Codemasters closing Bodycount dev

By Robert Purchese Published 14 September, 2011

Staff just told. Pub to focus on racing.

Codemasters has told Eurogamer it is "proposing to retire" the studio responsible for lacklustre shooter Bodycount.

The 66 staff at Codemasters Guildford have just been informed. The 30-day consultation period begins today.

If "progressed", the studio will be closed 30 days from now.

Guildford is being closed so Codemasters can focus on and beef up the successful racing team at Warwickshire HQ (Dirt, Grid, F1 Online, EGO engine). Additionally, a new team will be formed alongside the F1 2011 team in Birmingham to work on "a new racing IP".

Should Guildford close, staff will be "encouraged to apply for suitable positions on campus [Warwickshire] and in the Birmingham studio".

"As Codemasters looks to take greater leadership in the racing category, the company is proposing a studio structure that adds resource and strengthens our best-in-class racing teams," the company told Eurogamer.

"The output from the studios on the Warwickshire campus and in Birmingham is on the increase with multiple continuing game series, brand extensions and new racing IPs in production. Both the Warwickshire and Birmingham studios have won BAFTAs for their critically acclaimed, multi-million selling titles and the company is adding resource to ensure they constantly over achieve in this competitive sector."

Bodycount suffered a turbulent development. Months after the game's March 2010 announcement, star signing and executive producer Stuart Black - maker of acclaimed last-gen shooter Black - left the team. He was followed months later by the studio's general manager Adrian Bolton.

Rumours of departures and lack of funding dogged the project throughout 2011. In June, Bodycount game director Andrew Wilson went on the record with Eurogamer to deny the rumours.

Eurogamer has discovered that Andrew Wilson has now moved to Ubisoft Montreal.

Bodycount was eventually released in September 2011.

Eurogamer's Bodycount review awarded a disappointing 4/10.

Bodycount went on to barely dent the UK software chart, debuting in the all-formats top 40 at 36th.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (77) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Timotei #1 8 months ago

    Having been made redundant this year I feel for them.

    Poor fucks.

  • beastmaster #2 8 months ago

    Good grief! So, every game now needs to be a massive hit? That's terrible.

    I'm just pleased that developers in Japan such as Platinum can still survive. Even with a modest success.

  • cowell #3 8 months ago

    Very sad but predictable. This is the result of senior management wanting to diversify their output to improve the company valuation.

  • dancingrob #4 8 months ago

    big difference between a 'massive hit' and 'complete flop' don't you think?

  • DwarfyP #5 8 months ago

    Games have to sell in the multiples of millions for the large publishers to consider them successful.
    An indie would consider 1 million massively successful. It is all based on company size. Codemasters is in the multiple million unit sale bracket.

  • Timotei #6 8 months ago

    Dear Eurogamer,

    My original post has disappeared. Any idea why? It did have a swear word in it but that's never been a problem in the past.

    Yours Faithfully,

    T Woodwark

  • DDevil #7 8 months ago

    Bodycount was a turd of a game but it's always sad to hear another dev team is biting the dust. All the best to those involved.

  • Spong #8 8 months ago

    "Codemasters is "proposing to retire" the studio..."
    "Guildford is being closed..."
    "Should Guildford close..."

    So which is it? Are they or aren't they?

  • metalangel #9 8 months ago

    Should have been released in the summer drought for £20 to have stood a chance. Stupid Codemasters.

  • TravisTouchdown #10 8 months ago

    A slight rearrange of that byline would be equally apt:

    "Staff just told. Focus on racing to pub."

    Best of luck to all concerned.

  • Gearskin #11 8 months ago

    The more mainstream it becomes, the more money it makes. The more money it makes the MORE MONEY its expected to make.

    Hooray for success!

  • cianchristopher #12 8 months ago

    They're right to focus on racing game only, though. They're brilliant at racing games, and utterly shit at everything else.

  • Doctor_What #13 8 months ago

    You always have to 'propose' things - you can't fire that many people without a one month consultation period. Technically, the decision could be changed during that period, but I've never heard of that happening. I have a friend at the studio, and I wish all the other staff (and their families) the best over the coming months.

  • SomaticSense #14 8 months ago

    beastmaster - "Good grief! So, every game now needs to be a massive hit? That's terrible.

    I'm just pleased that developers in Japan such as Platinum can still survive. Even with a modest success.    "

    The difference being, of course, is that every game Platinum has made so far has been genuinely brilliant, yet Bodycount was genuinely poor.

    Not every needs to be a massive hit, no, but it would nice if every game had some semblance of playable quality. Imo, Bodycount didn't qualify for that particular benchmark.

