"I hope they lose the licence"/Other complaint comments rant

[Verstappening 0]

Okay, so I can't be the only one sick of seeing in every wishlist post or update and even other topics of the game just being spammed with "I hope they lose the licence" and "They should stop being given the licence so a better dev can get it!" comments every time? I know, F1 games in the last 2 years have been less than stellar, but for gods sakes stop with this. You don't add anything to the conversation and no one cares if you hope Codemasters lose the licence. Why did you join the forum anyways if you hate Codemasters that much?

Also, I know there's this big fantasy that if the F1 licence was given to another studio that it would be "10x better than anything Codemasters puts out!", but like it says, it's a fantasy. Here's some reasons why; Not one company asides from Codemasters care about the F1 licence and, in going with that, Codemasters are pretty much the only ones that are going to at least put effort into the new PS4 and Xbox One consoles to make them great again. "But we've asked them to add features to the game and they haven't done it!" That goes to my next reason; Licence restrictions and time constraints. As part of the F1 licence, a new game has to be made every year. If Codemasters didn't think this would be a profitable idea or if they couldn't make deadlines or what not, they would never have touched it and likely we wouldn't have had any F1 games since F1 Championship Edition. Also, you think Codemasters is a "bad" racing company? Look at Eutechnyx's NASCAR games, the same game every year for the past 5 years with no attempt to fix the bugs or improve the game or even update the physics or regulations for that season. Would that really be better than Codemasters, the company that brought us the gem that is DiRT Rally?

I know this is probably coming off in a worse light but honestly this is ridiculous how some 'fans' are acting without reason. These same fans complained about the game being released late in the year yet when the game has it's first shot at being released for the next gen consoles in a smaller time frame compared to previous games you complained that it was buggy and unfinished. Of course it was! It was the first year on a new generation of consoles and don't tell me how Codemasters is the only licenced sports game to have done it. EA's NHL removed a lot of features compared to their last gen game and, by coincidence, people were up in arms about it, and the second game that came out last year was suddenly positively recieved. Why? Because they had experience from their previous title and knew what was free or restricted to add.

"Why charge full price for the game though?" Because that's how the video game business is in general and probably written in the licence agreement that all F1 games must be retailed at full price. This is an age where Activision can sell 8 million copies of a game and still not make money. Codies have been having layoffs and cuts recently so not retailing at full price would almost be very harmful to their business structure at worst. I'd rather have F1 2015 in it's current state and F1 2016 be the giant killer with Career Mode, Classic Cars and a lot of other things possibly than nothing at all to look forward to because they had to give away the licence because they were no longer financially able to support it or in a catastrophic scenario, bankrupt and out of business.

TL;DR: What I'm trying to say is, yes, Codemasters have made mistakes before and yes, there have been times in the past with former members where they haven't gone about fixing those mistakes. But considering how the new community manager is handling things awesomely and how more of the admins and devs are communicating with the fans, F1 2016 and beyond could be a new golden age of F1 video games. But if we keep commenting snide remarks like what this post is about, why would the devs care about putting their passion and effort into making the best F1 games possible if all the fans are ever going to do is complain about them and not buying the game because it doesn't have 100 different game modes with hyper-realistic physics and simulation and 1040p HD graphics.

[FRACTURED 30]

Nobody has an issue paying full price for a game as such, its more about what we paid full price for... We're closer to the 2016 launch than the 2015 release and we're still having to point out new issues with each 2015 patch. Having to pay full price when they couldn't even implement some of the features they sold the game on (in season performance updates etc) and then seeing people get the game FOR FREE with laptop/desktop purchases might also frustrate. Paying top dollar at launch is fine if the game WORKS and you can get your moneys worth. Every other F1 game i'd have had between 500 and 1000 hours gameplay by now, so the price seemed reasonable compared to this year paying full price and maybe getting 50 hours total in 6 months+

[kevinkirk 35]

The handling and setups reactions changed a lot between nascar 2013 and nascar 2015. The steering was different and many steering options was added for controller play. Along with vastly improved spotter calls. Cars stopped just coming straight on to the track and as long as you didn't rewind during pit stops, you could make it thur the whole race. You could actually lower the car and it would bounce with bumbs on the track. Things like that. Sorry I had to throw them a bone. 

[Gav25182 0]

I like how the TL;DR bit is still TL;DR 

[djm99 0]

What makes you think anyone else would want the license, come to that, who else is there other than EA ??

