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Darling Brothers, UK Indie Game Devs, Upgraded to CBE
scriptedfun writes "The BBC reports that David and Richard Darling, the brother tandem who founded Codemasters back in the mid-'80s from their bedroom, were recently made Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for their 'services to the computer games industry.' Their story is definitely inspiring for modern-day independent game developers." Naming such honorees annually is one of the perks of being Queen.
How old are you and which country? Not meant as a patronising question, it's a genuine one. If you're around my generation (I'm 36) and from the UK, chances are you will have heard of them. Spindizzy and Micro Machines being the top ones - they're stars of the 8-bit and 16-bit era really. I know they've done a lot since, but that's still what I know them for.
Cheers,
Ian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Codemasters_games
The Dizzy Series
Colin McRae series
Micro Machines
Operation Flashpoint
Overlord
The TOCA series
It's a good back-catalogue, though I was always more a fan of Bullfrog before EA ate them.
Colin McRae Rally is probably the series they're most known for in recent times, and most old-schoolers will probably think of the Dizzy games first, and Micro Machines second. Personally, I remember them for things like Jet Bike Ski Simulator on the Spectrum. Came complete with classic incomprehensible speech synthesis, but at least you didn't need an add-in speech cartridge.
Firstly of course the award is not decided by the Queen. She is a constitutional monarch, and all such decisions are in theory made by minsters. Even they don't make most of the minor ones, delegating it to committees. This level of award confers such rights as your daughter being able to marry in St. Pauls Cathedral (the one Princess Di got married in), but little else. I'd also take exception to the notion that game development in the UK or elsewhere is a desirable career. It is so badly paid that it cannot be offshored to India because Indians won't work for that little. EA games and several other firms have been prosecuted for violations of minimum wage laws. Game developers are treated with a contempt that I have not seen in any industry (I've been a chemist, worked in banking, education, IT, journalism, night clubs and most recently headhunting), and none treat their staff so badly. Even the one nude model I know gets more respect from her employers.
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
It's actually the Honours Committees that puts together the list of people to be honored and they are guided by guidelines set up by the Prime Minister.
Spindizzy is not a Codemasters game, you are thinking of Dizzy. Spindizzy was a Marble Madness clone from Electric Dreams Software.