 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Nasdaq: MSGM | |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2018, in Miami, Florida, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Revenue | US$15,075,530 (2021) [1] |
| US$−33,161,991 (2021) | |
| Total assets | US$50,703,203 (2021) |
Number of employees | 189 (2021) |
| Parent | Motorsport Network |
| Website | motorsportgames |
Motorsport Games Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher and esports event organizer based in Miami, Florida. [2] Motorsport Games is part of the Motorsport Network.
Motorsport Games was founded in 2018 and on August 14 the studio acquired 53.5% equity interest in 704Games, at the time the current rights holder to the NASCAR video game series. [3] As a result, Motorsport Games became the official developer and publisher of the NASCAR video game racing franchise. [4] [5] In the same month, Motorsport Games collaborated with Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) to launch the Le Mans esports series competition. [6]
In September 2019, Motorsport Games released the NASCAR Heat 4 game. In May 2020, 704Games replaced Monster Games as developer for NASCAR Heat 5 , [7] which was released two months later on July 10. [8] [9]
In 2021 the company acquired Studio 397 and its rFactor 2 sim racing platform. rFactor2 was appointed as the official sim racing platform of the all-electric FIA Formula E championship in 2022. [10]
In August 2021 former President of EA Sports and former CEO of Liverpool Football Club Peter Moore had joined the board of Motorsport Games. [11]
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic Motorsport Games produced several official esports events for NASCAR, [12] 24 Hours of Le Mans, [13] FIA Formula E World Championship and FIA World Rallycross Championship, [14] [15] [16] eNASCAR Heat Pro League [17] [18] and Virtual Race of Champions. [19]
Motorsport Games collaborated with Codemasters and Monster Energy, the sponsor of the FIA World Rallycross Championship, to create the World RX Esports Invitational which was held in April. [20]
In the same year in June, Motorsport Games, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest and the FIA World Endurance Championship organized the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual race on the rFactor 2 gaming platform as a placeholder for the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans which has been postponed from June to September as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in France. [21] [22] [23] It was watched by 14.2 million television viewers and reached 8.6 million views, [24] [25] and was the recipient of several awards such as Autosport Pioneering and Engineering Award at the Autosport Awards. [26]
Motorsport Games completed its Initial public offering (IPO) in January 2021, ended up raising $69 million which was used for acquiring the remaining equity interest of 704Games, [27] [28] and for acquiring KartKraft and Studio 397. [29] [30] [31] In February, Motorsport Games entered into an agreement to acquire game assets and code of PC kart racing simulator, KartKraft from Black Delta for an undisclosed amount with an aim to form a new studio called Motorsport Games Australia where the development of KartKraft will continue, [32] [33] [34] [35] and completed the deal in March. [36] In March, Motorsport entered into an agreement with Luminis International to acquire Studio 397, the developer of rFactor 2 which was completed two months later. [37] [38] [39]
Motorsport Games combined the Unreal graphics engine and the rFactor physics technology for NASCAR 21: Ignition , which was released on October 26 the same year. [40] [41] [42] [43] The combination of the rFactor and Unreal engines was used for all the upcoming titles produced by Motorsport Games, [41] such as British Touring Car Championship game which was in development. In the same month, Motorsport Games entered into a license with IndyCar to develop both IndyCar video game series, with a planned launch date in 2023, and events. [44] Also in June, Motorsport Games announced the development of a dedicated video game title for the 24 Hours of Le Mans through a licensing deal with that race's parent organizations, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest and the FIA World Endurance Championship, originally scheduled for release in 2023. [45] [24]
The BTCC game was originally scheduled to have been released in 2022 but was delayed for 2024. [46]
In December 2022, Motorsport Games began an equity purchase agreement with NYC-based Alumni Capital in the amount of up to $2 million in company stock, with options up to a total of $10 million expiring December 31, 2023. [47]
