Breaking News: Slightly Mad Studios Bought by Codemasters

[Terry Rock]

Look, at the pit entry pull at the end of this video, from the F1 2019
It`s like this since 2010! Everybody complained every single year in the official foruns and said that this is just ridiculous! No response. No changes.

This is made by a team that doesn't care.
The Codemasters team for this game, should be ashamed and should do a reality check.
LACK OF TALENT. Lack of attention to detail, lack of effort.

So the mix between SMS and Codemasters is a beautiful 0. Null.

That's what you call lateral G
With 'features' like that, I'd say their sole attention is probably on your next $60.
I stopped buying CM's junk years ago.
Why on God's Earth would any simracer accept something like that...all these years in.
In any event, Codemasters and SMS...both companies I never purchase product from...so no great loss here...irregardless of the outcome.

 

[Momperface]

That's what you call lateral G
With 'features' like that, I'd say their sole attention is probably on your next $60.
I stopped buying CM's junk years ago.
Why on God's Earth would any simracer accept something like that...all these years in.
In any event, Codemasters and SMS...both companies I never purchase product from...so no great loss here...irregardless of the outcome.

there seems to be alarge group in sim racing who have zero standards and are willing to throw money at unfinsished buggy crap and then proceed to tell us we should do the same or we are toxic

this is why only 1 game out of many has a worthwhile sp (f1) and only 1 game has a worthwhile MP(iracing). companies know full well these low standards accepting plebs will throw money at them for anything and will then defend them for it too

seems to be a cultural thing nowadays as the worlds general population seem to be getting dumber and have less logical common sense

 

[Jonathan Young]

I’m not massively invested in either company so not really bothered. It does feel like a strange combo though - both companies are known for style over substance, so not sure what they’re getting out of this. if Codies had bought Kunos, I would have understood it better (but relieved that they haven’t).

 

[justfdl]

Oh well, I suppose the next version of PC will no longer have mouse support.

Right. And of course you won't be able to rename your saved setups in VR

 

[Copef1]

This thread is hilarious. There is wild speculation, with little or no information, SMS haters, Codies haters, SMS lovers, Codies lovers, iRacing haters, iRacing lovers, and people still worried about AMS future, (even though Renato already posted about that). Its enough to keep me laughing all day. Thanks RaceDepartment.

 

[Haiden773]

Does this mean F1 2020 will finally have VR and a PC friendly GUI?

Jokes aside, I'd love to see a Codies version of an open world title like Forza Horizon running on the Madness engine (minus the rave style party and locked content career grind). I'd pay full price for a version of Project Cars with the current car offering and just a 5-10 really good open world tracks. Not short point to points, like California Highway and Azure, unless they are longer, like 20+ km, and preferably looped. I don't need more cars or weather systems. I just want some open world tracks to have fun on in VR.

 

[E304LIFE]

Good move Ian. I too hope AMS2 doesn't get negatively affected by this.

 

[Deleted member 113561]

I think they like rfactor 2 have addressed this issue though? Hell rfactor admitted that they had the tires wrong at least and now i can feel some grip there..

rF2 physics are awesome, but since S397 has taken over, the new DLCs are unrealistic to drive (still better than the average of PC2 and iRacing), because you kinda have to slide them into the corner to be fast, which is not how real life works. Just a matter of doing some proper tweaks and they should be good to go.
rF2, PC2 suffer from quite a lot of bugs

As for Ian Bell.....if you ignored him all was OK.

It is interesting how much Ian Bell got **** on, but Kunos was far worse, literally insulting people and telling real drivers/modders that they have no idea what they are talking about. Additionally comes wrong advertisments and unfulfilled promises.

I am really looking forward to AMS2, seeing what they can do with the awesome madness engine, the probably most advanced sim racing engine (for consumers)

 

[roadyroad]

I think that's a great piece of news. The top bashing subjects of sim racing coming to an agreement, 50% less bashing on forums!

