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The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer and former publisher based in Southam. It is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts and managed under the EA Sports division. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in October 1986, Codemasters is one of the oldest British game studios, and in 2005 was named the best independent video game developer by magazine Develop. It formerly also published third-party games.
Codemasters Group Holdings plc was the holding company of Codemasters, which was publicly traded and owned Codemasters until being purchased by EA in 2021 for $1.2 billion.
The Darling brothers later returned to England, where they acquired their own VIC-20 and founded Galactic Software, again with the help of Heibert. An advertisement placed in the magazine Popular Computing Weekly caught the attention of Mastertronic, a British software publisher, and the two brothers quit their education to pursue development of budget-priced games for the company. These games included Space Walk, BMX Racers, Jungle Story, Orbitron, Sub Hunt and Pigs in Space. They also developed The Games Creator, a game-making tool that would later be sold commercially. The Darling brothers found success in making these games, gaining by the time they were 16 and 17 respectively. In 1985, the two owned a 50% stake in Mastertronic, which they proceeded to sell in March 1986 when they decided to become independent. By October 1986, the Darling brothers, with help from their father, had founded Codemasters (then called Code Masters). They initially worked out of the Beaumont Business Centre in Banbury, where their elder sister Abigail managed the front desk.
Codemasters' first game was BMX Simulator, a successor to BMX Racers. According to David Darling, the company aimed at making budget-priced games with the quality of full-priced games, as they would gain a larger customer base that would subsequently create better exposure. To produce more games in less time, Codemasters started hiring developers on a freelance basis. Products developed using this strategy include G-Man and Danger Zone by Mike Clark, Terra Cognita by Stephen Curtis, Super Robin Hood and Ghost Hunters by the Oliver Twins, Super Stuntman by Peter Williamson, Lazer Force by Gavin Raeburn, and ATV Simulator by Timothy R. Miller. By April 1987, Codemasters started seeking programmers that would create Porting of Codemasters' games in exchange for four-digit sums, via placements in Popular Computing Weekly.
Codemasters is notable for making the large majority of games published by Camerica, which bypassed Nintendo's lock-out chip by it and produced unlicensed NES games. These NES games were known for being shiny gold and silver ROM cartridge. Many Codemasters titles were also featured on Camerica's Aladdin Deck Enhancer.
In 1990, Codemasters developed a device called the Game Genie, which came out of the lockout bypass work to play unlicensed games. It was a cheat cartridge for the NES, released in the US by Galoob and in Canada and the United Kingdom by Camerica. In the case Galoob v. Nintendo, the courts concluded Game Genie did not violate Nintendo's copyright because it qualified as fair use under the law.
In an effort to establish themselves in the United States, they announced that they would launch a new development studio in Oakhurst, using offices that were abandoned by Sierra On-Line and hiring much of Yosemite Entertainment's laid off staff in mid-September 1999.
Codemasters have since continued to release titles for later generation systems, such as the Brian Lara Cricket series, Colin McRae Rally and Dirt series, Dizzy series, F1 series, Grid series, LMA Manager series, Micro Machines series, Operation Flashpoint series, Overlord series, Project CARS series and TOCA series. They owned the rights to use the title (2011), but have parted with the original developer Bohemia Interactive Studio. In spite of this, Codemasters released , developed by Bohemia, for Xbox in October 2005. The year 2005 also saw the appointment of Rod Cousens, formerly of Acclaim, as managing director.
In December 2006, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment entered into a game distribution agreement with Codemasters to distribute the company's titles in North America. Also in April, Codemasters launched the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, in Europe on behalf of Turbine. In June, Codemasters were purchased by equity group Balderton Capital and they changed their logo to an interlocked metallic C and M. Later that month they released the latest in the Colin McRae Rally series, . They also published Overlord and Clive Barker's Jericho. Following the death of Colin McRae on 15 September 2007, Codemasters released a public statement expressing their sorrow and support for the family.
In March 2008, Codemasters announced a new partnership with Majesco Entertainment which would focus on titles for Nintendo DS and Wii, including Nanostray 2, Toy Shop, Cake Mania 2 and Nancy Drew: The Mystery of the Clue Bender Society for DS, and Wild Earth: African Safari, Our House and Cake Mania for Wii. In May, it was announced that Codemasters had won the rights to the Formula One licence after Sony's deal ran out and thus ending Psygnosis and Sony's Formula One series. The first resulting game, F1 2009, was released on the Wii and PlayStation Portable in November 2009, and another similar game, F1 2010, on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in 2010.
On 8 April 2008, Sega announced the closure of Sega Racing Studio. The studio's only release had been Sega Rally Revo, which was greeted with fairly positive reviews but poor sales figures. At a later time Sega announced none of the employees were folded into internal studios. On 25 April 2008, Codemasters bought Sega Racing Studio. The studio was headed by Guy Wilday, who was involved in the Colin McRae Rally games and was formerly the series producer.
In the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours, the Darlings were appointed Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the video game industry.
In May 2011, Codemasters signed a North American distribution deal with THQ. In March 2012, Codemasters renewed its American distribution deal with Warner Bros.
On 3 June 2011, the Codemasters.com website was breached. It is believed that the attacker was able to gain access to the personal information of registered users with Codemasters accounts. Codemasters notified its users about the attack via email on 10 June 2011, after which their websites were pulled down and users redirected to their Facebook page.
In mid-2012, it was announced that Codemasters' racing games, whether about to be produced or developed, would begin to be branded under the "Codemasters Racing" label. and F1 2012 were the first racing titles to receive the new label name. The label was discontinued in 2016, as Codemasters' subsequent racing games, Dirt Rally and F1 2016 are branded with the regular Codemasters logo.
On 9 June 2013, Reliance Entertainment increased its stake in Codemasters from 50% to 60.41%, making it the majority owner.
In April 2015 Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens left to join Jagex, leaving COO Frank Sagnier as the new temporary CEO. In April 2016, Codemasters announced that they had hired most of the staff of racing game developer Evolution Studios after Sony closed the company.
The first Codemasters title for eighth generation consoles was F1 2015, launched in July 2015. In October 2015 they released , their first non-racing game since 2011.
After the disappointing sales of Onrush, several members of the Codemasters EVO development division were made redundant and the division was shifted to a support role for other titles.
Codemasters held an initial public offering to list the company on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market on 1 June 2018. The company's shares were valued at 260 pence during trading bringing in a total of . As a result of the IPO, Reliance Entertainment held a 29.5% stake in Codemasters.
Through placings in June and November 2019, Codemasters welcomed new institutional shareholders to the register whilst providing Reliance with a highly satisfactory exit and thus ending their nine-year relationship with them.
Codemasters acquired Slightly Mad Studios, the developers of the Project CARS titles, in November 2019 for about . The acquisition brought the total staff at Codemasters to about 700 people.
The studio acquired the exclusive license to the World Rally Championship series in June 2020 which will begin as a five-year deal in 2023, with plans to release their first game in 2024.
In May 2022, EA merged Codemasters subsidiary Codemasters Cheshire into Criterion Games, an existing subsidiary of EA, as to support effort on the Need for Speed series as the two companies were already working together on a new title in the series together for months, then later that year in October, announcing a new title called Need for Speed Unbound, which was released on 2 December 2022.
In December 2023, an unknown number of employees at Codemasters were laid off by EA.
In May 2025, it was announced that Codemasters had stopped development on its WRC titles. More people were laid off as well, while an unspecified amount of other employees would move to work on other EA Sports properties.
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