Codemasters Sells to Take-Two... No Wait, They've Sold to EA
By: Bryce L. Jackson
Initially, this was going to be a pros and cons of the Take-Two Interactive/Codemasters deal that was reported a few weeks ago. I sat on the thought and had the draft ready to write, then I woke up to the news that EA swooped in with a higher bid to purchase the racing game developer. All those plans went out the window as well as any hope of minimal publisher interference.
My connection with Codemasters’ games comes from a rekindled interest in Formula 1 in the early 2010s, sparked by F1 2012. Since then, I’ve played every F1 game since 2015 and played Dirt 4 and Project Cars 1 and 2 out of curiosity to varying degrees of enjoyment. So I feel like I’m qualified enough to see where all the potential positives but the mountain of negatives of this deal. Codemasters has been a solid company in my eyes. A few controversies here and there, online multiplayer is constantly a critical issue in the community, but they’ve made solid racing games. Since the Driver Career Mode debacle in 2015, every game since has tried to push the F1 gameplay experience forward. The developers are more likely to listen and take criticisms from the community well. All of that is under threat to be thrown asunder by being under the EA umbrella.
EA has absolutely no goodwill left amongst the gaming fandom. Under their EA Sports banner, the FIFA, NHL, and MADDEN franchises are purely iterative on the previous year’s entry with maybe one shiny bell tacked on to distract from how copy and paste the games are. They've had controversies with intrusive ads in the UFC series, the Ultimate Team game mode exists in some form through all those games, and though the pay-to-win standard for those games has met scrutiny, the mechanics have changed little. EA Sports have not had a racing game in their ranks since losing the rights to the NASCAR franchise. When it comes to racing games under the EA brand, they currently only have the Need for Speed franchise which has bounced around between their development houses Criterion and Ghost Games, now EA Gothenberg.
Are there positives from this deal? There are a few. EA does well supporting their esports competitions. Formula One Management has been increasing their support and production value of their esports league since its inception in 2017, especially since the pandemic made it more visible. EA backing can only bolster those efforts. EA has almost infinite resources that Codemasters will be able to take advantage of. They can use those resources to improve the track environments, AI logic, character models, extensive customization options for driver avatars, liveries (paint schemes), firesuits, etc, and get real-life sponsors (or believable sponsors) for the car customizations.
I fear for Codemasters’ future in terms of game development and the studio’s survival. EA is known to be menaces to game developers; they will find ways to squeeze out ways to over monetize future games and aren’t afraid to shutter underperforming studios. I fret at the thought of them rolling back features that the games already come with now, into microtransactions. I can see all those historic cars that fans love to gawk at will be locked away under a price tag. Can you imagine an F1 Ultimate Team card pack that hides Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton from fans under a mountain of Pastor Maldonado and Jolyon Palmer cards? Or to make it a real burden, attach car upgrades to Ultimate Team cards. Does anyone remember the early days of Need for Speed: Payback? I shudder at the thought. And that’s just spitballing ideas in regards to the F1 games. Dirt 5, I’ve heard, is more arcade racer compared to its predecessors which leaves it open to more grind-heavy rewards. On top of all that, EA may force Codemasters to convert their game engine to Frostbite, their in-house engine, and all the issues it comes with, potentially rolling back all the years of progress they’ve made.
It’s going to be a nervous few years for F1 game fans. The effects of the Codemasters acquisition may not show themselves until 2022. Until then We’ll appreciate the game we have and hope that EA will take a hands-off approach to game development akin to Microsoft and their portfolio. Unlikely, but I pray so.