[moogleslam 47]

We have cancelled all our F1 2015 leagues on PC because the game is unplayable online.  I think that's a pretty clear indicator that someone else needs the license!

[mbot 0]

Clearly, Codemasters is just a rag-tag team of programmers. You're meant to call it for what it is, on face-value. What we've been getting is atrocious. CM haven't paid attention to detail, and 5 years later the A.I is still shocking, plus the engine-sound has always been artificial and less than real, the engine-sound is a big part of the vibe, but why does it take me to explain that, didn't CM know already??? It's like CM think we're all stupid. If CM screw-up F1 2016, i'll be emailing the F1 association and i'll do everything in my power to persuade them that CM has been nothing but bad for the license. Millions of disappointed gamers all wanting an F1 thrill, and yet it took "Project Cars" to give us something decent; shame on Codemasters. CM could have just hired me right from the start as a final Q.A logistics adviser and saved themselves a whole lot of time, heart-ache and money, not to mention millions of disappointed gamers.

[coolieboy 0]

djm99 said:

What makes you think anyone else would want the license, come to that, who else is there other than EA ??

You'd be quite surprised my friend.  At the end of the day as long as there is profit to be made any company would want the license.  If you look at Codemasters financial statements, fiscal year forecasts vs actuals you will notice that they are not that strong of a company.  You might even ask yourself how can they even afford the license.  Personally, I believe Codemasters should lose the license and properly restructure their organization and dev teams, recruit qualified people to work and test their games and stay away from F1 for the next 3-5 years.  
The best solution is for the FOM to open the license to any company wanting to make a f1 game and eliminate this exclusivity nonsense.  It would be great for teams like SMS to acquire the rights to use the 2015 teams, drivers, tracks and offer it as a DLC.   You can either choose to buy F1 2015 or download the F1 add on for project cars.  Once you throw competition into the equation companies like Codemaster have no choice but to get their act together. 

[FRACTURED 30]

Yeah, a little competition and I bet we wouldn't be here talking about what might have been. 

When you have the sole license you can easily release complete and utter crap and string everyone along with promises of everything being better with the next patch...and the next patch...and the next patch...until..."oh hi there consumer, can we have your 60 quid again as the next game is out? We've paid a number of well known websites to water down their true review so you'll think it might just be worth another chance."

At least in the UK we have the new consumer rules regarding digital downloads. I kinda have a sick hope that '16 is as bad as '15 just to see what would happen Codies in the UK if they sold 100K copies and 50K people used the new legislation to get a refund. Because we couldn't do it this year and I know a lot of people were VERY angry that you can claim to have in-season updates as part of your 'New Features' you are using to sell the game and then not freaking release any in season updates until after the fecking season has finished anyways. Jokes. I've done the calm thing round here quite a bit recently but what is the point you know? Friendly towards the community and the mods/devs or Hostile towards them - in the end it doesn't matter. They can claim to care but at the end of the day its the guys in the suits at the free sponsors boxes at the grand prix who are making the decisions and the could not give a flying f*ck,

[hobbsy777 0]

Because I could not take advantage of any money back program or legislation, I retired my copy of F1 2015 Early last November and only under very exceptional cercumstances (rave reviews and unbeatable sale price) will I purchase F1 2016. Actually I would be very interested in a principle of CM coming onto this forum and spelling out for us, Just what they are going to do differently this year and why I should get my credit card out.

[FRACTURED 30]

I'll keep an eye for sure. I have about ten people on here whose opinion would mean something, not necessarily all haters either.

Hubbadee's Sunday night league lasted about 5 races and was just scrapped. I've never had that happen to a league I was actively trying to compete in, despite the game. 

So on to project cars in the Formula 'C'. That game has its own list of issues but nowhere near as broken in terms of what I want/expect as F1 is. None of their issues has stopped me buying all the DLC I can for it.

[Verstappening 0]

coolieboy said:

The best solution is for the FOM to open the license to any company wanting to make a f1 game and eliminate this exclusivity nonsense.  It would be great for teams like SMS to acquire the rights to use the 2015 teams, drivers, tracks and offer it as a DLC.   You can either choose to buy F1 2015 or download the F1 add on for project cars.  Once you throw competition into the equation companies like Codemaster have no choice but to get their act together. 

