And it’s ArmA2. This is fascinating. The situation where a developer keeps the technology and the publisher gets the name is common enough. There’s always obvious competition between the keeper of the flame and the keeper of the name (e.g. Football Manager versus Championship Manager, Far Cry 2 versus Crysis, etc). But Bohemia, in a recent press-release, have made that incredibly explicit. To quote the opening: “Is the upcoming Codemasters game really ‘the much anticipated return of the genre-defining military conflict simulator’ Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis? Is it really ‘the official sequel to the multi-award winning Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis’? Bohemia Interactive says: ‘No! What matters is the game, not the name.’” Seeing Bohemia’s fury at Flashpoint 2 being described by Codemasters as the “return of” or “official sequel to” is without precedent in recent gaming history. Read the whole thing for more. Crikey.
We took the opportunity to chat to Bohemia CEO Marek Spanel about the whole situation…
RPS: While the name-goes-one-way-dev-goes-another happens, it’s a rare thing where we see a developer explicitly making a press release to state that? What made you decide it was time for open confrontation?
Marek Spanel: Quite likely, without knowing the full details of each situation, it’s almost certainly different in every case, as the nature of each publishing relationship is different. One recent example that may come to mind for many is with Crysis and Far Cry 2 – but even that comparison doesn’t fit as UbiSoft simply acquired the entire Far Cry IP, which completely avoided such an unfortunate situation. In our case, the name stayed with the publisher, but all of the other rights of the game have remained in our hands, so the technology, the story, the design and gameplay of the original Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis (and Resistance and Elite) are all 100% owned by Bohemia Interactive.
As to the confrontation and timing… well, recently Codemasters have started to promote their new Operation Flashpoint (2) Dragon Rising heavily in way that we believe misleadingly publicize their game as the “official sequel” to our Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis so we simply expressed our view on the entire situation.
RPS: Reading the press-release you seem surprised that Codemasters chose to develop a sequel to Flashpoint. Is this correct? Is it more that they’re doing it at all, or is it the deliberate claiming they are the “official” sequel. As in, if they’re being deliberately aggressive so you have to respond?
Marek Spanel: Codemasters own the rights to the name Operation Flashpoint, which we’re fully aware of and we’re not claiming anything different. We’re also not surprised that they are developing a new game under the name Operation Flashpoint. In fact, for us it is additional motivation to work harder and develop a better game. But what we protest are the marketing attempts to create a strong connection between the original Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis and this new game of theirs, when there is no connection other than the name and similarities in the overall concept. We insist that all credit and recognition received by Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis really belongs to the game and not the name, thus we feel it’s inappropriate for such a legacy to be attached or implied to new unrelated game under circumstances of this particular situation, especially when it seems that Codemasters are not giving Bohemia Interactive credit it rightfully deserves.
One old Czech proverb says “a lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth” and there is some point in it that could be applied to the gaming industry and media these days. Maybe from Codemasters it was just a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, but something is seriously wrong when in a preview on a major gaming site, one of the developers of the new game, who was never even remotely involved in the development of the original, is credited as a “veteran of the original Flashpoint team”. If you add up all such little misunderstandings, like Codemasters reps saying what “we did when we made the original Operation Flashpoint” etc. you may end up with seriously distracted image of the entire situation created in minds of journalists and gamers.
I also feel this case is somewhat interesting in more general way than only this particular situation between two particular companies. Not so much for gamers, they simply will play games they like and enjoy, but more for the gaming industry. I think it raises some interesting questions with the main one being: Is it really enough for this industry just to stick a name on a box to claim it’s “the official sequel”? Are games really just “franchises” or is there something more in them, something that could be considered an art form?
RPS: Did you attempt to talk to Codemasters before releasing the press release?
Marek Spanel: No we didn’t, usually we would prefer to resolve problems in private, but after some of the recent “behind the scenes” movements there wasn’t really much space left to talk… The press release covers the situation only partially and is focused only on matters we feel really need to be said publicly.
