Why Motorsport Games Pulled The Plug On The IndyCar Game

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Images: Motorsport Games / IndyCar
Originally planned to be under the Motorsport Games umbrella, the unreleased IndyCar game is not in their hands anymore. Here's why MSG decided to no longer pursue the project.

It was not too long ago that Motorsport Games had big ambitions. Licenses for Le Mans, the BTCC and IndyCar promised three games for series sim racers generally tend to like, but only one of them has materialized - Le Mans Ultimate was released in Early Access in February of 2024, with Studio 397 and MSG working on getting the game to a full release while MSG is looking for an investor or a buyer.

The other two have not happened, and Motorsport Games CEO Stephen Hood has recently admitted that the company grew too fast and collected too many licenses a few years ago. While MSG has reconciled with the BTCC since, the IndyCar game is not in the hands of the company anymore. Despite its relatively advanced state, MSG did not feel like it could finish it properly - as a result, IndyCar themselves can now look for a studio to finalize the game, although this has not happened yet, either.

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A Franchise To Eventually Rival F1?​

Interestingly, Motorsport Games had planned the IndyCar game to be one of the pillars of the company, the other being LMU. "We thought that with the right physics, the right handling, the right game engine and a proper career mode, we could probably make it pretty cool and comparable to the Formula One game, if not better over time", Hood told OverTake. "We could build a new franchise and maybe one day, the Formula One license might be available. This was the romantic dream."

First, some convincing had to be done with IndyCar themselves, though, as Hood remembered: "We had to persuade IndyCar to give us the license, but we weren't competing against anybody. We weren't pushing them out or outbidding them - nobody wanted to make those games, because there was no franchise, nobody knew what the revenues would be, and everyone considered archaic." MSG saw this as an opportunity, "We imagined that if we make a good game with the great Studio 397 rFactor 2 physics, we could do something special and revive these products as a valuable franchise."

It did not quite work out that way. The IndyCar game got delayed and eventually, the licensing agreement with the premier US single-seater series was terminated, with the assets that had been developed so far now being in IndyCar's hands as a result. The series is free to look for another studio and publisher to finish the title, with MSG having agreed to aid the transition.

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No Timeline, No S397 Physics​

What exactly did prompt Motorsport Games to axe the first standalone IndyCar game in 20 years, though? Put simply, it was a trip to Australia that Hood took. The purpose was to visit Motorsport Games Australia, which took care of developing the game - but the state of things were not exactly promising for a company that was already struggling to make ends meet at that point.

"I went to see them in person and to see what they were working on. I wanted to talk to the team. To my surprise, they had no idea when the project could be delivered", Hood looks back on the trip Down Under. "They asked me when it should be delivered, and I said 'yesterday', because we needed the revenue. They gave me a bunch of excuses as to why it couldn't be done." Hood admits that the studio was "somewhat understaffed, maybe underresourced, but that's fine if it means that the project would take longer to deliver. But there was no timeline."

Following this visit, Hood had to make a decision. "I came away with an external producer who used to work with me at Codemasters, and we both looked at one another and thought: 'If they can't even tell us when the project is going to be delivered, how do we keep financing it?' Money is tight, so you have to make some difficult decisions", Hood said. In addition, the game apparently also did not feature the Studio 397 physics engine, "which is why we acquired the studio in the first place", according to Hood.

This, then, led to one of these difficult decisions Hood mentioned - and the project was put on hold, while the studio got shut down. "It wasn't IndyCar pulling the license, it was us saying 'we are not going to make this'", explained Hood. "As a result of that, the license goes back to IndyCar, and they can give it to somebody else while we had to pay a massive penalty."

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"IndyCar were very good with us"​

While Hood did label the situation itself "a massive sh*tshow", he underscores that the relationship with IndyCar is still rather positive: "They were very good with us, we talked about many ways of architecting delivery of the project with their help. But at the end of the day, I just didn't think that we were able to deliver it, so I focused on Le Mans.

