Gaming Pioneers Get CBE

David and Richard Darling, the co founders of gaming giant Codemasters are to be recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours list, both being made a CBE ( a Commander of the Order of the British Empire ).

They started their first company “Galactic Software” back in 1982, followed by some writing at “Mastertronic”. In 1986 the two brothers alongside their father Jim founded Codemasters, launching their first title “BMX Simulator” in their first year. Many of the brother’s games were made for the super popular ZX Spectrum, but were also available for the BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC and Acorn Electric.

The boys were famous for putting glowing endorsements on the packs of their latest games, that were either fictional or written by someone from the development team, which didn’t endear them to the gaming press of the time, that said some of their games such as the Dizzy series were instant classics.

The company attracted further controversy by making unofficial games for Nintendo’s NES system via US publisher Camerica who bypassed Nintendo’s Lock-Out chip (a chip that was supposed to stop unofficial games being played on the system).

The brothers finally sold Codemasters in 2007, and left to work on other projects, some of their most famous games include Micro Machines, Sensible Soccer and Colin McRae’s Dirt.

Source: BBC

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