In November 1986 Sinclair User reported that David and Richard Darling, “authors of Mastertronic’s top-selling Last V8 and Master of Magic”, had set up on their own. With their father Jim, who until the end of the previous year had run AI Products, “Mastertronic’s leading software originator”, they launched a budget label called Code Masters. The brothers had sold over a million games for Mastertronic, and their games would cost £1.99. Jim Darling hoped the new label would take at least 10% of budget sales by Christmas.
A year later CRASH ran a news story headed “Is Code Masters getting it right?” It said that no software house was “quite as noisily blatant in its self-promotion”, and that the company’s two bosses, then aged 20 and 21, had been written up everywhere from the Financial Times to Media Week. Code Masters claimed to be the biggest-selling software house in Britain, and said it had doubled its share of the budget market, from 6.3% to 12.8%, between August and October 1987.
Fast facts
- Founders: Richard and David Darling, with their father Jim Darling.
- Registered: 6 August 1986 as Electric Games Company Limited; renamed Codemasters Software Company Limited on 18 September 1986.
- Price: £1.99 a cassette, with a £4.99 Code Masters Plus range from late 1987.
- Address in 1990: Lower Farmhouse, Stoneythorpe, Southam, Warwickshire.
- Best-known 8-bit games: the Simulator series and the Oliver twins’ Dizzy.
- Hardware: the Game Genie cheat cartridge, sold in the United States by Galoob.
- Acquired by: Electronic Arts, in February 2021.
From Mastertronic to Code Masters
The brothers began young. Commodore Computing International reported in December 1984 that more than half of Mastertronic’s first 30 titles came from their company, Galactic, and that Galactic and Mastertronic had formed a joint company, AI Products, in which Richard, then 16, attended the board meetings. Their Chiller was one of Mastertronic’s biggest early sellers. Looking back in Retro Gamer in 2004, David Darling said that before Mastertronic they had sold their games for the Commodore VIC-20, Dragon 32 and BBC Micro by mail order, through small advertisements in Popular Computing Weekly.
Code Masters was, in Sinclair User’s words two months after the launch, “the new budget team which has just spun off from Mastertronic”. The company had been registered that August as Electric Games Company Limited and took its new name in September. CRASH previewed Phantomas in November 1986 as “one of the four £1.99 cheapies” the “newly-formed” company was about to release for the Spectrum, and ZZAP!64 reviewed BMX Simulator on the Commodore 64 in December. In 2004 Retro Gamer called BMX Simulator the company’s first release.
The Simulator name, and selling it
BMX Simulator gave the company its formula. Grand Prix Simulator, Professional Ski Simulator, ATV Simulator, Fruit Machine Simulator and many others followed. The word “simulator”, marketing man Bruce Everiss told CRASH in 1987, was “a good addition to a title which helps it sell”.
Code Masters sold hard, and it sold the Darlings as well as the games. CRASH printed a publicity photograph of the brothers under the caption “much-hyped by pictures like this”, and in 1988 Amstrad Action gave away Code Masters T-shirts “as worn by David Darling on TV”, on No. 73 and Get Fresh. In November 1989 ACE noticed that the inlay of one new game carried a testimonial calling it “probably the most realistic” game ever. The testimonial was credited to “one David Darling”, a director of Code Masters.
What the reviews said, and what the charts said
The reviews were mixed. CRASH’s index of every Spectrum game it had reviewed, printed at Christmas 1987, gives these scores:
| Game | CRASH score | Issue |
|---|---|---|
| Professional Ski Simulator | 79% | 46 |
| Dizzy | 78% | 46 |
| Ghost Hunters | 77% | 41 |
| BMX Simulator | 63% | 37 |
| Super Robin Hood | 52% | 41 |
| Grand Prix Simulator | 42% | 45 |
| Brainache | 29% | 40 |
| White Heat | 17% | — |
CRASH’s news story was blunt about it: Code Masters had “a reputation for £1.99 games worth that at most. They’re nice little earners, mind you; nearly all make the top-ten sales charts”. It thought Professional Ski Simulator and Dizzy, both “high 70s in CRASH”, showed the company “aiming in a new direction — up”.
