IndyCar fans hoping to play the first officially licensed game based on the series for years will have to wait longer.
Motorsport Games, which acquired the licence to the series last year, has confirmed it has ceased work on its official IndyCar title which was due to appear this year.A financial update issued by the company today confirmed the decision had been taken as part of a range of cost-saving measures which also included the closure of a development studio in Australia.
Other motorsport series have recently split with with the publisher. Last month Motorsport Games sold its licence to America’s leading motorsport series NASCAR to iRacing, which previously owned the rights to IndyCar.
Yesterday the British Touring Car Championship, Britain’s leading domestic motorsport series, announced it had ended its relationship with Motorsport Games.
“This quarter has continued to be one of business transformation,” said Motorsport Games CEO Stephen Hood. “We have continued to reduce costs under the previously announced 2022 restructuring programme with the first signs of forward momentum starting to become apparent.
“This includes our recent announcement on the strategic sale of our NASCAR licence, which we believe improves the business outlook by reducing our financial commitments and allowing the company to focus its limited resources on near-term projects that are anticipated to come to market. We retain the ability to continue selling the NASCAR game back catalogue through to the end of 2024 ahead of an anticipated 2025 game by the new developer, which we believe will offer some revenue stability as we aim to bring new products to market, albeit with this revenue expected to decline over time.
“Additional cost-saving measures have included the recent closure of our Australian development studio, with corresponding global headcount reductions, and the suspension of the development of our previously planned IndyCar game, to decrease operating expenses whilst also removing projects that are underperforming or are unlikely to generate revenue.”
IndyCar has been approached for comment.
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Tristan (@skipgamer)
8th November 2023, 2:36
Makes sense to shutter the Australian studio as unfortunate as the news is, if it ever made sense to have an Australian studio working on American racing franchises in the first place…
Meanwhile you can pick up the DALLARA IR18 on rFactor 2 for a few dollars and find modded content to run a season if you’re really put out by this news…
Hope this streamlining of the business means more focus on 397.
Broccoliface
8th November 2023, 3:10
Wasn’t Motorsport Games outed as some financial fraud enterprise a few years back?
Tristan (@skipgamer)
8th November 2023, 4:17
Mate, what isn’t? The only difference between a corporate enterprise known as fraudulent, and one that isn’t, is the bit about being known.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
8th November 2023, 4:20
PS, not to discredit Motorsport Games in any way shape or form, I have no idea, just wouldn’t surprise me.
SteveR (@stever)
8th November 2023, 4:32
Then why comment if you have no idea?
Nick T.
8th November 2023, 5:43
Kind of a big difference between a company that wants profit and a literal scam. One usually involves over charging (not illegal or even unethical, unless you’re talking about insulin) and one usually involves things like ponzi schemes, money laundering, fake books, grossly deceiving customers, etc. Don’t let healthy cynicism get in the way of common sense.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
8th November 2023, 13:02
The question wasn’t literal scam, the question was financial fraud, of which my moneys on the vast majority, if not all… Accountants and lawyers exist for a reason.
anon
8th November 2023, 8:05
Broccoliface, the allegations were made by an individual known as Austin Ogonoski, who suggested that the owner of the company was engaging in dubious financial moves.
However, when producing those videos, Austin failed to disclose that he had a financial conflict of interest of his own. Austin is an employee of a rival game development studio that is currently developing it’s own sim racing game and has expressed interest in owning some of the licences that Motorsport Games held onto.
notagrumpyfan
8th November 2023, 12:55
Okay, he failed to disclose a CoI, thanks.
(I guess you are not owning up 100% to what your interest in the industry are either).
But are there any truth to the allegations?
disclaimer: I have no conflict of interest to any party mentioned in this article, including the comment section up until now, nor with the publisher of this website, and do not know the other individuals commenting on this article other than based on the comments posted previously using the same handle.
Ryan
9th November 2023, 1:13
Ignore the guy you replied too. Austin is a freelance QA tester for racing games i.e. a literal expert studios pay to tell them if the game is objectively good or not. He’s been employed by many different studios and he’s criticised his own employers time and time again. He’s literally lost jobs by openly criticising his own employers. He’s not a biased party, he cares about racing games being as good as possible. He was QA for Project Cars 2. He’s an industry insider, so alot more trustworthy then random internet commenters with literally zero qualifications or connection to the games industry. I’m going to believe him over anonymous people. People only spread lies about Austin because he dislikes iRacing and has pointed out its many flaws. iRacing banned him for this, because it’s literally against their terms and services to say ANYTHING negative about their game.
People paying hundreds a year playing iRacing don’t like it being pointed out that it’s barely a “simulation”.
Austin provided empirical facts that prove Motorsport Games is a scam. They don’t pay employees. They spend all their money on private expenses and expensive offices they don’t need. They exist solely to scam investors out of money to continue paying their executives millions of dollars while not compensating their employees and paying Russian studios using stolen code to make cheap games. It’s fraud. Austin provides all the receipts in his video. Just look up his name Austin Ogonoski and Motorsport Games and you’ll find the video, it’s only 12 minutes long or something, so it won’t take much time to watch. Motorsport Games also lied about the features and content of their Nascar game, which was the worst Nascar game made probably ever, and was unplayable in many cases, and acted purely as a cash grab. They are an immoral, fraudulent company, and any game they make will be no better then a mobile game.
HAL
8th November 2023, 6:31
Iracing is still offering the Dallara IR 18 and using it in the B license series (even though you might prefer to run the Superformula car which is amazing in a B license serie as well or F1 in a A licence serie)
I bet Indycar will land officially on iRacing again ; let the Pro take care of it…
Alberto
8th November 2023, 10:13
No one is surprised
Asd
8th November 2023, 11:34
This was terrible from the beginning. I’m no expert, but have read numerous reports by gaming people and they called it a terrible choice of a video game creator.
IndyCar has been regularly shooting itself in the foot with their business partnership choices.
Yaru (@yaru)
8th November 2023, 22:27
Wasn’t aware Studio 321, who handles the very well received rFactor 2 and owned by Motorsports Games, is a bad creator.
kpcart
8th November 2023, 11:35
Indycar mods in Assetto Corsa are absolutely amazing that i couldnt care less about this. The only problem with assetto corsa is the AI in single player racing, but for everything else all you need is Assetto corsa or rfactor2 and you dont need any rubbish games like the official f1 games, automobista 2, gran turismo or Forza, and heaps of other new games coming out. Assetto Corsa with mods even looks better and definitely sounds than some brand new games. the 1999 Champcar mod is the most amazing thing to drive in Assetto, so much more raw and rewarding than current F1 cars and current Indycars.
Yaru (@yaru)
8th November 2023, 22:40
Assetto Corsa and rFactor 2 are considered full sim racing genre. It isn’t fair to compare them to the F1 games, Forza or Gran Turismo which are considered Simcades, a mix between sim and arcade. They are going for different target markets. Full sim genre are something even racing pros can use and be relatively happy with.
Simcades are also designed to be fully playable with controllers and while full sims can be played on them, they require a more lot of tweaking and customization of the controls to get right and much more accuracy from the player.
And guess who owns rFactor 2? Motorsport Games who owns the developer Studio 321 does. The IndyCar game was planned to use the really well received rFactor 2 engine.
MichaelV12 (@michaelv12)
9th November 2023, 9:33
rFactor (1 & 2) were originally developed by ISI (renamed Studio 397 in 2016) in Michigan. Motorsport Games bought the developer in 2021.
I hope the official Indycar goes back to iRacing. It’s a solid platform and they do most things right.
Generally I’m not a fan of all this “licensing”. Too much licensing stifles innovation.