Apart from that, codemasters does not buy sms just to avoid competition. Their products are not in the same league, codemasters sells one f1 game each year, sms doesn't develop rally titles, and codemasters' grid franchise is pure arcade racing.

We should get new and better products from this deal, codemasters aquiring a great piece of technology. It seems that for some years codemasters has been taken the sim aspects of ghe racing genre more seriously and I'm not sure they can go further without a new engine and proper tools. Sms has what they need. And on the contrary, all their technology is used for a unique franchise and a few side projects, nothing groundbraking and financially safe.

I'm sure great things are going to come from this deal, they have the means to make huge steps in the racing genre, sim and arcade.

 

[HOBBS77]

I like to think they sold because they had to. All the behind the scenes deception and possible fraud with pcars1. The lawsuit or maybe possible lawsuits......who knows. From what a senior manger told me several months back was that they all got together and decided to sue Ian for possible fraud. This was going on for awhile and before the final payment was made. They some how got info that the funds that were being paid out by Bandai Namco went directly to Ian and his financial buddies and not directly to WMD. So were we getting the appropriate amount in the end? Who knows....and I didn't have a problem with the payouts or at least not until the last one, anyways.
So they hired a lawyer and shortly later was informed that this was going to cost them big $$$ to continue to pursue and without any guarantees. They later decided not to pursue. Of course this was going to piss off the big guy and the best way to get back at them is hit 'em where it hurts the most. That's when all of a sudden our 20-30 percent projected final payment returns for the last 2 yrs of pcars1, turns to into .02. He just grabbed another $$$ how much with that move?
Now for the majority of people that was just pennies on the dollar. But for the managers, it's hundreds to possible thousands of dollars and to that special group of senior managers, thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.
I'm not sure what legally can or can't be done at this point or if even selling gets them off the hook.

 

[Leonardo Chaves]

Does this mean F1 2020 will finally have VR and a PC friendly GUI?

Jokes aside, I'd love to see a Codies version of an open world title like Forza Horizon running on the Madness engine (minus the rave style party and locked content career grind). I'd pay full price for a version of Project Cars with the current car offering and just a 5-10 really good open world tracks. Not short point to points, like California Highway and Azure, unless they are longer, like 20+ km, and preferably looped. I don't need more cars or weather systems. I just want some open world tracks to have fun on in VR.

2020 is sure to be 2019 reskinned.
Last year on current gen consoles.
They won't just start porting assets into the Madness Engine this late in the game, 2020 is probably some 7/8 months away.

2021 is where things could change, new consoles, sufficient time to make a decision between Ego or Madness (or a hybrid possibly).

Agree on Pcars Horizon.

 

[ermo]

There are many similiar bugs in iRacing, rF2, AC, ACC and others ... so thats that.

I only brought it up because if there's one consistent complaint that people have had over the years it is that MADNESS engine titles (NFS: Shift 1&2 and pC1&2) feel weird/wrong in terms of inertia and weight transfer.

Of course, there are other complaints to be leveled at the MADNESS titles (and I readily acknowledge that other titles have issues too). It's just that this particular bug hits very close to home and shows that perhaps one shouldn't just take SMS at their word when -- even after we prodded them heavily about it during WMD -- they *insisted* that the inertia calculations in the engine were correct.

Then along comes Reiza and Niels (who you will recall also has rF1 source code access as part of Reiza's licensing for AMS) who then proceeds to point out that the bug exists in the MADNESS engine as well.

Anyway, like you, I hope that when AMS2 lands, we will finally see the full potential of the MADNESS engine being brought to bear on a discerning simracing audience. I fully expect that Reiza will need 6-9 months after release to shake out the bugs and niggles that will always be present when you switch to a new engine, but I'm fine with that (and I wrote the same about ACC just in case you were wondering).

Anway, it'll certainly also be interesting to see what madness Codemasters née SMS will bring to market in 2020 and 2021.