  • el_pollo_diablo #15 8 months ago

    We have the internet now. There's surely no need for the team to pull their children out of school and move halfway up the country to Birmingham when they can remote work from Guildford.

  • johnson81 #16 8 months ago

    A poor game coming out when major releases are just around the corner. Great business decision Codies. The game was probably rushed with no budget just to get it out of the door and then they close the studio because it wasn't the next COD.

  • Whizzo #17 8 months ago

    It would still have been a crap game no matter when it was released, no-one wants to make a bad game of course but no-one wants to buy one either.

  • Architect_z #18 8 months ago

    Think its time to work on a new Dizzy game. (Anyone remember Dizzy?)

  • cowell #19 8 months ago

    The game didnt really deliver on what was originally suggested either. Probably down the marketing folk, rather than the developer, but promising a spiritual successor to Black and then not delivering it is a no no in my book

  • AtomicBanana Verified Level Designer, Playground Games #20 8 months ago

    Codemasters are in real trouble. A lot of senior staff on the racing teams defected to form playground games, so they aren't very strong in that area either. Between the flop of bodycount and the lacklusture Flashpoint games I'd be pretty nervous in general. I lost my job in the industry of the start of the year so I know what it's like. Good luck to all those involved.

  • gribb #21 8 months ago

    @Atomicbanana

    Did you even play F1 2010 or DiRT 3? Both those titles were excellent and came after Playground Games announced their intentions. Honestly they are one publisher in the world that people don't need to worry about, especially after all the money they get from their Indian investors.

  • Freek #22 8 months ago

    Given the walk outs and rumours of lack of funding, the end result being a game that feels massivly under produced. You can't help but wonder if this wasn't the plan all along.

    Half way through making Bodycount somebody higher up the chain diden't want to do shooters anymore. "lets just get this one out the door with as little money as possible and then close down the studio".

  • Seoh #23 8 months ago

    hey at least they are proposing keeping these people inside the company. Bodycount was a complete miss fire so i don't see an issue with shifting these people onto racing games when these are doing well for codemasters

  • AtomicBanana Verified Level Designer, Playground Games #24 8 months ago

    @gribb - Yeah I did, they were good games. In the case of Dirt though I'd say it was purely an evolutionary thing, and most of the staff that worked on Dirt / Dirt 2 are long gone. Looking to the future I worry about them because they've lost a lot of senior staff, and the Indian investors aren't necessarily a good thing. They will be looking for a return on thier investment in short order, and it means that products are going to be lead by marketing rather then design. This only works for so long . . .

    I'm not saying they are DOOMED, just saying I don't feel it's a given that they can keep going as they are.

  • BonzoBanana #25 8 months ago

    I don't think Bodycount took gameplay into new areas or excelled in any department. I played the demo and it seemed enjoyable enough but Black was state of the art for its time where as Bodycount is substandard for its time.

    I don't understand why british developers are producing such weak uninspired titles. Is it lack of funds or short development time? Bodycount sounds great as a title even in its name they could have done something new like count every body you kill. So as you play it totals how many people you kill and you get a body per minute rating as you play. I don't remember that in the demo so assume it wasn't there, apologies if it was.

    Its annoying as a game player when you see games like Bodycount and you realise you could design better games yourself and you think how do these people get these jobs in the first place they are clearly pretty lazy and not particularly imaginative.

  • Red_Bool #26 8 months ago

    @Architect_z: yes! bring back Dizzy! (but they'll probably turn it into an FPS...)

  • 32768Colours #27 8 months ago

    "As Codemasters looks to take greater leadership in the racing category, the company is proposing a studio structure that adds resource and strengthens our best-in-class racing teams," the company told Eurogamer.

    This is what's wrong with gaming today, every fucking announcement sounds like a god damned sound bite. What do these executives study from at university, a Corporate Bullshit Haynes Manual?

    As long as these risk-averse money men run the show, game announcements will remain as dry and unappealing as a meringue made from cotton wool.

    Okay, Bodycount was a poor game, but to be fair did you even give them a bloody chance? Just how much investment was made in the game to make it good in the first place? Not as much as Dirt 50 or whatever you're planning next, I'll bet.

    Is this how its going to be from now on? Unless everyone who's ever placed a claymore in a certain modern military shooter goes out and buys their game, publishers are just going to shut down the team responsible?

    I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love gaming but the industry can go fuck itself!

  • eviroboy #28 8 months ago

    I'm enjoying Bodycount personally. It's an arcade shooter, nothing more, nothing less. It's frustrating at points but better than a 4/10. People need to back away and stop comparing every shooter to CoD.

