By far the biggest story in sim racing right now.
Like many NASCAR fans, I have been left with infinitely more questions than answers regarding the abysmal state of NASCAR 21: Ignition. Based on my four years of experience in the sim racing industry I struggle to understand how this title passed certification, and how NASCAR didn't immediately distance themselves from Motorsport Games.
So I began searching for any info I could find on them. Everything I've found, is beyond bizarre and it feels like a fever dream.
Motorsport Games materialized in 2018, seemingly out of thin air, and somehow snatched up not one, but four major racing series licenses, along with the rights to established titles like rFactor 2 and KartKraft. This kind of aggressive expansion is completely unheard of in our hobby, and virtually impossible for a brand new development team who up until October of last year, hadn't released a game of their own.
Rather than engage with the sim community in the way guys like Aris, Ian Bell, et al. have done, they have curated their own little corner of the internet and essentially created their own separate ecosystem of pseudo-press.
Their CEO is obsessed with going on stock analyist shows like TD Ameritrade Network, or appearing as a guest speaker at investor conferences. I've never in my life had to watch stock analyitics shows of all things to learn basic info about a racing sim. The hosts are clueless about the quality of their games and ask him softball questions, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Motorsport Games released a defective product in NASCAR 21.
In the 15 months since going public, the share price has cratered from $30, to just $1.38, which flashes on the screen, yet the host continues to applaud him for "growth and success" as if they're not even talking about the same company.
The company seems to have no intention to communicate with the sim racing community at all - going as far as starting their own sim racing community, so that they can heavily curate the kinds of articles written about their games and keep investors from stumbling upon a place like RaceDepartment where people are asking serious questions. The site in question is called Traxion and is literally a carbon copy of RaceDepartment, albeit with the comments section very convoluted to find.
Taking things further, I've found a suspicious amount of stock analytics blogs writing that $MSGM is a buy, or the stock will recover from it's prolonged nosedive, only for virtually all of these predictions to be proven wrong.
In their most recent Q4 2021 earnings call, they admit to not having cash on-hand to last the calendar year, and are blowing through approximately $1.7mil per month. They will be out of money a few months prior to NASCAR 22 releasing, if that game actually happens.
The Le Mans game that was supposed to be in early access this year, has been postponed. The BTCC game, which was announced years ago and RaceDepartment lists as one of 10 racing sims to look forward to in 2022, has been taken off their road map entirely.
Yet this somehow all pales in comparison to what the company's actual business plan is.
Motorsport Games have a job opening for an NFT/Crypto specialist, and Kozko has spoken about the blockchain and "some surprises fans hopefully haven't been able to predict" in the above interview.
Their business plan, is to run an NFT scheme. This explains why NASCAR/Indy/BTCC/LeMans haven't jumped ship after it was clear NASCAR 21 was shovelware - the actual games don't matter; it's an avenue for these racing series to sell ovepriced, digital trading cards and get in on the NFT bubble, knowing niche racing sims alone won't make them any money. The games, which we thought were going to be niche racing sims for starved motorsports fanbases, are instead going to become macro-transaction hellscapes. We can only pray this doesn't filter over into rFactor 2.
They have held off announcing this publicly, since EA and Ubisoft have both backed away from NFT's due to player backlash & apathy, with Forbes even writing that interest in NFT's has died.
Furthermore, they appear to have been seriously dishonest when it comes to their dealings behind closed doors.
During their investor call, they have claimed 81 million fans followed the virtual Le Mans series, which is impossible. rFactor 2 is only played by about 900 people per day, with the most recent NFL Super Bowl reeling in 112 million viewers. They are seriously trying to claim rF2 is almost as big as the Super Bowl, attempting to obfuscate social media "impressions" (people scrolling past) with "actual viewers and fans of the product."
There is also a guy in my YouTube comments, who can be found on LinkedIn quite easily, that claimed MSGM came to his firm for financing and the firm basically laughed them out of the room, because their $400 mil valuation seemed completely bogus and the company had "virtually no revenue."