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

Codemasters and SMS together:
-How many glitches will your future games have?
-Yes!

 

[hotak]

I like to think they sold because they had to. All the behind the scenes deception and possible fraud with pcars1. The lawsuit or maybe possible lawsuits......who knows. From what a senior manger told me several months back was that they all got together and decided to sue Ian for possible fraud. This was going on for awhile and before the final payment was made. They some how got info that the funds that were being paid out by Bandai Namco went directly to Ian and his financial buddies and not directly to WMD. So were we getting the appropriate amount in the end? Who knows....and I didn't have a problem with the payouts or at least not until the last one, anyways.
So they hired a lawyer and shortly later was informed that this was going to cost them big $$$ to continue to pursue and without any guarantees. They later decided not to pursue. Of course this was going to piss off the big guy and the best way to get back at them is hit 'em where it hurts the most. That's when all of a sudden our 20-30 percent projected final payment returns for the last 2 yrs of pcars1, turns to into .02. He just grabbed another $$$ how much with that move?
Now for the majority of people that was just pennies on the dollar. But for the managers, it's hundreds to possible thousands of dollars and to that special group of senior managers, thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.
I'm not sure what legally can or can't be done at this point or if even selling gets them off the hook.

I didn't really follow that, but really, we got 300%+ returns on that investement, i cannot even imagine being so greedy to feel the need to get a lawyer to try and get even more out of that. That was most likely the best investement ever for most people involved, for some people is never enough it seems...

 

[Edison5do]

I think Codie will be making good use of the VR and Simulations aspects of SMS for F1 series, now that it is a full fledged eSport, they NEED the simulation for the competitive scene. SMS will use the REIZA Force Feedback knowledge to bring that to the PC3 and make the Justice PC franchise Need!

**Hopefully Dreaming I will be while playing ACC and AMS 2**

 

[Enoneado]

plz, buy studio397 to finish the fu***ng UI.

 

[Chobonator]

I think Codie will be making good use of the VR and Simulations aspects of SMS for F1 series, now that it is a full fledged eSport, they NEED the simulation for the competitive scene. SMS will use the REIZA Force Feedback knowledge to bring that to the PC3 and make the Justice PC franchise Need!

**Hopefully Dreaming I will be while playing ACC and AMS 2**

What happened to your keyboard?

 

[HOBBS77]

I didn't really follow that, but really, we got 300%+ returns on that investement, i cannot even imagine being so greedy to feel the need to get a lawyer to try and get even more out of that. That was most likely the best investement ever for most people involved, for some people is never enough it seems...

Greedy??? If you were being screwed out of 20-50K or more, you'd look the other way? They were investing 25-100k or more and things get a little more intense at that level. I believe they had contracts unlike the rest of us. So who knows, maybe we should have received 400-500% on the returns, I don't know, but that adds up to quite a bit of money for them.
All I know, is the yr before the last payment, we were told that we were around 20%, with sales still trickling in. A yr later it's down to 2% and Ian never posted once in the last payment forum post, something wasn't add up! And I'm out over 2k. Then 6 months later I find out about the lawsuit and now it all makes sense. Gotta figure the big guy was pissed about the lawsuit and had to hit back, poof...there goes the last payment!
So who's the real greedy party in all of this????? Now do we have the senior managers to thank for our last payment disappearing? Probably, but at the same time, if things weren't on the up & up to begin with, I can't blame them, were not talking chump change here either.

 

[HOBBS77]

Double post, not sure why that happened

 

[turbo86]

And finally, there goes out last hopes for a better PCars simulator. I'm 100% certain Codies will turn it into a stupid arcade, focused on the "driver experience" like they've been doing with F1. What a shame...it had so much potential.

Oh well, i guess all good things come to an end, and after a few decent years, the racing sim scene is heading back to the dark ages of arcade. ACC will be the last Jedi....