The fact that I closed IndyCar had nothing to do with the dream, it was more about the reality on the ground when I came back. It wasn't going anywhere, and I had to make a choice: Am I going to favor Le Mans Ultimate and put the resources into that, or should I favor IndyCar? It was much more advanced technology-wise. Especially using Unreal Engine, it would have been a great foundation for the future.
"

With all the eggs firmly in the Le Mans Ultimate basket, Motorsport Games and Studio 397 are looking to complete the 2024 season DLC for the game. With two packs already released, the third one is expected before the end of 2024, which will bring the first few LMGT3 cars into the sim. Two more tracks from the 2024 calendar are also still missing, those being Lusail and Interlagos.

IndyCar fans, on the other hand, still have to hope that a dedicated game around their favorite series will see the light of day eventually.

Are you still hoping to see a standalone IndyCar game? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our forums!
About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

This website never ceases to deliver. There can't pass one month, let alone a week without an article about how MSG f*cked up even if this "news" is months old by now. Instead of informing people about what's really happening with LMU or with rF2, we allways get articles like these. You know, people can actually have a good time with those titles.

I know something else that's turning into a sh!tshow. :)
 
Okay, I have no knowledge about company's and licensing and so on, but to me, the out stander n00b, it should be SO simple:
There are engines and if I read correctly: they bought S397, so that should be okay.
rF2 already exists, there is an Indycar in there, tracks...... Just go with that, filter the car and tracks out, split it, make it 'stand alone' with this content, rework the model a bit, slap a new UI over it and call it a day!

I mean; a good modder can do this in a day! Look what they give us on a daily basis, look at the magic they perform.

So what else can be difficult, licenses? Indycar is willing, so those licenses can't be the most expensive ever.
I can't see why a company with all the knowledge, resources and an engine can't make this game in a week.
 
If they had of pulled an LMU for Ignition they'd be the darlings of sim racing and we'd have the Indycar and BTCC titles... But instead they pandered to the eye candy crowd by moving to a different engine and produced a flop... Which continues to haunt everything they've tried to do since, including what they've done with LMU... The Indycar projects fate was doomed the day MSGS chose the UE4 engine for Ignition...

It's not about the graphics engine. The point is that the development of Ignition was entrusted to a studio that had no experience in creating racing games. They just didn't understand the physics engine. As a result, with quite decent graphics they got disgusting control and wild AI.
There was a discussion on Steam about Ignition, I support the opinion that the right thing to do would have been to hire some modders with knowledge of the rF2 engine, such as Machine, who are well aware of the NASCAR issues in rF2.
For example, Rennsport, in which the same (almost) engine bundle rides (rF2+UE) and looks pretty good (please, don't hate :).
As for KartKraft - it was a very promising game in my opinion, it's a pity they fell into the hands of MSG. I think that if they had stayed independent, the game would have developed and found its adherents
 
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Okay, I have no knowledge about company's and licensing and so on, but to me, the out stander n00b, it should be SO simple:
There are engines and if I read correctly: they bought S397, so that should be okay.
rF2 already exists, there is an Indycar in there, tracks...... Just go with that, filter the car and tracks out, split it, make it 'stand alone' with this content, rework the model a bit, slap a new UI over it and call it a day!

I mean; a good modder can do this in a day! Look what they give us on a daily basis, look at the magic they perform.

So what else can be difficult, licenses? Indycar is willing, so those licenses can't be the most expensive ever.
I can't see why a company with all the knowledge, resources and an engine can't make this game in a week.
You kind of got it completely wrong. They bought the KartKraft team to develop the Indycar title, not S397. The reason being that that team had more experience with Unreal Engine to develop the Indycar title with cross platform support in mind and to make the transition to consoles easier - in theory. ISImotor engine doesn't offer cross platform support and thus was not considered in first place for the Indycar game, only the physics engine. So a similar approach as with the Grand Tour game or Nascar Ignition. So there goes your it's-just-a-week-time-job out of the window. And porting ISI motor titles is obviously not any easier as LMU proves, otherwise they would have allready done it to get more cash flow.

