Marco Massarutto Statement on Digital Bros Buyout

[Paul Jeffrey]

Marco Massarutto, Licencing Project Manager for Kunos Simulazioni and Assetto Corsa, has today released a brief statement regarding the recently announced Digital Bros takeover news that broke yesterday.

Speaking via his personal Facebook page, Massarutto have been quick to dispel concerns by fans wishing to know what the future of Assetto Corsa holds in light of the new financial investment by the Digital Bros Group. Massarutto has gone on record to confirm that both he and fellow co founder Stefano Casillo remain at the helm of Assetto Corsa, retaining their original roles and responsibilities with the development studio.

Furthermore Massarutto has assured fans that the move to take over Kunos by Digital Bros will not effect either the simulation or the playing experience in any disenable way, it will simply act as an opportunity to bring more funding and resources to the development of Assetto Corsa going forward.

For those of you interested in reading what Massarutto has to say about the move, you can read the full Facebook statement below:

"Ok, let's clarify this before it becomes the bigger flame of the year.

By today, Kunos Simulazioni is part of Digital Bros Family, and me and Stefano by today are shareholders of Digital Bros. That's it. We are still the founders of Kunos, we are still IN, also keeping our respective positions and responsabilities, with just few exceptions: the budget we'll manage by now doesn't come anymore from our personal profits, but from Digital Bros, our bigger AC fan. Keeping the same... policy, strategies, DNA, development team, goals. So, if this news would not been made public, you couldn't realize that something is changed, because - by a gamer/simracer point of view - nothing is going to change.

The reason why this news comes like a bombshell is because Digital Bros is a listed company, therefore this kind of operation must a) kept confidential until the negotiation is over, b) go public when is done. That's it.

For whom are afraid that today a piece of their simracing world has gone, let me remind them that Digital Bros has published - under its label 505Games - the console version of Assetto Corsa, and it doesn't seem to me that AC on PS4/XB1 is an arcade game: definetely it isn't. Therefore, before to scream in any direction that "Kunos has been bought, The World is Over", please sit down, breath and think. Because the only news you should be interested is that by today, we have more resources, time and power to do our job, even better than before.

So: think easier, live better, stay strong. The Future is Bright.

Have a nice weekend"
​

So following on from the initial mixed reaction from fans of Kunos and Assetto, it looks like the move to align with Digital Bros isn't necessarily a case of the core team "jumping ship" but rather an astute deal to ensure a stronger more financially secure partner is on board to support further development of the game. Of course at this early stage of the deal one would expect a period of quiet as all parties gather perspective and settle into the new arrangement, so I wouldn't expect a vast amount to change in the immediate future. Just how much weight Digital Bros will have with regards to the development direction of the game, or how much of a say in the future of Assetto Corsa will be shared amongst the new structure remains to be seen. At this stage the announcement looks to be only positive news for Kunos and AC, as more money and more support whilst maintaining the core team behind the title can only be a good thing for the future of this sim.

Time will tell if this is the case.

Do you think this is a good more from Kunos? Will Digital Bros bring beneficial resource to the table, or cause more harm than good? Let us know your opinions in the comments section below!

 

[Ole Andreasen]

Relief washed over me. Thank you for the fast clarification. Seems like this could even be way cool. Anyway - great to know that AC is in good hands still.

 

[apex11]

Glad they did this as Stefano is a liability, hopefully they can inject some much needed quality into the rest of the 'game'. I think they released onto console as a smash and grab as the company isn't worth much anyway (3 million ish?) but would be even less without the console side.
It explains a lot about why the console release was so poor.

 

[Jockey]

I find it amusing that Marco Massarutto has it's own tag.

 

[ears]

we have more resources, time and power to do our job,

Marco: Hey Stefano! Great news! We have more money and resources now and we're going to hire some new developers to work in a team with you!

Stefano: F*** Off

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

You would expect a statement like that. They just sold their company and they of course will want to assure their backers AC will grow even bigger.

Only time will tell what happens going forward.

If free pack, British DLC, Laguna Seca DLC, Ferrari DLC still happen than everything is back to normal.

However Marco using #Reset is strange.

 

[bellofrancesco]

VERGOGNATEVI......

 

[David Wright]

I'm old enough to remember when publishers financed the development of all racing sims and in several cases (Papyrus, Crammond's Microprose and Blimey!) owned the developer too. I actually prefer these older generation sims to the present generation.

 

[Phoenix77]

It's excellent news that Marco and Stefano are still in
Sounds like a great move, and now... Kunos, Assetto, Marco & Stefano have well earned financial recognition, as well as our recognition.

More financial assets to secure some amazing licences must surely be on the cards...
Anyone fancy a Kunos made Monaco or Le Mans? I know I do...

I hope most of the talented team remain as well, because Kunos... as a team, have too much passion for driving and racing to be split up!

 

[JeffL]

Just to keep it real, being shareholders do you think there is even a remote possibility that he would make the statement that things are gonna change and you are not gonna be happy. He may not be lying but expecting anything other than what he said might be wishful thinking.

