The future of Codemasters now seems secure. As sources predicted, Zapak Digital Entertainment (which is owned by Reliance Big Entertainment) has purchased a fifty percent stake in the U.K. company, Codemasters, which is best known for the DiRT, Ashes Cricket, and Grid franchises.  Codemasters has received a large infusion of cash, which has to make Big Entertainment backer Balderton Capital happy.

Zapak will bring with it a number of resources, which should prove to be very good for Codemasters; the biggest is perhaps the mobile development experience and group which the company is known for.  Working with Zapak, it is expected that we will see a number of Codemasters titles move into the mobile realm.

Codemasters has had an up and down time over the past two years. The company enjoyed success with the release of Dirt 2, but were not as successful with Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Damnation, which just didn’t generate the revenue numbers that the publisher was expecting. With the recent expansion plans that the publisher had on the agenda when the economic downturn hit, the publisher was financially pinched hard. This was most recently shown by their decision to drop Heist, which was in development by InXile studios.

The future does seem to be a bit brighter with this news and the recent talk about the upcoming FPS title, Body count, and new racing title based on the Formula 1 license. Bodycount, as we have explained previously, could have exceptional potential as it is being guided by Stuart Black, formerly of Criterion Studios, where he quarterbacked the title simply called Black for the first generation Xbox console.

In addition to Zapak overseeing their investment in Codemasters, it is believed that Zapak’s recourses will also be leveraged on the development side; and it is expected that their teams will be involved in building upcoming Codemasters releases.