At one point Mr. Hood made a trip to Australia to take a look at how things are going and was surprised to find nothing that would indicate that the project get's ever finished. People really need to stop interpreting things. This whole story is months old and I have no idea why the authors of this website can't let it go. If there really is interest by any capable studio it will certainly show up to develop such a title. I highly doubt it will ever happen. Too much risk, not enough studios being capabale to pull this off with the right technology and high costs with no garantee for ROI. So we are where we were several years ago. :)
 
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You kind of got it completely wrong. They bought the KartKraft team to develop the Indycar title, not S397. The reason being that that team had more experience with Unreal Engine to develop the Indycar title with cross platform support in mind and to make the transition to consoles easier - in theory. ISImotor engine doesn't offer cross platform support and thus was not considered in first place for the Indycar game, only the physics engine. So a similar approach as with the Grand Tour game or Nascar Ignition. So there goes your it's-just-a-week-time-job out of the window. And porting ISI motor titles is obviously not any easier as LMU proves, otherwise they would have allready done it to get more cash flow.

At one point Mr. Hood made a trip to Australia to take a look at how things are going and was surprised to find nothing that would indicate that the project get's ever finished. People really need to stop interpreting things. This whole story is months old and I have no idea why the authors of this website can't let it go. If there really is interest by any capable studio it will certainly show up to develop such a title. I highly doubt it will ever happen. Too much risk, not enough studios being capabale to pull this off with the right technology and high costs with no garantee for ROI. So we are where we were several years ago. :)

Thank you for the explanation.
I admit my view on the matter is extremely simplified to say the least and the whole idea was more 'a manner of speaking'.
But you got to admit there is a point there (when we go simplified again) as in: take rF2, get out the other stuff and there is your game: I can have it on your desk in an hour ;)

I was going from the point they owned S397, that's why I went with that platform. The article said this: "did not feature the Studio 397 physics engine, "which is why we acquired the studio in the first place", according to Hood."

So, renew the model, slap a different UI on it and go :)

I know, nonsense, but there is a point in making some stuff way to difficult.
 
This website never ceases to deliver. There can't pass one month, let alone a week without an article about how MSG f*cked up even if this "news" is months old by now. Instead of informing people about what's really happening with LMU or with rF2, we allways get articles like these. You know, people can actually have a good time with those titles.

I know something else that's turning into a sh!tshow. :)
These articles are just post mortem news about unfinished games. No analysis, just raw information (not a critic, on the contrary). It is interesting to read how such a bad manager is still able to deny his own responsability in abismal failures. Maybe working instead of talking BS would bring some dynamism in this dead company.

Rfactor2 ? We got the news through this website, haven't you read? It is over, no more development.

LMU ? Any piece of unsignificant news is published here, what are you complaining about ?

I do agree on the fact that I would like to read news about other games, like Pista Motorsport (the last articles was about a roadmqp published at the game release,), about the physics mod for WRC Generations, about older games, still relevant but unknown for many readers , about Rallysimfans updates... I understand some may be interested in knowing if other simrace with socks or shoes, but I personnally don't care and I'd rarher read news about games, and others than the usual publishing of announcements we already read on Steam. This bothers me much more than a post mortem article. I would have like to read about the rerelease of World Racing 2, the rfactor of open world racing games, and Cross Racing Championship, still relevant and fun. These are just examples. What about the modsing for Wreckfest ?

So disagreeing wirh you but agreeing :D
 
So, renew the model, slap a different UI on it and go :)
That's basically what MSG tried to do with Nascar Ignition by using rfactor2's physics engine combined with UE's graphics. And the issue came from the physics engine. The game struggled with the driving, which seems satisfykng now, and with the AI which is still awful. You may deal with bad AI in road course games but, on ovals, if you can't properly race with the pack, the game.is over.