I wouldn't mind there being competition in terms of F1 games to make it more competitive between companies and give us the fans more choice and for them to truly work hard to make awesome F1 Games, as long as it doesn't saturate the market, but I wouldn't have SMS do it, at least yet. Because I don't want an F1 game where rain tyres are faster in the dry that dry tyres, the hitboxes are messed up, turning with DRS causes the car to summersault and the unprofessional acts that some of the devs pull like censoring critics and just ranting/banning people who point out problems.

Not saying P-Cars is a bad game, but to me it's not that much better than F1 2015 to me. 

[coolieboy 0]

That's my point. If you wanted a complete f1 game then you would purchase an f1 game by Codemasters or EA or 2K or whichever company makes f1 games.  But the FOM should also offer licenses to use the cars, teams and tracks as DLC for other racing games. For example, being able to download all the tracks from the 2016 season for Drive Club or the 2016 teams, cars and tracks for Pcars. 

[mhutch1 0]

coolieboy said:

That's my point. If you wanted a complete f1 game then you would purchase an f1 game by Codemasters or EA or 2K or whichever company makes f1 games.  But the FOM should also offer licenses to use the cars, teams and tracks as DLC for other racing games. For example, being able to download all the tracks from the 2016 season for Drive Club or the 2016 teams, cars and tracks for Pcars. 

That already happens, anyone who wants can license cars directly from the teams and tracks directly from the track owners. None of the tracks are specifically F1 tracks, FOM doesn't own that intellectual property. Most F1 tracks are available in most racing sims anyway. Forza 6 has the Lotus E22, iRacing has the McLaren MP4-30 and Williams FW31, rFactor 2 has the Marussia MR01.

Basically what you are suggesting is already possible, but no-one really does it because it's not worthwhile

[dazza83 1]

moogleslam said:

We have cancelled all our F1 2015 leagues on PC because the game is unplayable online.  I think that's a pretty clear indicator that someone else needs the license!

And who would you like to get the licence? i cant think of a single dev i could trust to give us anything better than what codemaster can offer us.. sure codemasters could use a big kick up there ass, but fingers crossed they have finally started listen to our feedback for once. if someone like ea got the licence they would pump out some quick arcade shit.

[hobbsy777 0]

dazza83 said:  but fingers crossed they have finally started listen to our feedback for once.

In our dreams.

You are probably right about the rest of them though, unless that big kick is directed at FOM's arse as well.

[worthycars 0]

Thank you OP, I am in complete agreement with you.

[Chromatic 127]

When F1 2016 does eventually come out I hope before it does whoever is invited to the internal testing makes our voices and concerns heard hopefully not to fall on deaf ears I hope 

[coolieboy 0]

I hope so too. But I think each have their own agenda to bump up their you tube subscriptions. It would be nice to know which ones were selected and for them to post exactly what they will be looking for. 

[hobbsy777 0]

coolieboy said:

I hope so too. But I think each have their own agenda to bump up their you tube subscriptions. It would be nice to know which ones were selected and for them to post exactly what they will be looking for. 

A lot of those you tubers are very young and very arcade oriented, when you can get over the prophanity. Some of the language in the commentary has to say a lot about mentality and I am not so sure that their criteria for F1 racing (ahem) simulation/games is the same as many enthusiasts.

[coolieboy 0]

hobbsy777 said:

coolieboy said:

I hope so too. But I think each have their own agenda to bump up their you tube subscriptions. It would be nice to know which ones were selected and for them to post  exactly what they will be looking for. 

A lot of those you tubers are very young and very arcade oriented, when you can get over the prophanity. Some of the language in the commentary has to say a lot about mentality and I am not so sure that their criteria for F1 racing (ahem) simulation/games is the same as many enthusiasts.

Could not have agreed more. It's very easy for young folks to post criticism on the Internet and you tube in the comfort of their parents home.  Standing in front someone and criticizing is completely different. All that will happen is Codemasters will give them a free digital copy of the game, some t-shirts, toy cars and an f1 colouring book and tell them to write good things about the game and most likely they will.  I just don't get why Codemasters can't hire quality people to test their games properly in the first place rather than solicit the "children of the internet".  More so, 5 or 6 You Tubers is not an adequate sample size of the F1 community by any standards. 

[Joethe155 8]

I agree, @Verstappening . For the record, I play F1 2015 on PS4.