The rest of the industry had noticed too. In March 1988 ACE surveyed the software houses. Herbert Wright of Logotron told it that “if you haven’t got a licence 8-bit is dead. Unless you’re budget, of course.” In the same feature ACE reported that Mikro-Gen had disappeared when the distributor CSD went bust, and that Virgin had bought 45% of Mastertronic. It called Code Masters “a dark horse”: “they haven’t released any figures yet, but if the charts are anything to go by they are doing quite nicely, thank you. Not yet in the big league, but ones to watch.”
The Oliver twins and Dizzy
Much of that success came from two freelancers from Wiltshire. Philip and Andrew Oliver told Amstrad Action in 1988 that they had been close to giving up when they met the Darlings at the PCW Show in September 1986. They wrote Super Robin Hood for the new label, then Ghost Hunters, Grand Prix Simulator, Professional Ski Simulator and more. By late 1987, CRASH reported, their games made up 20% of Code Masters’ sales.
The first Dizzy came out in 1987. ACE reviewed it in its first issue, in October, and gave it an ACE rating of 788. The egg-shaped hero became the company’s best-known character. Treasure Island Dizzy was still in the charts in early 1992, 120 weeks after release, and had sold more than 250,000 copies, the twins told CRASH. In October 1990 Your Sinclair printed the Virgin Megastore budget chart with Code Masters’ Quattro Adventure, a four-game compilation led by Dizzy, at number one, and Treasure Island Dizzy at number six.
The Race Against Time
In 1988 the Oliver twins wrote The Race Against Time for Sport Aid ’88. Amstrad Action reported that all the profits went to the charity and that it used Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” as its music. It sold for £4.99. Something went wrong with the packaging. That December ACE filed the game under “Great Marketing Disasters”: Codemasters had “got lots of coverage including TV airtime for the project, released the game and shot themselves in the fund-raising foot by forgetting to clear the rights to the picture used on the inlay”. The picture was of Jesse Owens, and his estate had not been asked.
A company with staff
By June 1990 the Darlings were recruiting. An ACE advertisement asked for experienced artists “to work on coin-op conversions and major American titles using an in-house Amiga Art System”:
Basic salaries range from £7,500 to £11,500, plus a generous royalty programme to boost salaries to in excess of £20,000 OTE depending on productivity. Accommodation in Royal Leamington Spa can be arranged.
Applications went to David Darling or Tim Miller at Lower Farmhouse, Stoneythorpe, near Southam in Warwickshire.
The Game Genie
By then Code Masters was also working on Nintendo’s console, and one of its products for it was not a game. The Game Genie plugged in between a Nintendo Entertainment System and a cartridge, and let players type in codes for extra lives, invincibility or a later starting level. Retro Gamer later described it as a Codemasters design. In the United States it was sold by the toy company Lewis Galoob, and in August 1990 ACE reported that Nintendo of America had “cracked down” on it. A Code Masters spokesperson “could not confirm nor deny whether the product is ours”, but admitted that it was “a tricky legal situation”.
Nintendo lost. Game Informer reported in its first issue, in autumn 1991, that a US District Court had ruled in Galoob’s favour in Nintendo’s copyright suit. In Canada the Genie was made and sold by Camerica, which had been awarded full production and distribution rights there; 100,000 were sold in Canada in 1990. Mean Machines said in January 1992 that the Genie had survived “a full-frontal legal assault from Nintendo” and sold over a million units in America. It reached British shops in July 1992, distributed by Hornby, at £39.99 for the NES version and £44.99 for the Mega Drive. Code Masters and Hornby ran a telephone helpline for new codes.
