EA to buy Dirt Rally-maker Codemasters for £1B
bbc.com
bbc.com
It's a niche genre that requires a specialized physics engine, and there hasn't been decent entrant after Richard Burns Rally (2004) or before that. That was/is maintained by community binary patches for years and years after it EOL'd.
Rally car physics can't be simulated with just any car physics model, there is a lot going on with tyres on loose surfaces, differential gears in the drive train, turbo chargers etc.
I can't see it being lucrative enough for EA to make a niche game like that.
The rest of the Dirt series (same name, very different game) might continue to exist to complement their NFS car game lineup.
Most likely though is that EA only wanted the licenses to F1 and WRC series.
Typical.
Also, all these things are one day trials...that have to be used within 7 days or they expire.
The car twitched and started snaking but I kept it under control in a way I know I wouldn't have been able to without the hours of in-game training.
I’ve unfortunately been in several cars where driver has lost control and avoided an accident - most drivers in my experience can counter the scenario you describe intuitively - steer opposite way of slide, lift off gas to correct etc, just feels natural if you have driven a car even a small period of time.
Other’s mileage may vary of course!
Good in an FWD car, but this could kill you if you're driving RWD - lift-off oversteer is a common thing, so you really want to _reduce_ throttle input without completely cutting it.
Chances of you driving anything today without ESC/DSC/etc (whatever your manufacturer labeled it) on really rare too unless you decided to turn it off, especially if it's only driving the rears. ESC is incredibly effective even on 20 year old cars.
It does, but you have to be intentional about recognizing the deficits, similar to how you can only get so much takeoff + landing training from a flight sim, and too much is detrimental. A quality FF setup + good pedals makes a massive difference on practicing good road-feel response into your brain. VR steps it up further with the full visual experience and helps with yaw angle management.
https://dirtfish.com/rally/robert-reid-virtual-rally-safety/
When I was driving IRL.
That said, I believe commercial flight simulators fulfill some of the FAA requirements of flying an aircraft.
Well it's not as if the game is going away right? You can still play it.
It works pretty well on Linux as well.
That said, how is the dirt racing in iRacing? I haven't had the time to try it in several years.
Codemasters have been going more arcade like and focusing on community content for a while now, they had a rather successful experiment with Onrush and many of the Onrush features are in Dirt 5 now, EA is essentially looking at Codemasters as those who can deliver the fortnite of racing games and they might be able to do so.
That doesn’t mean you won’t get a game that is a good enough sim, codemasters still has the exclusive rights to the rally franchise, so you’ll get quite a wide range of driving mechanics and good simulation and steering wheel support but you can’t build a game that requires a steering wheel and pedal setup today and expect it to sell.
The F1 game has been solidly arcade-y since at least 2010.
I've been getting into racing games again recently and the sheer number of RPG elements, unlocks, micro-transactions etc. in things like Forza is exhausting. And that isn't even EA.
I can't just restart the race, I have to wait while it loads 3 screens to show me how I'm 300 points nearer to unlocking some pointless skin or hitting the next tier or whatever.
Do note that Dirt Rally isn't really related to the rest of the Dirt series. The former is a pretty decent simulation of rally driving, while most of the Dirt series are "car games" with a physics model that's not intended to be realistic but fun to play on a gamepad.
That will be a big problem as EA tends to push all its companies to use the Frostbite engine.
I think the main show stopper here is that EA doesn't make niche game. They make games that will sell millions of units. So I highly doubt that they will develop a accurate Dirt racing game, they will do what they did with every franchise: Make the gameplay incredibly "accessible" but dumbing it down a lot. You will end up with another generic racing game with a slightly more slippery physics.
Madden is one of the better selling game franchise of all time with over 130 million copies sold. Despite this years Madden game being by far the worst reviewed Madden game in ages, it's still the 3rd highest selling game this year.
Globally or in the US?
So, yes, mostly in the US.
Dirt Rally, the rally sim, definitely is a smaller niche and the only one of its genre still under active development.
The rest of the Dirt series, which don't AFAIK share the physics engine with Dirt Rally, is much more mainstream.
Although I can't guess what the market size is for a racing game these days.
I used to work on Madden. Maybe this is non-obvious if you're not in the US, but it is hard to understate what a monumental cash cow that product is. It is like Excel is to Microsoft. It's a veritable firehose of money.
> really only popular in one country.
Sure, but that country has the third largest population in the world, and a greater GDP than the next two countries combined.
It's actually changing since Patrick Söderlund left and Respawn has been succesful at releasing games not on Frostbite ( Apex Legend, SW Jedi Fallen Order ).
EA made an announcement about this but didn't make a big deal about it: https://answers.ea.com/t5/C-C-The-Ultimate-Collection/Info-G...
I hate companies that kill online servers for games, and have dedicated a large portion of my life to bringing these games back, but EA hasn't really caused this type of situation in a while, thanks to GameRanger. There's plenty to dislike about EA, but killing online servers is something they actually handle better than most other PC game companies: everything is on GameRanger.
[1] https://www.ea.com/service-updates
Games impacted by the above policy:
https://www.ea.com/service-updates/a-h
Again, it's not a complete solution, butit seriously supports the vast majority of popular old EA games. Yeah, it doesn't support Monopoly for Wii... but for PC games it's the tits.