I can understand why some people are very annoyed at fed up. Overall, the game has gone backwards since 2010. Features eventually gone, bugs and issues always present.

But all games have issues and if you think the Codemasters F1 games are among the buggiest of all then just no.

Sometimes I think that I would like to see someone else get the license but there's no guarantee that it would be any better. My personal choice if the license absolutely had to go to another company would be EA. Yes, I know they can seem a bit sterile but they have a extensive knowledge of sports games. They've ad a few efforts in the past which were decent, especially F1 Career Challenge, and with more chances, could do very well I think. I also think Slightly Mad Studios could be an interesting choice but I would guess that it be too big of an undertaking for them and money could be a major issue there too. Project Cars has also had bug and problems but it is a fantastic game for motorsport fans and Project Cars 2 is certainly promising a lot. However, SMS doing an F1 game would be a leap into the unknown.

It's my opinion that the F1 license should stay with Codemasters. I think they'll be bringing things like Career back as 2015 was on new consoles so they needed to get the basics right. And they've done that. The driving is possibly the best it's been in an F1 game, the pit radio and being able to communicate with your engineer is fantastic and really adds to the immersion (well done @Britpoint and everyone else who had a part in it, hope things move forward from here even more!). The broadcast presentation is pretty good though I don't know how it would work exactly in a Career setting.

I'm looking forward to 2016. The fact that internal testing is going to take place and people will be able to go to it should be very encouraging for people. If Codemasters didn't care much, they certainly would not be doing something like that.

[djr664 0]

Ok, so my first gripe with your post op is that you think that they did a good job considering it was an early release on a new console? I can honestly say now that if I was a professional company working towards creating a game for a new next-gen console I wouldn't have moved the release date forward by roughly 5-6 months to all the previous release dates on previous games, I would want that game to be polished and know that what we had created was thoroughly tested before release, that way it is then going to receive positive reviews and people will be rushing out to buy the 2016 title!
I would have had no issue waiting another 6 months for something that was perfectly developed, the only thing the early release allowed for was a live update of performance as the season progressed, something that only really materialised in 1 patch at the end of last year, both after the season finished and also after the Original release date (typically around November) would have been, meaning that there really wasn't much benefit to the earlier release!
If CM had released an unbugged game in November, after they had more time to understand the new software they were using, can you really see anyone complaining as much as they are now?? 

Secondly, if they have spent little timing testing, or indeed knew of the bugs in the game when they pushed them out onto the shelves at full price how could you not understand why people were so upset by it???
That is the kind of action that makes people want a new company to develop the f1 games, I for one will not accept an excuse such as 'that's how the video gaming industry is these days', it is simply not acceptable to push out an unfinished product early and at full price!

I also want a company who gives something more with each release, new ideas and giving people what they want, is that not the most important thing to do when selling a product, Giving the people what they want??!!!
Any professional company will tell you 'get it right first time, on time!' I want to buy my product from company's that lives by that, rather than 'Don't bother testing it, just get it out as early as possible!'  

I hope, with all honesty, that they get it right for f1 2016, however I will not be pre-ordering it this year, neither will I be picking it up on the day of release, I will watch to see what the reaction to it is and if it's another waste of money, if they get it wrong this year I will no longer look at CM as the credible game developer they once were, it's such a shame because they could have done a really good job with f1 2015 had they not rushed a scrappy, poor excuse of an f1 title out of the doors and onto shelves at full price a few months earlier than usual! 

[Verstappening 0]

djr664 said:

Ok, so my first gripe with your post op is that you think that they did a good job considering it was an early release on a new console? I can honestly say now that if I was a professional company working towards creating a game for a new next-gen console I wouldn't have moved the release date forward by roughly 5-6 months to all the previous release dates on previous games, I would want that game to be polished and know that what we had created was thoroughly tested before release, that way it is then going to receive positive reviews and people will be rushing out to buy the 2016 title!
I would have had no issue waiting another 6 months for something that was perfectly developed, the only thing the early release allowed for was a live update of performance as the season progressed, something that only really materialised in 1 patch at the end of last year, both after the season finished and also after the Original release date (typically around November) would have been, meaning that there really wasn't much benefit to the earlier release!
If CM had released an unbugged game in November, after they had more time to understand the new software they were using, can you really see anyone complaining as much as they are now?? 

