Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Darling Brothers, UK Indie Game Devs, Upgraded to CBE

Posted by timothy on Sun Jun 15, 2008 04:02 AM
from the which-brother-submitted-this dept.
Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games
scriptedfun writes "The BBC reports that David and Richard Darling, the brother tandem who founded Codemasters back in the mid-'80s from their bedroom, were recently made Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for their 'services to the computer games industry.' Their story is definitely inspiring for modern-day independent game developers." Naming such honorees annually is one of the perks of being Queen.
+ -
story

Related Stories

Submission: Pioneer Indie Game Devs Honored by scriptedfun (986408)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Darling Brothers, UK Indie Game Devs, Upgraded to CBE 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • The Queen and Video Games (Score:5, Informative)

    by DCFC (933633) on Sunday June 15 2008, @04:57AM (#23798861)
    Firstly of course the award is not decided by the Queen. She is a constitutional monarch, and all such decisions are in theory made by minsters. Even they don't make most of the minor ones, delegating it to committees. This level of award confers such rights as your daughter being able to marry in St. Pauls Cathedral (the one Princess Di got married in), but little else. I'd also take exception to the notion that game development in the UK or elsewhere is a desirable career. It is so badly paid that it cannot be offshored to India because Indians won't work for that little. EA games and several other firms have been prosecuted for violations of minimum wage laws. Game developers are treated with a contempt that I have not seen in any industry (I've been a chemist, worked in banking, education, IT, journalism, night clubs and most recently headhunting), and none treat their staff so badly. Even the one nude model I know gets more respect from her employers.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by thermian (1267986)
      Indeed, I originally intended to work in the gaming industry when I graduated from uni, but was warned off from it by a lecturer who'd spent some time in the real world before taking up his lectureship. His reasoning was that I'd end up in cubicle land writing small bits of games over which I had no say, and from what I have since learned, he was spot on.

      It seems the industry is getting worse in recent years, but its not uniform. There are some companies where the staff seem to be well paid and have fun, bu
      • It all depends on the structure of the company, and on the personality of its top dogs. I've been in the software industry for 17 years, and the work environment varied in every company. Watching out for signs in job interviews is essential. But when you need a job very urgently, you don't usually pay attention to that.
    • When I was in my teen age, I was occasionally contacted by games companies to write games for them. But I declined every time, because I didn't want to get paid a lollipop and an ice cream for many hours of work. Stupid me! My games could've entered the annals of history! ;-)

      Some of the guys I've known back then (and also some years later) have made a living on games programming; but they founded their own games companies.
    • "Commanders of the Order of the British Empire"?

      Is that anything like a Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain?

      Do you get any special powers when you become a Commander of the Order of the British Empire? Like, for example, can you force all the non-CBEs to avert their eyes?

      I mean, if no special powers come with being a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, then what good is it? Do you get like a t-shirt with that? A t-shirt would be pretty cool, especially if you could make the commoners avert their ey

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by DCFC (933633)
        There are moves to make British honours more modern and politcally correct. The British Empire is of course Belize, the Falkland Island, Rockall, bits of Antarctica, and Gibraltar.

        Sadly that does mean instead of Commander of the British Empire, one would be
        Facilitator of the move towards general consensus on climate change.
        or
        Chairperson of goodwill towards all nations.

  • Codemasters (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pentagram (40862) on Sunday June 15 2008, @05:02AM (#23798887) Homepage
    I was always a fan of Codemasters back in their Spectrum days (come on, it's time for a new generation of Dizzy games) so when someone from the company came to my university to give a talk on working for Codemasters I went along to see if I could be persuaded. Rather than selling the idea to me though, it really put me off. The gist of the talk was that Codemasters weren't interested in producing good games, only games that sold well. The guy actually said that the company wasn't interested in people who wanted to work on producing good games. I understood the point in principle, but the emphasis on commercialism ensured that I never even considered applying to them.
    • Was that the GDTW in Liverpool a couple of years ago?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Steinfiend (700505)
      I don't know from direct experience with the Codemasters company if this is true, but from playing a lot of their games back in the 80's, that would be pretty obvious. The did have some GREAT games that sucked many of my hours away, but for each gem there were maybe 10 disasters. Yet to look at the back of the tape you'd think they were all the best game ever. How many times can they write, "This Game is Amazing! - Richard Darling" before my weak, 10 year old brain realized Richard Darling directly profi