By October 2023, Motorsports Games was no longer working on a future NASCAR title, as the license to produce NASCAR video games was transferred to iRacing , who have a long-standing relationship with NASCAR, with a title planned for 2025. [48] Motorsport laid off 40% of their workforce in the following month. [49] The same week, TOCA, the rights holder for the BTCC, ended its partnership with the company "due to ongoing fundamental breaches of the agreement by Motorsport Games". [50] Over a week later, IndyCar terminated its agreement with the company, citing Motorsport Games' failure to deliver a game within the 2023 season. [51]
On March 28, 2022, U.S. federal judge Stephanos Bibas accepted a motion by investors Innovate 2 Corp., Continental General Insurance Company, and Leo Capital Holdings LLC to sue Motorsport Games in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. In the filing, the investors accuse four Motorsport Games executives of securities fraud, claiming that the executives provided misleading statistics to the remaining investors of 704Games about the company's financial situation and the sales performance of its main product, the NASCAR Heat franchise. The investors allege that the information they received allowed Motorsport Games to buy out the remaining shares of 704Games at a significant discount to what Motorsport Games offered at their IPO, at which point the NASCAR Heat series accounted for a majority of Motorsport Games' total net revenue, estimated at 99%. [52]
The same year in November, Motorsport Games received a notice of non-compliance with Nasdaq listing rules after its board of directors resigned over funding disputes. The company reported losses of $7.5 million against revenue of $1.2 million in the third quarter of 2022. [53]
In January 2023, Motorsport Games organised the fourth annual Le Mans virtual 24-hour endurance race, a parallel to the real-life 24 Hours of Le Mans event. The race took place in Motorsport Games' sim racing video game rFactor 2 and featured notable motorsport drivers, such as Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen and former Formula One driver Romain Grosjean. The event was plagued with server issues and disconnections, which lead a lot of backlash from participants. Verstappen described the event as a "clown show", [54] and online content creator and participant Jimmy Broadbent stated that this would ultimately "damage sim racing" as a medium. [55] Several days after the event, an anonymous employee threatened to publicly leak the source code for NASCAR Heat 5, NASCAR 21: Ignition, KartKraft and the unreleased IndyCar game unless unpaid wage payments were made. [56]
Simulated racing or racing simulation, commonly known as simply sim racing, are the collective terms for racing game software that attempts to accurately simulate auto racing, complete with real-world variables such as fuel usage, damage, tire wear and grip, and suspension settings. To be competitive in sim racing, a driver must understand all aspects of car handling that make real-world racing so difficult, such as threshold braking, how to maintain control of a car as the tires lose traction, and how properly to enter and exit a turn without sacrificing speed. It is this level of difficulty that distinguishes sim racing from arcade racing-style driving games where real-world variables are taken out of the equation and the principal objective is to create a sense of speed as opposed to a sense of realism.
Sébastien Olivier Bourdais is a French professional racing driver who currently races in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing in the GTP category. He is one of the most successful drivers in the history of American open-wheel car racing, having won 37 races. He won four successive championships under Champ Car World Series sanction from 2004 to 2007. Later he competed at the IndyCar Series from 2011 to 2021. He also entered 27 races in Formula One for the Toro Rosso team during 2008 and the start of 2009.
Darren Manning is a British motor racing driver who has raced in the IRL IndyCar Series for Chip Ganassi Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.
Michael Robert Conway is a British professional racing driver. He lives in Sevenoaks, Kent and is currently competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship with Toyota Gazoo Racing.
A number of video games have been made of Le Mans 24 Hours. The race, the Circuit de la Sarthe, and competing cars have been featured in racing games such as the Gran Turismo series.
Motorsport.tv is a global streaming OTT platform specialized in motor racing and motoring content, live and on demand launched in September 2018. It is a fully integrated video ecosystem developed and operated by Motorsport Network to specifically cater to different motor racing and automotive audiences.
Oliver Richard Benjamin Jarvis is a British professional racing driver currently racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series with United Autosports.
