Codemasters Rails Against Lazy Wii Games

[Keane Ng]

Codemasters Rails Against Lazy Wii Games

GRiD developers Codemasters have no patience for lazy Wii games, the majority of which they've referred to as "white noise."

You can't blame developers for trying to make an easy buck with an easily profitable low-budget Wii game when the possibility of completely falling flat on your face and into bankruptcy for pouring all your capital into a single project is such a gamble during trying economic times, but Codemasters have had their fill with the practice. "You can't ignore Wii, but it's bewildering watching what other publishers are doing," the company marketing vice-president Alex Bertie told MCV [http://www.mcvuk.com/interviews/438/INTERVIEW-Codemasters/]. "Codemasters has taken a more cautious strategy on Wii which has been the right thing to do."

Instead of shoveling out low-quality games, Codemasters believes that their games ascribe to a higher standard. "We are not going to make cheap, crappy ports," Bertie said. "DiRT on Wii, for instance, is not Mario Kart...we're not planning to compete in this 'big head sports arena' that everyone is obsessed with - the shelves are cluttered with those games."

I'm not sure what they mean by "big head sports arena" unless they're referring to cutesy sports games with Mii-esque characters bobbing around and throwing Frisbees at cute dogs.

For Codemasters, the "bewildering" part of this business model isn't just that the games are bad, but that they ultimately aren't sustainable because the market becomes saturated with inferior products. "There's only a number of times I think you can go to a retailer with a DS or Wii game which is that type of mass-market product," Jeremy Wigmore, general manager of Codemasters UK, said. "Those games just become white noise."


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[The_root_of_all_evil]

The same Codemasters that are bringing out Leisure Suit Larry 9? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89653-Leisure-Suit-Larry-9-Are-They-Still-Making-These]

I'll let you make your own jokes.

 

[sturryz]

tell codemasters to stop making lazy PC games and then we will be even.

 

[Vern]

Well I was going to bring up Operation Flashpoint and IGI 2 as counters to Codemasters making crap games, but then realized they were developed by Bohemia Interactive and Innerloop respectively, Codemaster only published them. And looking at the rest of the games they've released, they really have very little room to talk.

 

[Darkwolf9]

Yeah, I thought there was a bit of irony to this story. Codemasters has really been putting out crap. I haven't played Grid so I can't say much about that, but they can't really say much about people putting out crappy games.

 

[LifeSarcastic]

Hmmm...I don't think the other developers will really listen to that. Or they may look over at codemasters and say,"Look who's talking, go away now." Just to note something: they are talking about lazy games not crappy games. There a difference. I must get GRID now.

 

[LewsTherin]

*applause*

Now lets see them so it.

 

[Grampy_bone]

I think it's funny how all the developers seemed to think there was a "casual gaming boom!" with the Wii and then flooded it with cheap, shitty games. The truth is people know crap when they play it and "casuals" are far more discerning and picky than publishers give them credit for. Hardcore gamers are the ones who will buy anything with the words "Grand Theft Smash Gears of Halo Kart Solid" in the title.

So then when all the top selling Wii games are Nintendo first party titles and all the shovelware trash sells like crap, the publishers ***** and whine at Nintendo essentially for making their games too good so that they can't compete with them. Nintendo's response has basically been, "Well gee, why don't you guys actually try to make a good game for once?"

So in other words this is great news that companies are finally starting to take the Wii seriously.

 

[theultimateend]

The same Codemasters that are bringing out Leisure Suit Larry 9? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89653-Leisure-Suit-Larry-9-Are-They-Still-Making-These]

I'll let you make your own jokes.

How dare you! LSL is an RPG with a complex storyline and intriguing thought provoking mini games!

 

[Vern]

People have bad taste, it's what they're famous for. Yes videogames have always needed more legitimacy as a form of media, but there's always that point where they become part of mindless pop culture. And they've crossed that barrier. For the most part it's now just being schlock that the mindless masses lap up, such as with movies from the late 70s on. The Wii just reinforces the idea that profits are better than ideas. Although the Xbox and the PS really started the trend.

 

[KDR_11k]

Oh wow, someone who actually notices that running into the same genre everybody else is going into is not the safe approach and that entering underserved genres makes more sense.

I can actually hear the copies of Wii Music and Mario and Sonic at the Olympics flying off the shelves.

Thinking like that is why all the shovelware gets made, they think those games are crap and sell anyway so they can just as well make crap and expect it to sell, then wonder why it doesn't work. The trick is that the quality in those games is where the traditional approach doesn't look for it.

People have bad taste, it's what they're famous for. Yes videogames have always needed more legitimacy as a form of media, but there's always that point where they become part of mindless pop culture. And they've crossed that barrier. For the most part it's now just being schlock that the mindless masses lap up, such as with movies from the late 70s on. The Wii just reinforces the idea that profits are better than ideas. Although the Xbox and the PS really started the trend.

No, the NES started the trend. Two buttons that do exactly one thing each? Please, how primitive can you get? A real game must at least have a keyboard and map a different action to every combination of joystick direction and fire button! When the console casuals were still hunting ducks with plastic guns computer gamers were playing through epic adventures that didn't even have pictures so you really had to use your imagination and there was none of that casual you-can-'t-die-ever nonsense either. When the console casuals were flying their spaceships through linear levels with enemies shot down for points computer gamers were flying from space station to space station, trading in goods, trafficking contraband, bounty-hunting alien invaders and finding their way into witchspace!

 

[cherimoya]

...When the console casuals were flying their spaceships through linear levels with enemies shot down for points computer gamers were flying from space station to space station, trading in goods, trafficking contraband, bounty-hunting alien invaders and finding their way into witchspace!

*makes mental note to re-sub to eve-online.

 

[man-man]

I think it's funny how all the developers seemed to think there was a "casual gaming boom!" with the Wii and then flooded it with cheap, shitty games.

http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html

Nice explanation of the mistaken "Nintendo make casual games, Nintendo are successful, therefore casual games will be successful" idea. What's really happening is that Nintendo make (on the whole) high quality games, that appeal to a wider market than the traditional 'hardcore', and they're printing money as a result.

 

[cherimoya]

I think he was talking more specifically about games like Elite, Frontier, Privateer - proper space-sims, the way they used to be. EVE Online pays tribute to these games, but deals with certain subject matter differently.

the definition of "proper" has propelled more internet arguments than god, politics and taxes combined. i'll just say that eve is the closest i've played to elite or federation (especially the latter) in the last 10 years.