RPS: As an example of a developer in a similar situation and choosing to take an alternative direction, Monolith ran a competition for the readers to choose the name to their “real” sequel to FEAR. As well as playing to the fanbase, it introduce the idea to a lot of gamers that the “real” sequel of FEAR wasn’t actually what their publisher was making. Of course, in the end, they managed to get their name back, but it’s an interesting tactic to take. Did you consider something less confrontational?
Marek Spanel: As mentioned before, I don’t believe that it’s really possible to draw parallels from the past situations of other developer facing a similar situation, all developer/publisher relationships are unique and what may seem on paper to be similar from an external perspective is rarely similar in its actual nature. Of course we considered other options, and I believe some of them were fairly smart, but the surprising turn of events, just a few days after we’d already started preparations for that plan, meant we had to completely re-think our strategy in order to avoid some serious threats to our company. However, some of our plans that are more creative still may happen in future.
RPS: It’s an interesting thing – if you follow the situation where a game’s name went one way and the actual developers (and often their engine) went another… well, the developer almost always wins. The only even *draw* I can think of is Far Cry 2 and Crysis. What do you think of that? History seems to be on your side.
Marek Spanel: Well, perhaps Crytek were a little smarter or a little luckier than us in this case as they had benefits from both titles due to way how it was handled. Also, in contrary to what you say I would estimate that Far Cry 2 sold substantially more copies, at least because of the platforms it was published for. And if you compare the marketing and PR support that Crysis received, with what we have for ARMA II, you would see another significant difference.
That said, it will be very interesting to see the final round of the duel between our game and Codemasters’ new game, as both try to build upon the original Operation Flashpoint in one way or another. We are putting as much effort and passion into ARMA II as we did for the original game, and I am sure our competition at Codemasters is also trying hard to come up with a remarkable experience, which is a win-win situation for everyone, especially for gamers. Despite our company’s track record, in terms of sales of the original Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis, as well as awards and recognition both in the press and from the gaming community, we really are back to being the underdogs again, so we’re in the position where we can only surprise the gaming audience, but we shall see where everyone stands when the dust settles, as the rhapsody goes: “I am just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, because I am easy come, easy go, a little high, little low, anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me…”, to end on classic Queen quote. After all, it doesn’t matter if history or anything else will be on our side, unless gamers are. That simply depends on how good game we will manage to create and there also goes most of our efforts. This public statement is very insignificant to the final quality of our next game anyway.
RPS: Thanks for your time.
Related Stories:
“Even that terrible control interface still looks the same”
Am I the only person who liked the controls? I found the action-menu much handier than trying to remember loads of different buttons. For me the key is improving the rubbish vehicle physics.
Both will have demos so just give it a go. Strong words from them folks though, I would laugh if it was crap…
I’m waiting for both games
@AdrianWerner: Yes you’re quite right, sorry. I only play multiplayer in ArmA as the campaign is indeed a bit rubbish so I wasn’t thinking of it. However I do think multiplayer (co-op that is, I don’t think PVP is quite as good) is where ArmA really shines.
It does look like BI are putting more effort into the campaign this time round though, so quite probably ArmA2 will have something for both single and multi-players.
ArmA – have the mods changed the cumbersome way animations were implemented? I stopped playing once I realised that if you shoot someone in the head, he’ll die, but he’ll keep running forwards until he’s finished his ‘run two steps forward’ animation, then switch to the ‘fall over dead’ animation…
Codemasters own the OFP trademark. What on earth did BI think they’d do with it, except develop an ‘OFP sequel’?
Operation Flashpoint Rally, perhaps?
Operation Flashpoint Logistics Tycoon?
I’m looking forward to both.
Ofp2 for a more arcade feel, and ArmA2 for the realism based battlefield experience.