  • Awards for video games? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rik Sweeney (471717) on Sunday June 15 2008, @05:05AM (#23798901) Homepage
    I can see it now, in about 5 years a bunch of natural light evading geeks lined in front of the Queen:

    (To the first one)
    "Please accept this MBE for fragging 50 players in under a minute without taking damage"
    "Thank you, Ma'am"

    (To the second one)
    "Please accept this MBE for pulling off a 53 hit combo in Street Fighter IV"
    "Thank you, Ma'am"

    (To the third one)
    "Please accept this MBE for obtaining 100% completion in GTA V"
    "Thank you, Ma'am"

    etc.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by pjt33 (739471)
        The etiquette is to address her initially as "Your Majesty" and subsequently as "Ma'am".

  • elite (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jacquesm (154384) <j@NosPAm.ww.com> on Sunday June 15 2008, @05:12AM (#23798935) Homepage
    I move to nominate David Braben and Ian Bell
    • That would be interesting just to see the two in the same room together. I don't think they've spoken for over 20 years...
    • Seconded. Mind you, they cost me about five months of my childhood, and I STILL didn't get past Deadly on the ZX Spectrum.

  • Not the Queen... (Score:5, Informative)

    by while(true) (626738) on Sunday June 15 2008, @05:15AM (#23798947)
    It's actually the Honours Committees [honours.gov.uk] that puts together the list of people to be honored and they are guided by guidelines set up by the Prime Minister.
  • So their games have been upgraded to run on the PS3?

    • Re:D: (Score:5, Informative)

      by mccalli (323026) on Sunday June 15 2008, @04:16AM (#23798719) Homepage
      How old are you and which country? Not meant as a patronising question, it's a genuine one. If you're around my generation (I'm 36) and from the UK, chances are you will have heard of them. Spindizzy and Micro Machines being the top ones - they're stars of the 8-bit and 16-bit era really. I know they've done a lot since, but that's still what I know them for.

      Cheers,
      Ian

      • OMG someone is wrong on teh internets! (Score:5, Informative)

        by BuckoA51 (1119431) on Sunday June 15 2008, @05:39AM (#23799011)
        Spindizzy is not a Codemasters game, you are thinking of Dizzy. Spindizzy was a Marble Madness clone from Electric Dreams Software.

        • Mastertronic got there first, Darling! (Score:4, Informative)

          by Dogtanian (588974) on Sunday June 15 2008, @08:58AM (#23799917) Homepage

          Mostly though they were the pioneers of the [UK £] 1.99 game if i recall correctly. Not that that means they were no good
          Not quite... Mastertronic were the ones who really pioneered the budget games market in the UK (i.e. tape-based games sold at the £1.99 and later £2.99 pricepoints, typically without significant advertising) (*).

          According to WP (uncited), Codemasters were formed in 1985, and Mastertronic in 1983; but I certainly know that Mastertronic were releasing games in 1984. (In fact, having scanned the WP article for this comment, I find that apparently (uncited, again) the Darling brothers supplied many of the early Mastertronic games before going on to form Codemasters).

          (*) Interestingly, I've seen no evidence that an equivalent segment existed in the US. Although the 8-bit market there was (AFAIK) mainly disc-based by that time, and Mastertronic did release some of their stuff over there on disc, you never hear Americans discussing it, which implies that it didn't really have the same success or cultural importance it did here- I mean, anyone who grew up in the UK during the 1980s had some Mastertronic/Codemasters/Firebird/etc games. Anyway, this might be because this was around the same time that the NES started doing really well in the US (**)- cartridge-based consoles being pretty unsuited to Mastertronic's business model- but I assume that the C64 market was still in reasonably good shape then.

