Codemasters Receives Exclusive Formula One Rights

bigmouth_strikes writes "A few weeks ago it was announced that British game developers Codemasters have received the exclusive right to develop and publish video games using the "Formula One" brand name. This was after Sony and Formula One Management didn't renew their contract that have made the Playstation platform the only choice for gamers wanting "official" games since 2003. The earlier Sony exclusive right and decision to only release for the Playstation platform has led to active fan-created content for various racing simulation engines, such as rFactor for the PC. The official Formula One website has a brief interview/promo piece with Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens about their hopes and intentions for the game and platforms — which will include Xbox 360 and Wii. The company is targeting an initial release in 2009."

Rights

[Fifth Earth]

Interestingly, this seems to only apply to the "Formula 1" brand itself, so other games can certainly include F1 cars, so long as they don't use the F1 organization's name. I guess F1 doesn't actually hold any rights to the cars themselves--which makes sense, but then recent years have shown very little usually makes sense when it comes to copyrights/trademarks/patents.

Certainly nice for those independent game developers anyway, especially Live for Speed, which has an officially sanctioned version of BMW Sauber's 2006 F1 car (as well as BMW's V1 Championship car), which they're using via a deal with BMW Motorsport itself.

Re:PC

[Goldberg's Pants]

Crammond's controls were always sublime. I loved F1GP and GP2. GP3 was okay... GP4 was horrid. Looked awesome but everyone I know had some sort of issue with the game, from it not working at all, to not playing nice with their wheel, crashing for no apparent reason etc... rFactor and GTR2 are my drug of choice right now. Still play GPL and NR2003 from time to time. Not a fan of NASCAR, but racing Daytona in NR2003 is an awesome experience.

Codemasters getting the F1 license is a disaster if you're a sim junkie. They may as well have no bothered giving it to anyone. You KNOW the people who made the decision have NO idea what sort of games they actually produce. Codemasters wouldn't know a decent race sim if it came and punched them in the face. They should stick to pissing away their time filing cease and desists against people sharing their stupid 8-bit Dizzy games. Seriously, Codemasters last decent race game was Colin McRae 2, and that was no sim.

A friend and I were talking about this today and he said he's going to post on their forums and demand a true sim like many others are doing, just so when they don't listen and deliver their usual arcadey crap he can say he did something. I said I wasn't going to bother, simply because when Codemasters release their title, we'll be in the same boat we are now. Still waiting for a decent F1 sim on the PC.

Said friend picked up "GRID" this weekend, Codies latest race game. He figured he'd give them a chance with this F1 news. "A blend of arcade and sim" is how the game is billed. When he was able to drive around in a Formula 1000 car at Spa using only his gears to slow down, never once touching the brakes, and still win the race... Well that right there, my friends, is all you need to know about Codemasters ability to write a decent racing game.

Anyone giving them the benefit of the doubt is clearly either naive, or has never played any of their titles. Having played pretty much every racing game Codemasters have made since the late 90's... Satan will be going to work in a snowplow before Codemasters make a decent sim. They just can't do it. End of story.