 

[Kenny Paton]

I'm old enough to remember when publishers financed the development of all racing sims and in several cases (Papyrus, Crammond's Microprose and Blimey!) owned the developer too. I actually prefer these older generation sims to the present generation.

Yes and publishers expected developers to produce a complete game, not drip feed it out over months or even years.

 

[ears]

Marco: Stefano, I can't remember where I put the self destruct button. Do you know where it is?

Stefano: F*** off

Marco: Oh, never mind. I found it.

 

[M D Gourley]

So: think easier, live better, stay strong. The Future is Bright.

It must be immense stress both mentally and physically to develop a top shelf Sim, not to mention financially as well and in the end seeing your creation that you breathed life into, feeding it, nurturing it to maturity, only to see the light at the end of the tunnel....that is the only way forward is possibly a Corporate buy out, bigger budget, bigger everything.
I wish Kunos and the team every success in this endeavor...but in the end, 'What Corporate Wants, Corporate Gets'

 

[RMR1]

Reading between the lines, this is not a relief!

 

[aduo]

good , as he says they will be on board same as before , so I am happy . They scared me yesterday .

 

[Rob]

Count me as skeptical. I have been a part of these mergers for legal, IT, and retail companies. In fact, my brother did this very thing, his IT company being sold to a publicly traded company after building it. He worked for them too. Eventually, unless the new bosses completely agree with your vision and future advice (which is about 5% of the time), fissures become canyons and the original flavor never remains intact. Ask yourself: Is Assetto the exception to the norm in the big picture of SIM racing? Maybe not. But saying "nothing will change" is a bit pollyanish...but always "the party line" to quell a revolt by consumers. A smart business move? Probably. My hope is that in the short term...new money and old leadership will be a massive success. After that, it gets dicey.

 

[paracletus]

Realistic racing games are now massive business; just watching the $1million rf2 race on tv.
Looks like 2005 graphics there though :/
anyway, huge congratulations to kunos for this.
And i wouldn't worry about it becoming a full-arcade game. That's obviously not what a lot of video gamers want these days.

 

[Radu Oros]

I don't see future changes to AC pleasing less or pleasing more than changes and decisions which have happened to AC since its inception until today, being Kunos owned by Stefano and Marco or Kunos owned by Digital Bros.

Weren't several parts and features of AC not made due to lack of resources or creator's choice? AC didn't please everyone back then, it doesn't please everyone in the present, and won't please everyone in the future.
So I don't see that being any different with new owners, even though Kunos maintains its devs and artists. Just don't be hypocritical (you know who they are) and start the alarms only because of new owners and your fear that they will ruin the game by making things you don't agree with when AC contains a lot of stuff that people don't agree with, and they constantly remind us in every thread and blog post, telling us every other sim is so great but AC isn't. Assetto Corsa managed to bring and maintain a lot more older and newer sim racers than all those "great sims" with a "standard" feature list. In the scope of gaming genre, AC is still a game with a small user base and active players, but in sim racing genre is up there.

For a future AC is important to develop the game so that players race against each other more times and with better (racing/safety) conditions. You can't rely only on public servers for your multiplayer. The trend nowadays in high skilled games is to go the competitive/esports route (and not necessarily just LAN competition, but also Online competition), but public servers isn't enough. CS:GO, Dota2, LOL, etc. provide a competitive online mode, besides its online casual and community server modes. For a racing game to be successful and actively played you need a strong single and multi player where people have the opportunity integrated in the game to overcome themselves and play without waiting too long ( and without needing to register for leagues on 3rd party websites; edit, important that the only payment you make is for the game and dlcs, no paid subscriptions to race competitively).

 

[kondor999]

Worried.

We may see "Assetto Corsa Mobile" a long time before we see decent AI or rain.

(Just tried to run a full grid of F138's at Imola. The AI couldn't make it through Tamburello without slowing to a crawl, then I got repeatedly rammed as everyone tried to get through Tosa without slowing down. Restarted 4 times and gave up, went back to Hotlap Mode.)

Forza has great AI. Maybe this new company can hire away whoever developed it for T10.

 

[Kevin Knorpp]

While my personal requirements are being met by other software, AC has certainly struck a chord with many sim racers so I'd love to see it succeed.

But it's obvious the software was simply not designed to support fundamental racing features which makes it difficult to add features and some like multiple light sources are impossible.

So AC2 is inevitable but there is no discussion of this? Now would be the time to do it with capital now available?

 

[natedogg1867]

So AC2 is inevitable but there is no discussion of this? Now would be the time to do it with capital now available?

Why? No need to do this now. Plenty of things licensed for AC (1) already and plenty of features and improvements still to come. After all that gets added and included, then you can think about using a completely new graphics engine for night time racing (OOOOOH) and rain (AHHHH).

Til then, it would likely be a bigger mistake to can AC now, and move on to a new iteration, when most of what could be added to that can still be added to this.

And who really wants to see another franchise model? Pcars is taking care of that just fine. I personally quite enjoy these long term projects as plenty gets added over the years and the games always improve. Calling a game finished and then being left with nothing for ~2+ yrs while the new iteration is worked on and finalized before this process repeats is not something I would ever want to see in our genre.

Just because a studio has some more money doesnt mean they instantly need to move on to new things.