Bohemia slams OpFlash 2 marketing Comments by Tom Bramwell

I wondered why Arma felt like the sequel to OF, I just never looked into it. So they've got a Championship Manager situation going on? That seemed to go well, most of the people who played it understood Football Manager was the real new game and went for that instead - I'm sure all the real OF fans will realise.

Too bad Arma was shit.

I can understand why they're a little angry, but it's still somewhat petty of them to attack Codemasters. Some publishers are going to be a little wary of signing them in the future.

Good on the developers, it does seem like a bit of false advertising from Codemasters to be fair. It's essentially like if you made your own version of a cola soft drink and just called it Coca Cola, you're using your own ingredients but effectively knicking an established name to help sell it. To me it feels pretty wrong, even if they own the name, to be claiming it's the official sequel when every aspect of the game is not from any of the same group who made the first... Codies should just not have mentioned being an official sequel and no problems, they own the name and that's that.

Codemasters were once nice good guys who made awesome games like Micro Machines (still campaigning for XBLA release of the 16 bit era games!), but in recent years clearly the big money men have been more involved, hence turds like Grid etcetera :p (Sorry, proper sim fan here and their recent racing games have been dire for a sim fan even though everyone else thinks they are amazing.)

I can understand why they're a little angry, but it's still somewhat petty of them to attack Codemasters.

After the article here on EG, in which one guy of CM claimed to have been of the original team, which allegedly isn't true, I can understand they're pissed off.

I can understand Bohemia being pissed but surely they should let ARMA I & II do the talking. I haven't played either but I know they didn't live up to OPF1. On the flip side Codemasters have a big name to live up to and by mentioning all these similarites surely they're putting more pressure on themselves.

@citizenHUNTER
Good on the developers, it does seem like a bit of false advertising from Codemasters to be fair. It's essentially like if you made your own version of a cola soft drink and just called it Coca Cola, you're using your own ingredients but effectively knicking an established name to help sell it. To me it feels pretty wrong, even if they own the name, to be claiming it's the official sequel when every aspect of the game is not from any of the same group who made the first... Codies should just not have mentioned being an official sequel and no problems, they own the name and that's that.

It all hinges on the definition of an "official sequel". I dare say Codemasters (and their lawyers) feel they have the right to produce the official sequel to Op Flashpoint as they're the ones who own the brand name and so are the ones who define what's official or not when it comes to that brand name. Bohemia cannot produce an official sequel to the game as they sold the rights to the name; they can produce similar games but they're unofficial sequels to Op Flashpoint. This is the way things go, for them to get so irritated about this is a bit much. They sold the brand, they really don't have any say in what Codemasters does with it and should move on.

To use your analogy it's like if you bought and owned the Coca-Cola brand name and brought out your own version calling it the official sequel to Coke and then the original manufacturers (who sold you the name, btw) were getting snippy and claiming that they're the only people who can bring out a new Coke.

I liked Op Flash (despite its problems) and I'm looking forward to Op Flash 2. I'll be brutally honest and say that I don't give a shit about whether or not Bohemia is developing it or who did or didn't work on the original game: Op Flash 2, the official sequel (until proven otherwise), looks awesome and if they can improve on the "simulator" feel of the original then I'll be picking it up.

Codebastards arrogance strikes again. It's one thing for a publisher to take credit for a current project, but to lie about the extent of your involvement in a previous project which you are now all but trying to take the credit for...

We saw similar situation with the Far Cry "sequel", and despite the mutants in the first one, it was also much better game, than the second.
Maybe we will now see at last, that despite another development team, there will be a really good game. One can always hope...
I liked OPF immensely, and would like, that at least one of the two, Codemasters or Bohemia Interactive, makes something, which will be at least nearly so good, as OPF was.
On the subject, though, I really dislike this art of name exploiting, even when i think, that original sin lies at both of them. They together made the contract. But on the other hand, I'm totally aware, that at the time there was big Codemasters dictating the terms, and not so big Bohemia Interactive, with a excellent game, which they wanted to publish. Now, when they are more known, they (Bohemia Interactive) are maybe expressing their discontent anew, but it is too late.
And maybe ArmA wasn't as good as OPF, because it was not backed with enough money of some bigger publisher. It seems, that with this conflict nobody is winning, for now, and that there can be two mediocre or bad games because of it.
At least Crytek is continuing to make good games...

@UncleLou
I can understand why they're a little angry, but it's still somewhat petty of them to attack Codemasters.

After the article here on EG, in which one guy of CM claimed to have been of the original team, which allegedly isn't true, I can understand they're pissed off.

You need a few more "allegedly"s in there, I think. ;)

Did he actually claim to be a part of the original team? We don't know the precise details of what was said there and how, it may have been a blatant and deliberate attempt to mislead (which I very much doubt), it may all have been a miscommunication between Codemasters and EG or it may have been a simple misunderstanding on EGs part. If I had to bet I'd go for miscommunication.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/operat...

Clarification (23/02/09): In response to feedback, we have clarified Clive Lindop's position and confirmed he was not part of the original Operation Flashpoint development team. We've updated the article and regret the error.

I do feel sorry them but maybe developers shouldn't let publishers own the names of their games.

Bohemia should worry about their own game and stop knicker twisting over the codemaster's language snafoos. If ArmA2 out Metacritic's OpFlash 2 then gamers won't care where the game comes from.

ArmA was the most unprofessional unoptimised game I've ever played so I should instruct my laywers to extract the price I paid from them!

Increased publicity helps both titles I suppose, if they want to play games in the press they can go right ahead.

Its ok . I just picked up Boheimia's teddy bear up from the corner .

Codemasters own the name so they should be able to name it Operation Flashpoint 2 if they want. But calling it a sequel to a game they don't own and didn't make? Isn't that the same as if I made a movie and called it an official part of the Star Wars franchise, just without the name "Star Wars" in it?

I dunno. You could read this anyway you want. They own the name Operation Flashpoint. Therefore they are the only ones that can make an Operation Flashpoint 2. That's all a sequel is, the first game, with an incremental number tagged on to the end. The only people who can officially release a sequel to Operation Flashpoint are codemasters, they own the name. If anything ARMA and ARMAII are spritual successors to the original Operation Flashpoint, but clearly, they don't own the name, they can't call it an official sequel. Surely this is common in the game industry, with the publisher often owning the name. There'll be a sequel to PGR4, but PGR5 that sequel, won't be developed by the original developer. Have all the NFS games been developed by the same developer. What about COD? Deus Ex? Etc.

It's a sequel in name, game design, and no doubt in polish. It's not by the same developer, nor the same game engine. So what?

Using the movie analogys, whilst I'd agree that Terminator 3 was a best forgotten piece of crap, there's no denying that it was still a sequel to terminator 2, despite the fact the writing and directing were by a different team. Terminator 4 may turn out to be a true sequel in the eyes of the fans, but still, 4 sequel to 3 sequel to 2, sequel to 1, regardless of who was at the helm.

It's codies name, codies game. Who they ask to develop it bears no real relevance on whether or not it is a sequel. It might be crap, who knows. But this whole thing smells of pettiness, and desperation, especially during the recession, as if this cash struck company is hoping to win some damages.

@Transcendent
Codemasters own the name so they should be able to name it Operation Flashpoint 2 if they want. But calling it a sequel to a game they don't own and didn't make? Isn't that the same as if I made a movie and called it an official part of the Star Wars franchise, just without the name "Star Wars" in it?

Again, as they own the rights to the name it's the same as if you made a movie and called it an official part of the Star Wars franchise, with the name "Star Wars" because you own that name.