Unlicensed NES games
Camerica also published Code Masters’ games on the NES in North America, without Nintendo’s approval. A 1992 Camerica advertisement lists The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, Bignose the Caveman, Ultimate Stuntman and Micro Machines, and says each is “not designed, manufactured, distributed or endorsed by Nintendo of America”. When Nintendo added a stronger lock-out chip to a new edition of the console, Game Informer reported, Camerica added a switch to its cartridges so that they would run on old and new machines.
Racing games and Electronic Arts
Codemasters outlived the 8-bit budget market. In 1998 it published Colin McRae Rally on the PlayStation, the start of a long run of rally games, and it later held the Formula One licence, starting with F1 2009. Electronic Arts agreed to buy the company in December 2020 for about $1.2 billion, and completed the purchase on 18 February 2021. Codemasters Software Company Limited, the company registered in 1986, is still active.
Sources
- Commodore Computing International vol. 3 no. 6, December 1984: Galactic, AI Products and the Darling brothers’ games for Mastertronic.
- CRASH issue 34, November 1986: “There’s a mutant cybernetic thief about” (Phantomas; four £1.99 games from the newly formed Code Masters).
- Sinclair User issue 56, November 1986: news of the Code Masters launch (the Darlings and their father Jim; over a million games sold for Mastertronic; £1.99; the 10% target).
- ZZAP!64 issue 20, December 1986, p. 168: BMX Simulator review (Code Masters, £1.99).
- Sinclair User issue 58, January 1987: Code Masters, “the new budget team which has just spun off from Mastertronic”.
- ACE issue 1, October 1987: Dizzy review (Code Masters; ACE rating 788).
- CRASH issue 48, Christmas Special 1987: index of reviews (the scores above); p. 185, “Is Code Masters getting it right?” (the Darlings’ ages, the market-share claim, the Plus range, the Oliver twins’ 20% of sales, Bruce Everiss on “simulator”).
- ACE issue 6, March 1988: “Software houses ’88 — big bucks or big bust?” (Herbert Wright; Code Masters as “a dark horse”).
- Amstrad Action issue 34, July 1988: The Race Against Time review (Sport Aid ’88; Peter Gabriel; written by the Oliver twins).
- Amstrad Action issue 36, September 1988: interview with the Darlings and the Oliver twins (meeting at the PCW Show in September 1986; David Darling’s T-shirt on television).
- ACE issue 15, December 1988: “Great Marketing Disasters” (the Jesse Owens inlay).
- ACE issue 26, November 1989: the David Darling testimonial.
- ACE issue 33, June 1990: Code Masters artist job advertisement.
- ACE issue 35, August 1990: “Nintendo gets tough with cheat machine”.
- Your Sinclair issue 58, October 1990: games charts compiled by Virgin Megastore (Quattro Adventure at number one).
- Game Informer issue 1, Fall 1991: the Game Genie ruling; Camerica in Canada.
- Game Informer issue 3, January 1992: Camerica advertisement for Code Masters’ NES games; Camerica’s lock-out switch.
- Mean Machines issue 16, January 1992: the Game Genie coming to Britain. Issue 22, July 1992: Game Genie review (Hornby; prices; helpline).
- CRASH issue 96, February 1992: interview with the Oliver twins (Treasure Island Dizzy’s 120 weeks and 250,000 copies).
- Edge issue 59, June 1998: Colin McRae Rally (Codemasters, PlayStation).
- Retro Gamer issue 1, 2004: “Company Lookback: Codemasters” (mail-order beginnings; BMX Simulator as the first release; the Game Genie as a Codemasters design).
- Retro Gamer issue 2, 2004: Dizzy feature (the twins’ school in Trowbridge).
- Companies House, company 02044132 (web, secondary): incorporation, former name and current status. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02044132
- Wikipedia, “Codemasters” (web, secondary): the Formula One licence and the Electronic Arts purchase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codemasters