And MSG has been doing it again with LMU and you can see by yourself hiw.much time it takes. Remember when TDU Solar Crown stated that each car required one month to be completed? Imagine one car in LMU with the sim level quality. Maybe it is a full real month (because one month announced for TDU was obviously a full time equivalent with separate tasks, so between one and two weeks in time). Then tracks have to be created with the high quality players are expecting... rfactor2 is a much more xomplex piece of software than F1 Challenge or Rfaxtor1, that's why modding did not become as big as Assetto Corsa, although (or because...) there are much more features in rfactor2. Be sure that if S397 was able to work faster, the team would do it, these people's jobs are at stake.
 
Reading between the lines, Kartkraft was abandoned to use the team for Indycar. A great lesson for.business schools.

1. You abandoned your most advanced product. Kartkraft is a fantastic base for what it should have been with modding. Even as it was, without additional features, it was good and just needed content. Sure, the genre is not that popular but MSG had the opportunity to release a finished game, because the only finished products released by the company were from an outside studio, Monster Games. I thinknthere was a Nasczr Game.on Switch, this maybe the only one.

2. How can you expect from a team who had been working many years on a passionate project, and forced to stop working on it, to handle your project with care? That's just usual human reaction. It should have receivzd much more attention.

3. In which fantasy world did you see projects without milestones and people working without deadlines? Especially creative teams, they will take all the time they can get (and even more).

I didn't know there weren't the phone and the internet in Australia, this costly trip was really helpful to found out all of this.

With such clowns at the top management, I assume that prople at S397 are highly professional and self disciplined. They are the only ones who maintain this sinking boat afloat, and obviously rhe only responsible of doing it. I wish them good luck.
 
Its even more important to have a scope, A budget, a program, a reporting structure and oversight.

Then you get to ask questions that you already know the answers to, before digging into the cultural failures and planning out the strategy to bring it back on track.

I perhaps should give Mr Hood the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just dumbing down his actual understanding of multiple levels of failure that killed a project for the sake of his target audience and he didn't really discover neither party on a flagship project had an expected date of completion after flying across the entire planet.

But even so, Still a naive way to frame the discussion.
Wasn't Hood brought in to sort out the mess made by the previous CEO? That's what I was referring to. It looks like MG Australia was understaffed and, more importantly, undersupervised by the main office.
 
Thank you for the explanation.
I admit my view on the matter is extremely simplified to say the least and the whole idea was more 'a manner of speaking'.
But you got to admit there is a point there (when we go simplified again) as in: take rF2, get out the other stuff and there is your game: I can have it on your desk in an hour ;)

I was going from the point they owned S397, that's why I went with that platform. The article said this: "did not feature the Studio 397 physics engine, "which is why we acquired the studio in the first place", according to Hood."

So, renew the model, slap a different UI on it and go :)

I know, nonsense, but there is a point in making some stuff way to difficult.
The thing you forget is that Indycar most likely requested a console version of the game in first place, because there is alot more money to earn with those platforms than with racing games on PC. The PC market is extremly small in the US compared to the console market and that's where the main target audience is located. Roger Penske doesn't care for a few European die hard racing fans that have heard of Indycar. Exposure for Indycar is pretty much nonexistent here - atleast here in Germany we only get to see it with pay TV and there aren't any news about it - and I am sure if you ask some people who Scott Dixon is, they propably have never heard of him. At the end Unreal Engine is alot easier to work with if you plan with a PC release as a secondary product as you have the technology for basicly everything and plugin your own physics engine. There is no over complicated appraoch with this. It's simply a matter of doing it properly and not rushing out a product to meat some arbritrary deadlines that are just there to please some investors ... and getting knowledgable people to do the job and not a team that barely delivered a Karting game on their own.
 
OverTake
Premium
This whole story is months old and recycled content from a Traxxion GG video. No idea how that qualifies as news.
That is incorrect. It is from an interview I conducted with Stephen Hood recently. No one else was present in that call ;)

It may well be that they covered that a while ago, but the quotes and story in this are 100% from scratch.
 
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That is incorrect. It is from an interview I conducted with Stephen Hood recently. No one else was present in that call ;)

It may well be that they covered that a while ago, but the quotes and story in this are 100% from scratch.
I did not say that the interview isn't new and I even expected it to be that way. The content or the whole story about what happened with the former team behind KartKraft isn't new though. Wich indicates that there might be more interesting questions to ask that haven't been asked before. But that's just my two cents. If warming up cold coffee is the goal, then so be it. ;)
 
I dont care about Indy, they just should finish LMU properly !