  • MerricK #29 8 months ago

    played the demo and am not surprised the studio is facing closure. That game was atrocious.. It's a shame that they lose their job (unless to reapply) but if you dont make money then you cant be in business.....

  • bad09 #30 8 months ago

    So they are focusing on racers, great more half hour of animated menus with 2 mins racing in a brilliant engine! :)

    Sad for the people losing work but another FPS, a rather poor looking one was never gonna work. FPS is so saturated now the mediocre ones or non-sequel ones just aren't being looked at by many gamers anymore. They should have remade BMX Simulator instead.

  • priesty_lfc #31 8 months ago

    Please let the new racing ip be Toca/DTM/V8 based!

    Old school Toca was awesome!! :)

  • skunkfish #32 8 months ago

    I think that there was no T, E, A or M left in this team. I hope they find new positions soon...

  • SAMagic #33 8 months ago

    "This is what's wrong with gaming today, every fucking announcement sounds like a god damned sound bite. What do these executives study from at university, a Corporate Bullshit Haynes Manual?

    I think they have to do it so they look strong to investors and share holders, though I bet such people are used to such rhetoric and see right through it anyway!
    Edited by SAMagic at 14/09/11 @ 13:16

  • nuanimal #34 8 months ago

    You know I remember an article a while ago, which one of the guys from TellTale Games said that they only need to sell 100,000 copies of one of their typical adventure games for it to break-even, where 200,000 would make it greatly profitable.

    That to me a seemed like a better business plan - only invest as much as in the game, as you hope to make back. Instead of betting the farm on making a AAA hit.

    I fell bad for those affected, and wish them well.

  • actionfitz #35 8 months ago

    " In June, Bodycount game director Andrew Wilson went on the record with Eurogamer to deny the rumours.

    Eurogamer has discovered that Andrew Wilson has now moved to Ubisoft Montreal."

    say's it all really.

  • hoster #36 8 months ago

    "proposing to retire"

    Euphemism of the year!

  • Mark1412 #37 8 months ago

    "I don't understand why british developers are producing such weak uninspired titles"

    What, like, LittleBigPlanet, Crackdown and Wipeout? Geometry Wars, Darwinia, Joe Danger, Burnout, Driver: SF and Need for Speed: HP? Rockstar North have had their fingers in some half-decent games over the years too...

    Those are games from the bigger studios that have put out games over the last few years and off the top of my head. There are plenty more. There are a fuck-tonne of indie developers doing great things as well. But yeah, weak and uninspired.
    Edited by Mark1412 at 14/09/11 @ 13:29

  • M4RKYB #38 8 months ago

    Sometimes it is best to not put out a demo showing everyone how generic and boring your game is. They hype train was building up speed quite nicely for Bodycount until the demo landed. It derailed instantly.

  • kosigan #39 8 months ago

    The videogames industry seems to want to be like the movie industry (why, I don't know, when one medium is entirely interactive and the other is entirely non-interactive), when in actuality it's much more like the music industry: if your last release wasn't a hit, you're dropped faster than a bag full of turds. A shame for all those affected, I hope they find something else soon.

  • riz23 #40 8 months ago

    "Staff just told. Pub to focus on racing." should probably now read "Staff to focus on racing to the Pub after being told."

    I have a mate there, with a family. Good luck old friend..

  • Laminator #41 8 months ago

    Bah they should just make a Dizzy FPS, guaranteed success. And if you know what Dizzy is you are too old.

  • spunkythefunkymunkey #42 8 months ago

    Ok bad news out the way, now get them all working on GRID 2 already!

  • Rack #43 8 months ago

    Well if Codemasters were to remake Dizzy it would be a racing game not an FPS based on this report. Done in the Raskulls mould I reckon that could be pretty good. Codemasters, make it happen!

  • jablonski #44 8 months ago

    "staff will be encouraged to apply for suitable positions in the Birmingham studio".

    Actually, I'll go on the dole and slide into depression and drugs if it's all the same to you

  • metalangel #45 8 months ago

    @Mark1412: NFS: HP was inspired??

  • rojjer #46 8 months ago

    quite a few disgruntled (ex)codies on here I see - and rightly so (disgruntled)

  • Paul_cz #47 8 months ago

    Finally. Codemasters are utter shit when it comes to anything other than racing games.

    OFP Dragon Rising - shit.
    OFP Red River - shit.
    Bodycount - shit.

    GRID - awesome.
    DIRT - awesome.
    F1 - almost awesome.

  • Stagga #48 8 months ago

    @BoboBonanza

    "Its annoying as a game player when you see games like Bodycount and you realise you could design better games yourself and you think how do these people get these jobs in the first place they are clearly pretty lazy and not particularly imaginative."