          (**) This contrasts with the UK, where (although the NES sold moderately (***)), the games market remained overwhelmingly computer-based until the early 1990s, when the Mega Drive (Genesis) and SNES started doing really well.

          (***) Actually, the NES wasn't even dominant in its 8-bit console niche- it was outsold by the Sega Master System here, strange though that might seem (****) to the Americans or Japanese.

          (****) How many levels of nested footnotes are too much?

        • I admit I've never been huge on names, but I don't remember many of the rest of the folks knowing the names of the developers very well.

          The names that got remembered, at least in the C64 scene, were the musicians.

    • Re:D: (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spad (470073) <.slashdot. .at. .spad.co.uk.> on Sunday June 15 2008, @04:16AM (#23798721) Homepage
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Codemasters_games [wikipedia.org]

      The Dizzy Series
      Colin McRae series
      Micro Machines
      Operation Flashpoint
      Overlord
      The TOCA series

      It's a good back-catalogue, though I was always more a fan of Bullfrog before EA ate them.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Fweeky (41046)
        I'm pretty sure they're only *publishers* of some of those games; Operation Flashpoint, for instance, was developed by Prague developers Bohemia Interactive. And that turned out to be bit of a clusterfuck, with BI going on to develop the sequel, ArmA, with another publisher, and Codemasters making their own using just the name.
        • Oops. Here I was waiting for the Sequel (rather than an expansion pack) all these years! OpFlashpoint was one of the best games I've ever ever ever played, so immersive that I stayed up for almost 3 days solid until I'd completed it. Thanks for the heads up, I should probably get that even if it will tempt me to spend money on my old PC gaming rig just for one game. Armed Assault 2 looks like it will be out on PS3 at least :)
        • Are any of these any good? I don't know because I've never played any of them.

          I had no idea there's an alternate universe of games over in the UK.

          It's a shame they didn't make it over here, because "Super Skidmarks" sounds like my kind of thing.
          • Are you serious? Worms was an awesome and massively famouse game that spawned a large series of games - done in Blitz Basic like AC says, I think Worms was winner of a competition in Amiga Format, I'd got blitz basic myself but I was about 14 and it was unstable enough even without a budding programmer trying to get to grips with it. I liked Super Skid Marks to though again it tended to crash a lot on my Amiga. It was a racing game in case your mind is still pondering. The TOCA series is great, Rainbow Isla

    • Re:D: (Score:5, Informative)

      by AAWood (918613) <aawood&gmail,com> on Sunday June 15 2008, @04:18AM (#23798725)
      Colin McRae Rally is probably the series they're most known for in recent times, and most old-schoolers will probably think of the Dizzy games first, and Micro Machines second. Personally, I remember them for things like Jet Bike Ski Simulator on the Spectrum. Came complete with classic incomprehensible speech synthesis, but at least you didn't need an add-in speech cartridge.
    • I doubt I could tell you who wrote any particular game. I know the game companies are "famous" but matching up software to who wrote it ? Not a chance. As I'm writing this I'm struggling to think who wrote Doom - I know Carmack, Cash et al did it - but the name of the company escapes me ! ( Looked at the box - it's ID software * slaps head, DOH! * ) I looked at the Codemasters site as I know that I've heard of them - they've done some well regarded stuff.
      • And here I was thinking that id were one of the most prominent software houses for any geek to know ;) I mean I wouldn't say I knew exhaustively who made what, but I knew Codemasters made Colin Mcrae and released Operation Flashpoint, Valve make Half-Life, id make Doom/Quake, 3D Realms make Duke Nukem (well, they used to ;) ), EA make a never ending multitude of yearly sports games, and need for speed, Naughty Dog make Crash Bandicoot games (which I generally am not that interested in, but Crash Team Racing

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by keeboo (724305)
      The only game I can remember from them is Vampire, which has a MSX version (and looked awful like any game ported from Spectrum).
      Spectrum users probably know more games from them.
      • Now you've done it, giving the Spectrum two mentions in one post.

        I can feel the urge to re-awaken the old 'spectrum vs Commodore 64' argument rising.

        Must....resist...