To me, ArmA didn’t live up to it’s ofp predecessor in terms of singleplayer experience. The varied missions were at times a real challenge. Arma just lacked that character and the background story. I hope bohemia will make up for it and add a smoother interface/animation system. And by jove, replace those incessant firing pops and missile launcher sounds. They get old fast.
Codemasters will no doubt supply with something fun to play with and lots of toys to blow up.
LOL!! Ah yes, now those were the days.
You should see./i> some of the stuff I have in storage. Including every.single.console.ever.made (Jaguar anyone?) – including their games.
@Dozer: What the hell man? Did you even read the article? BI in no way denies Codemasters the right to make a game with Operation Flashpoint in the title, what they object to is Codemasters implying through their marketing that OFP2 is the “return of” and “official sequel to” OFP, when it has nothing to do with it other than name.
Which seems reasonable to me.
Anon: I love the fact that the last mission in Op Fap was getting to the pub for a reunion.
@Tikey
Hell yeah! And all those Infocom games, too.
Talking about bad animations Dozer, that is nothing.
OFP – A guy shoots a RPG and reloads it, during the reload he gets hit by 50 bullets. He calmly finishes the reload and then falls over dead.
ArmA – Luckily we’re half a decade later so things have changed a lot. When someone gets hit by 50 bullets while reloading he er……….. calmly finishes the reloading animation and then drops over dead.
For those who say ArmA is a great game. Well it is, why? Because Operation Flashpoint was a great game and its THE SAME. They honestly changed nothing whatsoever in 5 years.
Here are the things I can think that ArmA added.
3d Iron Sights
Swimming
To give another example. In OFP you place some AI behind a wall of sandbags. Their AI routine tells them they are under fire and they lie down. They will never move to take a decent firing position so they can see the enemy, they will just stay prone behind the sandbags with their face in it. In ArmA its exactly the same.
You’re judged on the game, not the name. Arma was a mess, whereas OF2 looks very promising. Isn’t this the real reason for all of Bohemia’s insecurity?
As a gamer who was a huge fan of Operation Flashpoint I naturally tried Armed Assault. I was more than a little disappointed in it’s “consoley” nature, but my OpFlash group played it to death anyway. I still feel it missed the mark in some ways – a seemingly smaller community than OpFlash, less polish on the interface, cumbersome controls, a horribly buggy launch – but as far as we were concerned, it was a part of the OpFlash IP so we bought it and played it.
I dare say exactly the same will be true for us for both OpFlash 2 and ArmA 2; we’ll buy them both and end up playing the better one to death. I suspect there will be others out there that feel the same. Ultimately, despite the strangely barking message from Spanel above, I feel he’s right; the gamer can only win at the end of the day.
Okay, I didn’t do anything remotely mad there, but my comment has come through in an utter shite format. Odd.
Arma/OFP were at their best when they were doing something other than normal FPS type missions, like ‘clear the town’ type coop or deathmatch or BF-style missions. For example CTI/Warfare game modes really showcased the game better than just slogging through urban environments. I would consider the games to do fps/rts games far better than any mod or professional offering present.
It’s a shame single player scenario makers didn’t use the command engine mod features more, instead opting for rather typical fare.
I have one question How the hell Ofp2 looks promising? We only had some not-so-good screentshots without gameplay, it comes from a studio without previous experience in these type of games, unlike Bohemia. It’s being done by a big publisher instead of a normal developer, usually the type of games a bug publisher makes is for the mainstream. It’s also coming for consoles simultaneasly, it’s going to be dumbed down.
Yep. Thats what I want to know too actually. Which is why most will posit that its going to be JAFS (Just Another Fucking Shooter).
Heck, even the trailer weren’t in-game shots IIRC.
Some FP:DR gameplay: Start watching [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsOHJy-R2HA&feature=channel]this[/url] at 2:11.
Invisible gun attack!
working in progress…
harvb: How was ArmA consoley? Granted, I’d agree that it was disappointing, even if we had a lot of fun in the multiplayer, but it’s about as far from a console title as you can get, I’d say.