Question: how long can you let your kids go hungry ?

There is no $$$ to throw around you can tell that by Steam sales charts.
On top of that you have MSG sucking resources dry.
How could any studio deliver in that environment.

I happy though at least some think the same as me and have improved monthly positivity on Steam from 50+% to 80% the highest it has ever been since release.
Before the sale announcement by MSG it sat at 60%
Like I said I don't know if it would do any good but better to get off your butts and vote with your heart then hope and pray or give up.
This is not new buyers as they have remained pretty stagnant.
Hope is now the positive vibe can grow by December DLC.
They will need sales to increase 5/10 fold if people want to keep this series alive past 2024.

Oh and rFactor 2 is at a 12 year all time high monthly positive of 88%.

Seems 2 things have been learned from recent trend imho.
1. You want rF2 / LMU to have any chance then back them.
2. If you had bad experience give them a proper second try, not 119 minutes.
Take your time to learn what you need.

Looks to me more positive reviews about nothing but the "Drive"
More are starting to get it ;)
 
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It's not about the graphics engine.

That's a major part of the problem, Kunos struggled through it with ACC and decided to go back to their engine, WRC and Rennsport are both facing similar Unreal engine issues...

The point is that the development of Ignition was entrusted to a studio that had no experience in creating racing games. They just didn't understand the physics engine. As a result, with quite decent graphics they got disgusting control and wild AI.

This certainly didn't help matters at all, however as said above, both Kunos and Rennsport have both struggled with Unreal as well... And Kunos was far from a studio you could call inexperienced...

You could also add in the short time frame that Ignition was given in development... I'm not expecting a lot from Rennsport for another 2-3 years... Ignition never got that kind of development focus or length...

But overall the engine didn't fit the team, the timeframe or the genre...

There was a discussion on Steam about Ignition, I support the opinion that the right thing to do would have been to hire some modders with knowledge of the rF2 engine, such as Machine, who are well aware of the NASCAR issues in rF2.

That's in essence what happens with every sim racing development studio... They start as modders...

A focused title like LMU with modders for NASCAR would get my full support...

For example, Rennsport, in which the same (almost) engine bundle rides (rF2+UE) and looks pretty good (please, don't hate :).

Even with my above opinion of where Rennsport is now, without set ups I feel it's years away and too early to judge... It could be another RaceRoom where in 10 years people are still wishing they move to another engine or in 2-3 years it could be something that could easily knock off ACE and it's non racing focus...

Merging the rF2 physics with another engine hasn't gone well for the Madness engine throughout it's history nor has it gone well in Ignition or in Rennsport so far... But given the long term vision of Rennsport I do have hope that they might be the first to get that pmotor code working well outside of an ISI graphical environment...

As for KartKraft - it was a very promising game in my opinion, it's a pity they fell into the hands of MSG. I think that if they had stayed independent, the game would have developed and found its adherents

Kartkraft was a shame, but it's also a very problematic thing to simulate that we are a long ways away from getting close to correct in terms of racing sims... Short wheelbases and small tyres create some interesting math problems that I don't think we've managed to get close enough to fixing... Could of been a great game regardless, but like many things to do with MSGS's history it's a shame that it turned out the way that it did and not what the marketing brief was...
 
OverTake
Premium
I did not say that the interview isn't new and I even expected it to be that way. The content or the whole story about what happened with the former team behind KartKraft isn't new though. Wich indicates that there might be more interesting questions to ask that haven't been asked before. But that's just my two cents. If warming up cold coffee is the goal, then so be it. ;)
You seem to care an awful lot about an old warmed up story, but it doesn't actually interest you at all. ;)
 
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Football fans the chant is ready;

We want RF2 baaack, we want RF2 baaack, we want RF2 baaack, we want RF2 baaack, we want RF2 baaack, we want RF2 baaack.
 

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