    Actually most of these people are very hard working (as in they'll do months of unpaid overtime) and have plenty of good original ideas, only to have those ideas shot down by execs and producers who want to make a clone of the latest big thing.

  • Mark1412 #49 8 months ago

    @metalangel - the social network built into it certainly was.

    He/she also said weak, which NFS:HP is far from.
    Edited by Mark1412 at 14/09/11 @ 14:33

  • JimWest #50 8 months ago

    @Stagga

    Good point. It always bothers me when people who aren't fully aware of how the industry works claim they can do a better job. Many game designers, programmers, coders, junior producers & QA have some great ideas for the games, however, they are often overlooked, ignored or just shot down by execs. Quite often these execs, don't touch these games and just spout ideas into what they want, ignoring what will work in the game.I fear BodyCount was another example of the higher uppers, looking at the success of games like COD, and thinking they can cash in on that market, without making sure the game has some identity of its own.

    In the end it looks like someone decided they just wanting to cut the studios losses on this game with many 'Will Not Fix' bugs left in the game.

  • Murton #51 8 months ago

    Bad news for the Guildford guys, I had the pleasure of seeing some concept art and early tech demo vids (pre-announcement stuff) and it looked really promising, there seemed to be some sort of creative shift away from what it started as, a sort of successor to Black and towards a score based arcade shooter a'la Club/Bulletstorm, sadly it lacked the character of either of those titles.

  • metalangel #52 8 months ago

    @Mark1412: Respectfully disagree. Autolog is just online leaderboards that nag you, while the game itself was very thin and there wasn't anything it did that couldn't be found in a better form in another game.

  • jaywalker3010 Verified Mastering Manager, Square Enix #53 8 months ago

    @Architect_z #17

    Worked there back in the Dizzy days :)

    Tis always a major shame when studios close :( dont know how many other industries have such loss of staff in such frequencies (in an industry thats NOT in decline)

  • UKGN_Zoidberg #54 8 months ago

    Shame, Bodycount was the second most fun I've had playing an FPS all year. The first was Bulletstorm.

  • Mark1412 #55 8 months ago

    @metalangel: Fair enough! Still, there's plenty of good games coming out of GB, even if Bodycount isn't one of them.

  • kinky_mong #56 8 months ago

    @Mark1412: You forgot Arkham Asylum, Blur and the PGR games as well. Shame Bizarre are no more though.
    Edited by kinky_mong at 14/09/11 @ 15:03

  • Moskau #57 8 months ago

    Race to the pub eh? too right. Served em all this morning, alot of sad faces. Turn up to work, following rumours yesterday about the closure. To be invited to a meeting, and then told yeah... the game sucked, sorry guy's. Office is closed.

    A lot of honesty amongst them all, a few agreed the game could of been better, but senior management wanted the development rushed. Small studio, big title. (Black sequel for all its worth) and bad management. Sucks. The guys didn't exactly praise their bosses... haha. Who does tho!?

    Good guys, especially Steve.

  • metalangel #58 8 months ago

    @Mark1412: Yup. Unfortunately, too many are getting in bed with big publishers and being ordered to churn out lackluster games, which is in too many cases leading to them being closed when said titles fail to meet unrealistic sales targets.

    It's a shame because Britain earned a good reputation for games development and it's eroding. Look at what's become of Lionhead and Rare, or what David Braben has to do to pay the bills.

  • AtomicBanana Verified Level Designer, Playground Games #59 8 months ago

    Braben only has to do Kinectimals/Disney because he pissed away millions on the Outsider / Elite 4. Each of these could've been released several times over if he'd let the team get on with it instead of saying 'no, that's not what I was thinking, start again'.

  • Negotiator1 #60 8 months ago

    Good move, Bodycount is complete and utter shit and the team who made it would be better off doing something else, like cleaning toilets.

  • zegerman1942 #61 8 months ago

    @Moskau: 2.5 years is not really what i call rushed development. And the game looked the same a year before launch (the demo level was the same level that was shown at E3 a year before, and only included some more props).

    There were a lot of good guys in the studio, unfortunately some of the "good" (read "nice";) guys should never have been in the position they were in though. There were also a lot of very capable guys in the studio, which unfortunately nobody listened to.

  • Moskau #62 8 months ago

    Ahh, I wasn't aware of the 32month development cycle... Still, from what the guys I've spoken too have said. It wasn't the slickest operation. How much bias is in that, I don't know. But a lot of them didn't deserve to be laid off in such a way.