@Turin Turambar, definitely get what your saying. At this point I’m really not convinced by ofp2 with what little they’ve actually shown so far. What makes this all a bit strange (and depressing actually) is how much blind faith a lot of people are putting into the codie’s game. To me it makes no sense, and I can see why BI are a little frustrated. To me it seems people are putting a little too much faith in a dev which has had zero involvement with the first game to pull ahead and somehow release the better ’sequel’.
Was Arma 1 really that bad? To the point where people are completely turning away from Arma 2 (which is looking promising, and which had a whole lot more shown). I don’t know, its kinda sad that some people actually want the underdog to lose in this case, especially considering how forthcoming BI have been. Arma 1 may not have been the best title but I’m still giving BI a chance here.
How is ArmA “consolely”?
By heritage. ArmA incorporates many of the improvements that went into the XboX version, like the icons instead of a text action menu.
What makes it different from other FPSs? It has no hard limits on things that should be limited. How many other FPSs can you play where you could walk for four hours, not see a soul, and then stumble across a mechanized company? When shooters talk about “Advanced AI”, they usually mean “Three or Four guys who use cover when attacking you from ten feet away”. The Scale of ArmA is far beyond what it should be. I suppose only Far Cry 2 comes close, and even there, their map is a fraction the size of the original OFP map.
Why don’t more people use stuff like the Command Engine? It’s a mod, that’s why. As cool as the OFP/ArmA mod community is and has been, it’s still a mod community, and that requires A. people to get interested enough to explore mods, and B. people with the competence to use them.
Most mission makers do what they do for people to play the game. Using mods limits the audience.
Then, when you have a scripting-intensive mod like the command engine, every step you require for the use of the mod reduces the potential audience by a huge factor. So, downloading it and installing it already kills off 90% of the players.
When I first saw the OFP command engine, I looked at the requirements (a series of densely-packed arrays), and ran screaming the other way. There were very few nutcases who played CE missions, and even fewer who designed them.
Now the ArmA CEX is much better, but it takes some setup.
We saw the same thing with Unified Artillery. We had it set up so that the mission maker had to do one extra task to enable artillery: place an armed Obelisk on the map, side Game Logic. (It was necessary to for MP synchronisation and all kinds of effects). Still, a huge number of mission makers failed at that point.
Now, ArmA includes many outstanding improvements from OFP in the scripting field, such that, were someone to do artillery, it could be done far more efficiently than how we did it in the OFP days. And a system could be devised so that other mod teams could make compatible hardware without needing to contact an external scripting specialist.
But it would still be limited in its application, because it is a mod, and it involves playing the game in a way different from what BI has it set up for.
There was a time when player-generated content was billed as the salvation of gaming, and BI’s products have shown how far collaboration between a development house and unpaid enthusiasts can go. From the OFP demo onwards, modders have been finding ways to push the engine even farther. BI has picked up on that, and consistently worked to make the game more accessible in those directions.
So, you talk about ACE and the CEX and all those good things. You’re still dependent on a community to develop them and to support them, and all this for free. Will the ACE group have an internal struggle and kick out the members who contribute the most? Will CEX languish as the dead wait of previously contributing mod-team members spend all their time pontificating on blogs instead of making things work?
Maybe it’s time to incorporate some of those community advances and set the table for the next round?
And for God’s sake, do something about the AI and animations.
Gap Gen: Dinger basically said it better than me. I felt it was holding my hand too much rather than just dropping me in there like OpFlash did. An icon over a body when you’re near it? I’m sure I can see, thankyou very much. It just felt… To me it felt like the difference between Morrowind and Oblivion; the first one was free, a breath of fresh air, you could do what you wanted. The second one guided me everywhere and was clunky. Just my opinion naturally but that’s how it felt to me and the group I played with.
Hmm, I never noticed the icon over a body. And I use the text menu as well as the icons. Sure, the campaign was a mess in ArmA, and yes, the AI is rudimentary and the animation stilted, but that’s a separate issue.
