing budget? It is also scary to think that this probably gives Codemasters the power to dissolve SMS and relocate team members in case this should be deemed necessary.
- 939
- Zürich
Are you serious? Sim or arcade is now determined by whether we have the only thing, or not?
Mario cart is the only race about Mario, we don 't have any others. Apparently it 's a sim too?
Codemasters monopoly own the F1 license, and thus deprived sim community of the opportunity to have a high-quality simulation of the most popular racing series. It would be better for SMS to buy Codemasters, and make two simulators - F1 and Rally.
Come on mate, it's more of a sim than GRID 2019 is. Not to mention if you take the 2017 F1 Ferrari from AC and then back to back it with one of the cars from F1 2019, then honestly I find there are more similarities in the handling than dissimilarities. It's not the most pure and accomplished sim there is admittedly, but it still rates as a sim in my mind.
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