Jonathan Ernest Kane is a British racing driver who has competed at various levels of motorsport. He currently drives for Strakka Racing in the Le Mans Series.
Maximilian Alexander Chilton is a British racing driver who last competed for Carlin Motorsport in the IndyCar Series, before announcing his retirement from IndyCar in February 2022. Prior to IndyCar, he competed in Formula One, driving for Marussia F1 in 2013 and 2014. In 2012, he raced in the GP2 series for Marussia-backed Carlin Motorsport.
rFactor 2 is a computer racing simulator developed by Image Space Incorporated and released for Windows in 2013. Like its predecessor rFactor, rFactor2 is designed to be modified and used by professional racing teams for driver training and race car development. Much of its source code is derived from rFactor Pro, which is also used by professional racers and most of the Formula One teams and NASCAR manufacturers.
Tom Leonard Blomqvist is a British racing driver. He competes in the IMSA SportsCar Championship with Meyer Shank Racing. Blomqvist also competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship with United Autosports in the LMP2 category. Blomqvist won the 2022 and 2023 24 Hours of Daytona with Meyer Shank and the 2018 24 Hours of Spa with BMW Motorsport. He is the son of 1984 Swedish World Rally Champion, Stig Blomqvist.
James Alan Broadbent is an English social media personality, commentator, and racing driver. He has over 900,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, with content related to gaming, sim racing, and real life racing. Broadbent most recently competed in the 2022 Praga Cup, in which he won the teams and drivers championships in with his entry Team87 and teammate Gordie Mutch. He also commentates for the Gran Turismo World Series esports tournament.
Edward Jones is an Emirati-born British racing driver who competes part-time in the IMSA SportsCar Championship, driving the No. 20 Oreca 07 for High Class Racing, and part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the Nos. 24/26 Toyota Supra for Sam Hunt Racing. Primarily an open wheel racing driver, Jones previously competed in the Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula Three, Indy Lights, IndyCar Series and FIA World Endurance Championship.
Callum Benjamin Ilott is a British racing driver currently competing in the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship racing for Jota Sport in the Hypercar category.
Colton Thomas Herta is an American racing driver who competes in the NTT IndyCar Series for Andretti Global with Curb Agajanian. He is the youngest person to ever win an IndyCar Series race.
Motorsport Network is an American media and technology company headquartered in Miami, Florida and London, UK. The company's proprietary brands, websites and OTT operations focus on motor racing and consumer automotive content serving and presenting content to audiences worldwide. The privately held business was founded in 2015 with the acquisition of Motorsport.com and now operates international digital, videogame, print, e-commerce & event businesses.
The 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual was an esports 24-hour automobile endurance race for Le Mans Prototype (LMP) and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) vehicles held on a simulated version of the Circuit de la Sarthe from 13 to 14 June 2020. The Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the FIA World Endurance Championship and Motorsport Games organised the race as a placeholder for the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans that was postponed from June to September as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in France. It was hosted on the rFactor 2 gaming platform and operated from Paris' Studio Gabriel. The race featured 50 teams of four drivers each sharing one car. The entry list was divided into two categories of vehicles: LMP and GTE. There were 30 teams in the LMP class and 20 in the GTE category.
NASCAR Heat is a series of NASCAR video games developed and produced by Monster Games and 704Games, who has held the license to publish NASCAR video games since 2015. The first game in the series to be published in the series was NASCAR Heat Evolution, and the latest game to be released in the series was NASCAR Heat 5.
Joshua Pierson is an American racing driver. He competes in Indy NXT for HMD Motorsports, the FIA World Endurance Championship for United Autosport, and in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for TDS Racing. He previously competed in the U.S. F2000 National Championship with Pabst Racing.
KartKraft is a karting racing simulator game that emphasizes realistic physics. It was originally created by Australian independent developer Black Delta which in 2021 was acquired by Motorsport Games. After being in Early Access on the Steam store since November 2018, the game was officially released on January 26, 2022.