Codemasters Suffers Layoffs Ahead Of Christmas

HordSS420 said:

Forza already runs like ****, Why would you want them to use an game engine that has a massive history of being unoptimized garbage

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So it wouldn't run and look like one, but like ACC or at least WRC instead.
At the moment WRC and FM are about at the same optimization level as far as fps goes, but WRC just kills FM in visual department. And of course ACC is the best looking and the most optimized of them, clocking almost 50% more fps than the other two. But it took some time for Kunos to get it there, hopefully Codemaster will continue optimizing WRC to get there as well, but even right now with just Reflection on Low and everything else maxed out it's already perfectly playable at 70-80fps on mid-range hardware.

It looks like with modern requirements for visual fidelity smaller studio just cannot afford developing in house graphics engine that can keep up with constantly raising standards for image quality and realism. And there is not a lot of 3rd party universal engines you can repurpose to run your content, UE and Unity are probably the two most common/known.

So whether you like it or not, it looks like we are entering the era of UE based sim racing titles.
Below is non exhaustive list of just recently released or still in development racing titles based on UE:
- ACC
- KartKraft
- EA WRC
- RennSport
- GTRevival
- Trail Out
- Nano Racing
- Dakar Desert Rally
- F1 Manager 2022
- NASCAR 21 Ignition
- MotoGP 22
- SBK 22
- RIDE 4
- Gravel

Interesting that while Codemastes own Madness Engine license, they opted for UE and Ian Bell also abandoned own creation in GTRevival.
And R3E team has been looking long and hard at moving content to UE as well, still looking though.

Hopes are running high that Kunos will be able to pull the trick with creating something of their own, but we need to see how well that pans out. All these talks "we are technology providers" are just empty posturing if you cannot deliver modern looking competitive product that can pay salary to employees and keep company afloat.
Hopefully we will have our answer this summer.

EDIT:
Speaking of Gravel, funny in game moment captured.

Andrew_WOT said:

So it wouldn't run and look like one, but like ACC or at least WRC instead.
At the moment WRC and FM are about at the same optimization level as far as fps goes, but WRC just kills FM in visual department. And of course ACC is the best looking and the most optimized of them, clocking almost 50% more fps than the other two. But it took some time for Kunos to get it there, hopefully Codemaster will continue optimizing WRC to get there as well, but even right now with just Reflection on Low and everything else maxed out it's already perfectly playable at 70-80fps on mid-range hardware.

It looks like with modern requirements for visual fidelity smaller studio just cannot afford developing in house graphics engine that can keep up with constantly raising standards for image quality and realism. And there is not a lot of 3rd party universal engines you can repurpose to run your content, UE and Unity are probably the two most common/known.

So whether you like it or not, it looks like we are entering the era of UE based sim racing titles.
Below is non exhaustive list of just recently released or still in development racing titles based on UE:
- ACC
- KartKraft
- EA WRC
- RennSport
- GTRevival
- Trail Out
- Nano Racing
- Dakar Desert Rally
- F1 Manager 2022
- NASCAR 21 Ignition
- MotoGP 22
- SBK 22
- RIDE 4
- Gravel

Interesting that while Codemastes own Madness Engine license, they opted for UE and Ian Bell also abandoned own creation in GTRevival.
And R3E team has been looking long and hard at moving content to UE as well, still looking though.

Hopes are running high that Kunos will be able to pull the trick with creating something of their own, but we need to see how well that pans out. All these talks "we are technology providers" are just empty posturing if you cannot deliver modern looking competitive product that can pay salary to employees and keep company afloat.
Hopefully we will have our answer this summer.

EDIT:
Speaking of Gravel, funny in game moment captured.

Click to expand...

Ian bell isn't using the madness engine cause EA literally owns the engine now. He refuses to pay EA any kind of royalty with how much they have f-u-c-k-e-d him over ever since he made the NFS Shift games.

I bet if EA didn't own that engine he'd still use it as it does everything UE does better. It's very obvious we are entering an awful UE era, It's a simple engine to build a game out of. Even i know that, It's not hard to have a working game prototype working in less than a day. with how much info and tools exists for that turd of an engine.

It's still a s-h-i-t game engine, And it's so called "graphical" fidelity has literally got it's own name now, Its' called Unreal Syndrome. As almost 80% of the games made on that turd engine looks the same.

We are entering an era of gaming where creativity is being replaced by "Pump out this game in 1 year and get fired by xmas" and it would not surprise me if all games are going to start looking the same.

Sega has already proven that with the Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio games that were recently announced where they literally look the same, Only differenced being that they are using an cell shader on JSR.

Terrible era for gaming. Thank god i can still play older games.

Unreal is just a tool, very sophisticated one that requires skills like anything else to master.
As for looking the same. Borderlands looks nothing like Gears of War, yet both are Unreal, but you already knew that, right?
AC engine was coded by one person, it was gorgeous looking by 2016 standards. Would anyone want to play game with such graphics today, I am not quite sure, but graphics definitely is not going to be its selling point.
It's not an easy job even for larger studios to develop and maintain up to date in house engine to keep up with the increasingly demanding market.
Look at Forza, T10 backed by all MS money cannot keep Forzatech engine up to modern standards, it looks just like 5 year old game, even worse than its predecessor.

