iRacing Acquires Racing Game Developer Monster Games

iRacing Acquires Monster Games 01.jpg
Monster Games, developer of titles like NASCAR Heat and SRX: The Game, has been acquired by iRacing.

iRacing has started their year by announcing the acquisition of Monster Games, a fellow racing game developer.

Monster Games' development resume dates back to 1998's Viper Racing, and they also released a title last year with SRX: The Game. The years in between saw the team take on many one-off titles and the NASCAR: Heat series.

iRacing has insisted that in spite of the acquisition of Monster Games and Orontes Games, their focus will still be the core iRacing game, though they did note that Monster Games will "further the company’s ability to bring the highest quality racing games to the broader market, including the console space."

It's too soon to say what the two recent acquisitions mean for iRacing, though both former Orontes and Monster employees could bring fresh perspectives on certain development issues and help improve iRacing.

What are your thoughts on iRacing and Monster Games joining forces? Will this help the title? Let us know in the comments below.
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

Caleb Lee
Eckhart von Glan said:
speaking of career based spin-off standalone games, they have the full US single seater career from Formula Vee all the way up to Indianapolis ready and polished on their shelves, if I am not mistaken ... (an up to date Skip Barber driving school car would help, though ;) )
Click to expand...
Boy are you in good luck regarding the updated Skip Barber car...
 
Paranoid_Andr01d
Viper Racing was my first ever PC racing sim. It was praised for its incredible physics at the time, but I was just happy to be driving my favorite car as a kid. I have fond memories of playing it on my old Windows 95 Packard Bell with my Logitech Wingman Formula Force wheel. Back then, Monster went by the name MGI, so I never made this connection. As someone who just recently subscribed to iRacing, this is a pleasure to see!
 
VirtuaIceMan
Paranoid_Andr01d said:
Viper Racing was my first ever PC racing sim. It was praised for its incredible physics at the time, but I was just happy to be driving my favorite car as a kid. I have fond memories of playing it on my old Windows 95 Packard Bell with my Logitech Wingman Formula Force wheel. Back then, Monster went by the name MGI, so I never made this connection. As someone who just recently subscribed to iRacing, this is a pleasure to see!
Click to expand...
I enjoyed enabling the killer football in Viper Racing :-D
 
Shannon Flynn
PURE SPECULATION on my part....

I think NASCAR realizes they've been duped my Motorsport Games and has/will terminate their NASCAR license. They're going to have iRacing develop future installments of the title. iRacing is buying up developers with console experience to assist them with the process.

I'm not a huge fan of Monster Games' offerings -- I play them when I'm in the mood for something a little different -- but I find that their latest titles have run very well with minimal bugs. These two developers could put together a great NASCAR game for the masses in no time.
 
Jonny Austin
Ole Marius Myrvold said:
That's arguably what was said regarding the newest NASCAR game as well. "Just take rFactor 2, and add in the single player features and rules needed".
Didn't work out that way.
Click to expand...
The key difference being that everything works on Iracing much as it did previously when the same developers released Indycar & Nascar games with Papyrus.
The vids I have seen of Nascar 21 looks like they have imported all the flawed elements of RF2 added some nice graphics & ended up with a disaster.
 
BorisK
I think iRacing is not doing very well financially right now, because there are competitors who are just as interesting and much less expensive. It is quite possible that iRacing is planning some side project.
 
P
With any luck, iRacing will become like EA. Then all we'll be left with is iRacing with an even more expensive subscription than we have now. And honestly, iRacing is a pure wreckfest anymore IMO
 
DamonDamon
Slapped said:
Well not entirely. Sure you've mentioned Kunos and Reiza, but there's also Sector 3, Studio 397, and KT Racing.

I don't think that iRacing's acquisition of monster games is really going to send shockwaves through the sim racing community. I remember buying Tony Stewart's Sprint Car Racing and, according to Steam, I spent a grand total of 2 hours and 30 minutes in it before deleting it to ensure I wasn't wasting any of my 8 TB of SSD space on it.
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Kunos is owned by 505 Games, the publishing division of Digital Bros.

Studio 397 is now part of Motorsport Games.

KT Racing is owned by Nacon, the video game division of Big Ben Interactive.

Reiza and Sector 3 remain independent.
 

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