Secondly, if they have spent little timing testing, or indeed knew of the bugs in the game when they pushed them out onto the shelves at full price how could you not understand why people were so upset by it???
That is the kind of action that makes people want a new company to develop the f1 games, I for one will not accept an excuse such as 'that's how the video gaming industry is these days', it is simply not acceptable to push out an unfinished product early and at full price!

I also want a company who gives something more with each release, new ideas and giving people what they want, is that not the most important thing to do when selling a product, Giving the people what they want??!!!
Any professional company will tell you 'get it right first time, on time!' I want to buy my product from company's that lives by that, rather than 'Don't bother testing it, just get it out as early as possible!'  

I hope, with all honesty, that they get it right for f1 2016, however I will not be pre-ordering it this year, neither will I be picking it up on the day of release, I will watch to see what the reaction to it is and if it's another waste of money, if they get it wrong this year I will no longer look at CM as the credible game developer they once were, it's such a shame because they could have done a really good job with f1 2015 had they not rushed a scrappy, poor excuse of an f1 title out of the doors and onto shelves at full price a few months earlier than usual! 

Valid argument. However, here's something to think about. Codemasters are required as part of having the F1 gaming licence to release a new game every year. One of the complaints since F1 2010 (and MotoGP games suffered this as well) that the games were being released at the end of the season. So, wanting to please their fans, moved the annual release dates forward to June/July. Next, they had a new generation of console hardware and game engine to figure out and program the new game. On top of that, they were, admittedly, focusing on game modes like Pro Season which should never have been a thing but they chose to add it to please the hardcore sim racer crowd but ultimately failing.

Here's what I think happened: They brought the release date forward for F1 2015 and made F1 2014 a stop-gap title to focus on the next-gen hardware and new game engine for F1 2015. But along the way, they encountered problems and bugs along with trying to implement too many game modes and a new hopper online system while also having a closer release date. In the end they released an unfinished game so to speak because they were limited in what they knew in how to program and to design errors.

Now that the June/July release is standard they'll have a better time developing the game. I'll stand by my previous statements that we need to stop with the other company will do better statements and how F1 2015 was as good as it could be in that state. But I will say that I would have rather even just for the sake of a career mode have Career, Quick Race, Online and Options instead of Pro Season and 2014 cars which no one ended up playing. 2015 was an off year and 2016 will 100% be better. Remember, it could always end up like F1 2009 again in terms of physics and graphics. 

[djr664 0]

Verstappening said:   

Valid argument. However, here's something to think about. Codemasters are required as part of having the F1 gaming licence to release a new game every year. One of the complaints since F1 2010 (and MotoGP games suffered this as well) that the games were being released at the end of the season. So, wanting to please their fans, moved the annual release dates forward to June/July. Next, they had a new generation of console hardware and game engine to figure out and program the new game. On top of that, they were, admittedly, focusing on game modes like Pro Season which should never have been a thing but they chose to add it to please the hardcore sim racer crowd but ultimately failing.

Here's what I think happened: They brought the release date forward for F1 2015 and made F1 2014 a stop-gap title to focus on the next-gen hardware and new game engine for F1 2015. But along the way, they encountered problems and bugs along with trying to implement too many game modes and a new hopper online system while also having a closer release date. In the end they released an unfinished game so to speak because they were limited in what they knew in how to program and to design errors.

Now that the June/July release is standard they'll have a better time developing the game. I'll stand by my previous statements that we need to stop with the other company will do better statements and how F1 2015 was as good as it could be in that state. But I will say that I would have rather even just for the sake of a career mode have Career, Quick Race, Online and Options instead of Pro Season and 2014 cars which no one ended up playing. 2015 was an off year and 2016 will 100% be better. Remember, it could always end up like F1 2009 again in terms of physics and graphics. 

Agreed that I would rather have that simple format of career, quick race and online, I think everyone would be happy with that, in terms of just what we want from the title i would not debate with you, however, going back to your first point, do you personally think it was a good idea to bring the release date forward for the following year when they were working on a next gen game? If they had worked on it until November they may have a perfect understand of what there doing now and could have transferred there good work to the 2016 version for an early release with only livery and driver updates to do, this would leave everyone a winner and customers feeling very happy with what they paid into, instead they are only around 5-6 months to there next release date and are still desperately trying to work out where they went wrong and how to correct there current 2015 game, if they haven't got the current one nailed down, some 8 months after release, how can we guarantee that the f1 2016 title is going to be 100% better?