The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in October 1986, Codemasters is one of the oldest British game studios, and in 2005 was named the best independent video game developer by magazine Develop. Codemasters Group Holdings plc was the holding company of Codemasters, which was publicly traded and owned Codemasters until being purchased by EA in 2021 for $1.2 billion. History Background While attending school in Vancouver, Richard Darling and his elder brother, David Darling, had learned programming with punch cards and had access to the school's computer room outside of hours through one of the school's janitors. Additionally, on weekends, they were allowed to use the Commodore PET computer owned by their father, James, to create a text version of Dungeons & Dragons. Later on, the two brothers and school friend Michael Heibert, whose family possessed a VIC-20 computer, founded Darbert Computers and created video game clones of popular games, such as Galaxian and Defender. The Darling brothers later returned to England, where they acquired their own VIC-20 and founded Galactic Software, again with the help of Heibert. An advertisement placed in the magazine Popular Computing Weekly caught the attention of Mastertronic, a British software publisher, and the two brothers quit their education to pursue development of budget-priced games for the company. These games included Space Walk, BMX Racers, Jungle Story, Orbitron, Sub Hunt and Pigs in Space. They also developed The Games Creator, a game-making tool that would later be sold commercially. The Darling brothers found success in making these games, gaining by the time they were 16 and 17 respectively. In 1985, the two owned a 50% stake in Mastertronic, which they proceeded to sell in March 1986 when they decided to become independent. By October 1986, the Darling brothers, with help from their father, had founded Codemasters. They initially worked out of the Beaumont Business Centre in Banbury, where their elder sister Abigail managed the front desk. Codemasters' first game was BMX Simulator, a successor to BMX Racers. According to David Darling, the company aimed at making budget-priced games with the quality of full-priced games, as they would gain a larger customer base that would subsequently create better exposure. To produce more games in less time, Codemasters started hiring