    On another topic tho, I sure did let them know about my feelings on the Dirt/Grid series of games. Bring back TOCA and Colin Mcrae!!! A lot agreed, most didn't. Apparently Worldwide sales mean more then European sales... :/

    Still, I have Criterion/EA and Little Big Planets developers to talk too. Yey for me! Few more free pints misplaced (hahaha) and I'll have me a free copy of Need For Speed The Run!

  • MrChuckles #63 8 months ago

    I remember working for Bolton at a previous company, he was bloody awful...

    Hoped after he left that the team might come out with some good stuff.. I guess the damage was already done...

  • Pastici #64 8 months ago

    Do Codies own the Dizzy IP? I'd buy an HD bundle for 3-4 Dizzy games on XBLA. How well did Clover sell?

  • zegerman1942 #65 8 months ago

    @Moskau: not many people deserve to be laid off in that way to be honest with you.

    the sad thing: those who worked their arse off and got the boot will have to work hard to find a new job. those ultimately responsible for it either already have new jobs, or will land on their feet very quickly. they always do.

  • BonzoBanana #66 8 months ago

    @Mark1412

    Fully aware there are plenty of great british developers still about but in recent times it seems like quite a few developers have knocked out substandard titles and basically just self-destructed. In these difficult times you expect people to put more effort in to secure their jobs.

  • JimWest #67 8 months ago

    @Pastici

    If I remember correctly, The Dizzy license is owned by about 3 different companies, sadly it would take all of them to be in agreement to release it all. Unfortunately a lot of politicking and willy waving means it probably won't happen anytime soon.

  • ejstyles #68 8 months ago

    Sad outcome. Was excited when I thought this might be Black 2 in all but name, people forget the original was some decent modern warfare before Modern Warfare...especially at a time when it was all about space marines and alien weaponry. He sounded pretty jazzed about it too. Then Stuart Black left and it all became very weird and not good. At all.

  • Sir_STRESSHEaD #69 8 months ago

    @eviro Who's comparing Bodycount to Call of Duty? I'm not. Bodycount whichever way you look at it felt extremely dated and didn't even come close to todays expected standards.

    Whilst I am a big fan of te FPS genre it's no revelation that the FPS is in need of an adrenaline shot. Bodycount may as well have been on a come down!

  • Doctor_What #70 8 months ago

    @Stagga: spot on. I've seen this first hand far too many times. In fairness, I've also seen a few rare execs make some bloody good (but at the time very unpopular) choices for games too. Those guys are difficult to find and need a lot of character to get past the abuse they receive, but they can really make a game. Sadly, every exec that reads this will probably think I'm describing them when these good execs are very few and far between.

    I'd like to see the day when lead designers are allowed to design the game and execs handle the money/staff/publicity rather than dominating the design process with ideas ripped from last week's top seller. I think it could be a while before that happens.

  • silversun #71 8 months ago

    that sucks , there quiet a few video game makers in guildford and around that area , it a shame they cant keep it open but change focus on what they make there.
    i dont work in the industry but imagine some will probley transfer over but not everyone will want up and leave.

  • silversun #72 8 months ago

    "Think its time to work on a new Dizzy game. (Anyone remember Dizzy?)"

    They need the oliver twins back for it , they went formed blitz games but not sure if doing anything now.
    The games from my childhood : (

    "@Architect_z: yes! bring back Dizzy! (but they'll probably turn it into an FPS...) "
    LOL

    Forget Mario kart we need Dizzy kart
    Edited by silversun at 14/09/11 @ 19:47

  • Phishfood #73 8 months ago

    another month another studio shut down

  • kongzi #74 8 months ago

    I suspect they were proposing this for some time... which is why they forced them to rush bodycount out the door before fall in the first place. So the guildford guys were set up to fail. Sucks for them, hope they find work where their skills are actually wanted.

  • Collymilad #75 8 months ago

    I'm sorry these guys are going to be losing their jobs.

    However, Bodycount was a terrible, terrible game.

  • Oskool #76 8 months ago

    I couldn't stand the controls. They were so sluggish and unresponsive on Xbox. Aiming was so painfully slow and sluggish. I can see why this game flopped on the controls point alone.

    Sadly, quite a few developer get this wrong. It's how users interact with the game. If that interface is gimped, then everything else in the game is gimped as well.

  • jimjiber #77 8 months ago

    It is such a shit industry that obviously needs regulation.

    Standard practice seems to be to sack everyone after they have just crunched to get a game out the door. Then you are left with a core of four or five seniors who do the fun bit and come up with concepts for the next game. When you are ready to go into production, start hiring drones, ramping up the numbers until the game is out the door.

    Fire, rinse, repeat.

    Cunts.