Codemasters Almost Shut Down

Amid many studio closures over the past few years Codemasters nearly found itself on the death pile.

Codemasters is one of Britians longest running game studios, founded in 1985 and creators of many gaming favourites including the prominent Colin McRea rally series. However at the end of last year it found itself nearing its end.

The little accident happened when HM Revenue & Customs accidentally sent a ‘winding-up petition’, the first step in closing down a business. Had it passed they would of been forced into administration, to end up closed down or bought out buy another company. Thankfully the mistake was quickly  realised and rectified. No explanation has been offered HMRC suggesting its a end of year cock-up they’d rather not discuss.

It was a close shave for the Warwickshire based studio and a reminder of how unstable the current games industry is. Their recently released Dirt 2 has gone on to sell 1.7million copies to date, and they will be publishing Jumpgate Evolution later this year.

Story @ Develop

By Dean Bowes

Founder of the site. Based in Britian I'm primarily a PC gamer, looking to spread my wings to the best the games industry has to offer.