What in the actual hell is going on here?
Like many NASCAR fans, I have been left with infinitely more questions than answers regarding the abysmal state of NASCAR 21: Ignition. Based on my four years of experience in the sim racing industry I struggle to understand how this title passed certification, and how NASCAR didn't immediately distance themselves from Motorsport Games.
So I began searching for any info I could find on them. Everything I've found, is beyond bizarre and it feels like a fever dream.
Motorsport Games materialized in 2018, seemingly out of thin air, and somehow snatched up not one, but four major racing series licenses, along with the rights to established titles like rFactor 2 and KartKraft. This kind of aggressive expansion is completely unheard of in our hobby, and virtually impossible for a brand new development team who up until October of last year, hadn't released a game of their own.
Rather than engage with the sim community in the way guys like Aris, Ian Bell, et al. have done, they have curated their own little corner of the internet and essentially created their own separate ecosystem of pseudo-press.
Their CEO is obsessed with going on stock analyist shows like TD Ameritrade Network, or appearing as a guest speaker at investor conferences. I've never in my life had to watch stock analyitics shows of all things to learn basic info about a racing sim. The hosts are clueless about the quality of their games and ask him softball questions, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Motorsport Games released a defective product in NASCAR 21.
In the 15 months since going public, the share price has cratered from $30, to just $1.38, which flashes on the screen, yet the host continues to applaud him for "growth and success" as if they're not even talking about the same company.
The company seems to have no intention to communicate with the sim racing community at all - going as far as starting their own sim racing community, so that they can heavily curate the kinds of articles written about their games and keep investors from stumbling upon a place like RaceDepartment where people are asking serious questions. The site in question is called Traxion and is literally a carbon copy of RaceDepartment, albeit with the comments section very convoluted to find.
Taking things further, I've found a suspicious amount of stock analytics blogs writing that $MSGM is a buy, or the stock will recover from it's prolonged nosedive, only for virtually all of these predictions to be proven wrong.
In their most recent Q4 2021 earnings call, they admit to not having cash on-hand to last the calendar year, and are blowing through approximately $1.7mil per month. They will be out of money a few months prior to NASCAR 22 releasing, if that game actually happens.
The Le Mans game that was supposed to be in early access this year, has been postponed. The BTCC game, which was announced years ago and RaceDepartment lists as one of 10 racing sims to look forward to in 2022, has been taken off their road map entirely.
Yet this somehow all pales in comparison to what the company's actual business plan is.
Motorsport Games have a job opening for an NFT/Crypto specialist, and Kozko has spoken about the blockchain and "some surprises fans hopefully haven't been able to predict" in the above interview.
Their business plan, is to run an NFT scheme. This explains why NASCAR/Indy/BTCC/LeMans haven't jumped ship after it was clear NASCAR 21 was shovelware - the actual games don't matter; it's an avenue for these racing series to sell ovepriced, digital trading cards and get in on the NFT bubble, knowing niche racing sims alone won't make them any money. The games, which we thought were going to be niche racing sims for starved motorsports fanbases, are instead going to become macro-transaction hellscapes. We can only pray this doesn't filter over into rFactor 2.
They have held off announcing this publicly, since EA and Ubisoft have both backed away from NFT's due to player backlash & apathy, with Forbes even writing that interest in NFT's has died.
Furthermore, they appear to have been seriously dishonest when it comes to their dealings behind closed doors.
During their investor call, they have claimed 81 million fans followed the virtual Le Mans series, which is impossible. rFactor 2 is only played by about 900 people per day, with the most recent NFL Super Bowl reeling in 112 million viewers. They are seriously trying to claim rF2 is almost as big as the Super Bowl, attempting to obfuscate social media "impressions" (people scrolling past) with "actual viewers and fans of the product."
There is also a guy in my YouTube comments, who can be found on LinkedIn quite easily, that claimed MSGM came to his firm for financing and the firm basically laughed them out of the room, because their $400 mil valuation seemed completely bogus and the company had "virtually no revenue."
What in the actual hell is going on here?
