Darling Brothers, UK Indie Game Devs, Upgraded to CBE

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.

D:

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, I can't name a single Codemasters game off the top of my head.

Re:D:

[captain_dope_pants]

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.

Re:seeking approval

[Naughty Bob]

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.

Codemasters

[Pentagram]

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.

elite

[jacquesm]

I move to nominate David Braben and Ian Bell

Re:whoops!

[keeboo]

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:D:

[Fweeky]

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.

Re:D:

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus most of the good games for the Spectrum & C64 were from the UK. The UK consistently produced the best coding & games during the 80s, but has not been anywhere near as dominant in the 90's and beyond.
For those of us growing up with C64 the Codemasters guys were much more famous than rock stars.

Re:Codemasters

[Steinfiend]

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 profited from the successful sales of the tape, and as such would say any old nonsense to get me to buy it?

Saying that, the Dizzy games, BMX Simulator, Rockstar Ate my Hamster, ATV Simulator and Grand Prix Simulator, were well worth the 1.99 I paid for them!

Re:whoops!

[Dogtanian]

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. Atari 8-bit, Commodore 16/Plus4, BBC Micro/Electron had lesser and patchier support. I'd go so far as to say that MSX was even behind them, because I can't recall seeing any MSX games on sale in the shops.

I think that MSX did little here because it came out pretty late, trying to become a "standard" in an established market that had already "standardised" around other formats, mainly the Spectrum and C64. Plus, I read that the MSXs were quite conservatively specced for the price. (I heard it did quite well in the Netherlands due to Philips' support, but other than that I think that MSX was only really successful in Japan).

As for the Apple II; although there were some here (my Dad used them at his work), they were *never* a widespread home format and not even in education, where the BBC Micro had its niche.

Incidentally, what you say about MSX conversions apparently also applied to the Amstrad CPC, which due to its shared Z80 architecture, got a lot of Spectrum games copied over without taking advantage of the CPC's superior capabilities.