Yes, thanks to a small community of volunteers (to whom I am very grateful) maintaining it with patches you need to download from a forum website.
If you install it from original install media to a Windows 10 box, it won't even launch without the 3rd party patches.
You forget Colin McRae Rally, surely?
Colin McRae was a pretty cool game in its day but didn't really have the great physics that RBR did. But it was an earlier game so it was the best that there was available.
Do you know if the physics in Dirt Rally have improved on this? Or does the underlying issue remain?
Yes, the physics in Dirt Rally is not at all the same as with other Dirt series. It has got a pretty decent simulation of rally cars on gravel and other surfaces. It's awesome!
Shame that EA acquired them.
Sometimes the large company can buy them. Sometimes, they can copy the idea in time and name recognition carries them through. But it's not uncommon for the big giants to topple when this happens.
Game development seems to be in a weird spot though. Many game devs seem to follow the pattern of making a name for themselves by releasing some hit, leaving, and then making an indie game "by the makers of X". Not going to stop companies like EA from regurgitating the yearly Madden / CoD release or whatever, but it does keep things interesting.
* As a company gets bigger, it becomes complacent and slower to respond to changes in the market.
* As a company gets bigger, it gains economies of scale and powerful anti-competitive tools like regulatory capture, price dumping, etc. It also is able to capture more and more resources because the less competition there is, the more it can drive up prices or cut costs (and quality) without loss of customers.
The question is which of those has the greater slope. Given that the number of publicly traded companies is trending downwards at least here in the US, my strong suspicion is that the latter wins.
Then, there are no more competitors, and you have no choice but to buy from them.
Do not give in. Find another way.
SovietWomble (of the hilarious "Random Bullshittery" videos [2]) had a series of videos on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBitIgZ_UvGFNHPFlRg48...
[2] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBitIgZ_UvGH_ywHokH6S93r4...
I also have to think the Operation Flashpoint influenced other games, like the first Battlefield game, which was released about a year later with a similar crazy variety of roles and vehicles.
Although WWII online was of the same area and breadth, so it could have just been the zeitgeist.
Edit: And in an amazing tangent, I just found out that WWII Online is still playable and in active development.
A sad day indeed.
I wonder if a few years from now we might see a company of former devs from Codemasters, continuing the legacy.
I haven't watched yet but, despite a wild style, Kim usually has great historical videos.
Codemasters released a hell of a lot of cheap and cheerful games, on cassette, for the ZX Spectrum. (The Spectrum was by far the most popular machine at the time in the UK, and it had a presence in Spain, along with other countries.)
The Spectrum was what got me interested in computers, all the way back in 82:
Dizzy was great! Text adventures were around then, but Dizzy was a bit like an early point and click adventure in terms of puzzles with item combinations (with terrible platforming in place of pointing and clicking, and paper thin plots).
Man, I hope so. This is quite frustrating.
“Tencent Will Acquire Warframe's Parent Company For $1.5 Billion”
- https://www.thegamer.com/tencent-purchase-warframe-parent-co...
Sure they've diluted the franchise a bit( I know I'll never see a Star Wars movie in the first week again and TROS's strange attempts to overwrite TLJ). But it's still been an amazing ROI for them .
Does suck so much of media is controlled by a single company though .
Likewise code Masters expect them to milk these franchises dry until you ultimately don't even want to play the games anymore, but if EA can make 1.5 billion by the time the code Masters brand is dead, they would have made a profit.
You can always open up Unity or Unreal and make your own rally game
There's reason to think that Disney may retroactively erase the entire sequel trilogy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AMRRGCkW-k
I wonder how long till their current titles get patched to require Origin...
Layers of garbage to play simple stuff.
Spent a while considering whether to just return the game, eventually gave in, updated, and made an Origin account.
It was some ubisoft title that i bought, forgot 6 months about it, then started up and found out it requires UPlay. I have the same opinion about Origin.
To get an engine you have to get the right loot box.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.the-2021-f1-cost-...
EA will turn it into a derby arcade racer, probably with destruction of opponents' cars. To appeal to as broad audience as possible.
Then, do you want a new liveries, new pilot, new tracks - $$$.
After two games series will be killed as its not making 1000% return.
Well only then a new studio will be able to create a new rally series :/
For those of us who so far preferred wheels to legs: what's ‘the FIFA-ization’? Just so we know what to expect.
Oh yea and they are still difficult to drive even with a good setup. 1000 HP rear wheel drive monsters...
Then
Codemasters
-
Inventor of
Colin McRae
Rally
-
For a time
You kept Colin's
Spirit alive.
-
Alas under EA
No studio
Shall survive.
- please don't hurt me, EJ Thribb
Programmers make a hit Game. It's successful and the sequel brings in top developers and lots of resources. The sequel is fantastic.
Then game 3. Programmers have left the company, the company goes full Apple and increases marketing budget with a game focused of gimmicky features rather than Quality.
The third game is a let down, but not awful.
And for the next 7 games the IP is milked and milked.
https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2020/11/10/21558320/tak...