        • Re:whoops! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by keeboo (724305) on Sunday June 15 2008, @05:19AM (#23798961)
          Uh-oh... Peace, man! :)

          From where I am C64 did not exist, it was more like MSX vs Spectrum vs Apple II.
          The problem with Spectrum-to-MSX ports (and Codemasters are not alone) it's that developers simply added a Spectrum hardware emulator layer (both machines used Z80 processors) and, presto, port done.
          Often the game was slower than the original version.

          There are games which list 'joystick' as 'kempston' in the MSX version. C'mon!

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Dogtanian (588974)

            From where I am C64 did not exist, it was more like MSX vs Spectrum vs Apple II.

            I assume that you're not from the UK (where Codemasters are from) then; in terms of user base and (consequentially) software that supported the machine, MSX was (at best) a very minor player here. Since Codemasters were originally selling in the UK market, that'd be why they didn't do many MSX games.

            Here it was ZX Spectrum (first) vs. C64 (clear second, but still successful) vs. Amstrad CPC (some way behind, but still usually a chosen "third format" for mainstream games).

            Owners of other formats, e.g. A

        • Easy there tiger, do you not have to say it three times in succession for the proceedings to commence? Like Beetlejuice, Candyman or Chuck Norris?
        • Go for it... the Commode was a piece of trash, and everyone knows the CPC was the best ;)

          Speccy was okay once Sugar got his claws into it and marketed the bastard properly though.
        • European kids had old computer arguments...

          American kids had Sega vs. Nintendo arguments.
    • When I saw the title of TFA I thought it was about John and Michael Darling [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:seeking approval (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2008, @04:23AM (#23798749)

      what could possibly be more pathetic than looking up to an "honour" from a hereditary monarch?
      Apart from whining about it on Slashdot, you mean?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Apart from whining about it on Slashdot, you mean?

        What an, erm, clever humour pattern.

        [Slashdot poster #1] "What could be possibly be more pathetic than _____?"
        [Slashdot poster #2] "Apart from whining about it on Slashdot, you mean?"

        Where _____ could be any of:
        (i) Apathy to gradual loss of freedom;
        (ii) RIAA's abuse of the courts;
        (iii) Bribery of political officials;
        (iv) ...
        (v) Profit!

        Oh look lol a meme lol, it's witty because it lacks originality.

        If there's one thing many nerds are sorely lacking, it's.. well.. any sort of ability outside their narrow fie

    • Re:seeking approval (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Naughty Bob (1004174) * on Sunday June 15 2008, @04:55AM (#23798851)
      Most honourees, even those who disagree with the concept of hereditary monarchy (the majority), just go along with the whole deal.

      Partly because it's not worth making a fuss over within the context of modern, laser-guided wrongdoings, but mostly for the improved ability to secure last-minute restaurant reservations.

        • Are you sure the majority of Britons....

          I didn't say a majority of Britons, I said a majority of those getting honoured (perhaps an even more outrageous declaration).

          Of course I don't have proof, that would be against the entire spirit of internet-based debate. But I was getting at a wider truth about the UK- There are many reasons to hate every country, the UK included, but one of the things I love is the progressive egalitarianism prevalent in the thinking classes; Announce at any formal social function that you are religious/believe in astro

        • DO any poll thats not just in the mail/sun and it will be something like 20% get rid, 10% keep, 70% dont give a shit.

          Given that shes not even the one who chooses who to give the awards to its not really an issue here. I personally would like to get rid of her, but there is some benefit to separating out your purely political honours to those given by 'the country' and while not perfect (i mean you can buy either apparently), it does In theory stop gordon or tony knighting all his mates.

          Still if it were up t
    • I can see it now...Her Majesty reclining on the leatherette sofa with a bejewelled micro-switched joystick, playing Dizzy on her Amiga...

      Oh, wait. It's not the Queen who picks people for the honours list, it's the honours committee. Truth be told, the Queen will probably have never heard of them, won't know who they are when she confers the honour and won't ever know.

      To your more expansive ideas...about why people, through their actions, seek approval from others, and why this is a bad thing: What is

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.