Andrew_WOT said:

Codemaster will continue optimizing WRC to get there as well, but even right now with just Reflection on Low and everything else maxed out it's already perfectly playable at 70-80fps on mid-range hardware.

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If it is the case, and I don't say it isn't, this massive bashing about the game is not justified, as well as the ridiculous UE (without version obviously, because UE1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are all the same) obsession. Well, it seems EA WRC bashing is not the final aim, the target being an other engine than the already outdated engine (for around a year and a half) used in that game. Tortured minds...

Andrew_WOT said:

Interesting that while Codemastes own Madness Engine license, they opted for UE and Ian Bell also abandoned own creation in GTRevival.

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I was expecting CM to make that move but, considering the new technologies which were announced for UE5, it made sense to start using UE4 as a first step. We don't know who is able to properly use the madness engine it would make CM fully dependent on these people. And it's already the case for the Onrush engine used only by the substudio which created it. The Ego engine is a in house engine. With these 3 engines, CM is fully dependent of permanent key people. For a reason or another some of them (maybe even one) quit his position and it's game over instantly. And with the agreements with F1 and WRC, it could end as it ended for MSG and Indycar. Just for graphics it would be insane. Switching these main IPs to UE4 is just buying an ensurance. CM will always be able to replace key people if needed, or to pay contractors in specific situations. Anf it goes positively in the other way : these employees specialized on the Ego engine are taking more and more risks bybqticking with an in house engine no other company uses. They need to become competent to a gzneric engine to be able to be fully operational for a new jobs. Something that no one think about when constantly bashing the Unreal engines is how these technologies have heavily entered the entertainment industries. Being fully competent in these engines is mandatory for a career, and it won't change before many years to come, the competition is just too far behind. It is like Microsoft Windows. Yes you can still state it's xxxxx (put your favorite insult there) but go find a job in an office stating you don't know how to use this OS. It's pretty suicidal (and I've seen in the last 4 or 5 years many young new workers not knowing how to use a computer because they've just been using their phones for many years ; a major issue when you expect them to use a computer all day long).

Codemasters switching to UE4 is a clever and responsible move towards the company and its employees. For sure, in general developpers have to learn several engines but someone who has been working more than 10 years on the ego engine, even if as a hobby he learnes UE tools, won't sell himself on the employment market as well as a 10 years experienced developper who has used UE3, 4 and now 5. It is quiet easy to understand. The same with the madness engine, with any proprietary engine.

That's why we need to enter that UE5 era as you rightly stated. The 4 was already a standard technology in the entertainment industry (including animation and movies), the 5 will go much further.

Andrew_WOT said:

Speaking of Gravel, funny in game moment captured.

Click to expand...

That's absolutely insane I never experienced that in Gravel. That's what we can litterally call "f...g cars"!!!

HordSS420 said:

Ian bell isn't using the madness engine cause EA literally owns the engine now.

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And maybe ot is just useless tobuse it just for the graphics. Maybe the original team competent in that engine is still at CM. Why w1sting money to teach a marginal engine to developpers when they can be operationnal on UE5 and expect them.to learn the new unique technologies which are going tonbe game changers, technologies you won't ever get in this marginal engine. And why competent developpers who look towards the future would want to work on an outdated engine nobldy uses? The madness engine is a good choice if you take the whole package, like Reiza did. And another point is how constant the bashing against the madness engine has been fornmany years. Even using it only for graphics would bring the same discussions. In terms of marketing, and for that Ian Bell is competent, just having the words madness engine somewhere in a game is a bad move. Considering many people there on RD still think graphic engine and physics engine are the same or linked in a way or another, after years of explanations in many topics, and for more than one year have been making the confusion between UE4 1nd UE5, there is no way the words "madness engine" can be associated in any way to a new project, this would be counterproductive.

What is surpinsing though is that it seems small teams, working at best on AA games, have been more able to make flawless experiences graphically with UE4 than the big players. And somenhave already released UE5 games, only after a bit more than one year after the engine was launched, in a technical acceptable aspect (Robocop, Overpass 2). At the same time EA WRC comes under UE4 in a bad state. We should not search the issues into the graphical engine but into the organization which made EA to take so much delay against small players. EA WRC visually is just a 5 years old good looking UE4 game and technically not even on par with small 5 years old UE4 games. And as a 5 years old game it should run flawlessly on GC from the GTX 10xx generation and with few concessions on the previous GC generation.

I would put that on the permanent staff having to learn to use the engine while having to deliver a full game at the same time, which made this situation predictable. I hope I'm right thinking it is just a difficult transition phase, and I'll pass until the first WRC game under UE5. This game, for zuchva company is unacceptable.

But I still think these big organisations should look at the smaller units which are able to get better results to learn something. It is not EA or the video gaming industry, it is something we see a lot in other businesses, big organisations, losing their view, not focusing on what matters or intoxicated by a few individuals (which is usual in big organisations).

Great post.