“Clive Lindop, the game’s senior designer, AI specialist and a veteran of the original Flashpoint community”
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/operation-flashpoint-2-preview
Lindop work for CM last 4 years. For Bis never work.
Marek say true story.
Add FarCry2 – ubisoft buy first version cryengine.
@dsmart: Yeah, you’re right, it has been better than doing nothing when it comes to feeding families and so on. Impressive collection of games by the way, I used to own many of those classics as well. Seems you’ve got a good taste.
I know for a fact I am gonna buy both however, but my expectations are;
OPF2 is gonna be a glossed up COD4 albeit with a little more attention to detail. I would like to see myself proven wrong however.
Arma 2 is going to attempt to achieve what Armed Assault should have been + a little bit more (and from what i can see from the previews, at least gfx wise, looks like its on the road to achieving this).
“How the hell Ofp2 looks promising?”
Hope.
We know from past experience that BI have released what some might call, umm, a flawed experience.
We don’t have experience of a previous release from the studio working on the codemasters game and from that point an element emerges of wanting to believe that maybe, just once, an ambitious game won’t be deeply flawed somehow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYvJh9PrOl0&fmt=22
All we are sayyyyying… is give ArmA a chaaaance! I’ve gotten more milage out of this game than any other. :)
-and don’t go thinking ArmA players in general want OFP2 to fail. On the contrary, a strong OFP2 can only strengthen ArmA 2 – and it could be fun in its own right.
Another good example of the ACE mod for ArmA 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WWby7IrvSM
“Clive Lindop, the game’s senior designer, AI specialist and a veteran of the original Flashpoint community”
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/operation-flashpoint-2-preview
Lindop work for CM last 4 years. For Bis never work.
Marek say true story.
Actually it says that Clive is a veteran of the Flashpoint COMMUNITY, not the dev team. So its probably true.
It has been corrected- it did say Clive worked as a developer on the original OFP. When BIS contacted Eurogamer to correct them, Dan from Eurogamer said “that’s what Clive said!”, although they believed BIS and took down the information.
He also stated explicitly he was a developer for the original OFP in an online CV of his, which has been taken down after BIS threatened legal action. It seems he has been going around taking credit for BIS’ work, although many who aren’t versed in this story seem to think he’s innocent regardless of the evidence and full information.
This doesn’t mean FP:DR will be a bad game, I hope it’ll be great, actually. I’ll just never believe any of Lindop’s PR bullshit about FP:DR again :)
http://www.arma2.com/russian-armed-forces_en.html
this week’s trailer is up!
http://www.arma2.com/national-party_en.html
and another weekly trailer!
Damn I was so wrong. I think this game looks great.
i have watched both games ofp2/dr and arma2/sequel
I think anybody with any history with this game and an ounce of common sense can see what will happen.
Codemasters will try to attract the masses by producing some of the things mainstreamers like in a less corridor and claustrophobic game.
Bis will continue to develop the massive open game that tries to be as realistic as possible ,but they will only achieve 80% of there goals as usual and leave the last 30 % for there community to finish .
for me the winners will be everyone , codies will rake in there money from the masses on initial sales, the gamers will get a liking for this new found open landscape/arena and move onto arma2, bis will make there money too from that and gamers will get there enjoyment.
The biggest problem is that it was proven with arma1 that when you make a game more mainstream you get some tension between old school ultra realists and new people that are starting out. however it will all simmer eventually :).
in essence i think it will be a win all round, especially if codemasters use the profits to continue to support there version .
ofp maniac
Seems however ARMA2 is getting more complete core game than ARMA1. So many addons were needed in ARMA1 to fulfill realsim and fixes. BIS already stated many things that are in ARMA2 and it seems most addons we use today are already in. Sure there will be things for modders to do probably. But then again – there isnt one single game where i like every bit of it. And here we can do something about it. As long as ArmA2 is a good solid core game – im happy.