Managing Director Marcel Offermans Leaves Studio 397


The rumblings under the Motorsport Games umbrella do not seem to stop: While news on the rFactor 2 side have been positive recently with the announcement of exciting content due this month, the end of May is going to be the end of Studio 397’s Managing Director Marcel Offermans at the company.

Offermans is not the first higher-up to decide that it is time to move on: In early April, it became known that Motorsport Games' President Stephen Hood had left the company, just as the planned BTCC game faced a delay that by now looks like a complete cancellation of the project.

What Offermans’ departure means for the future of rFactor 2 remains to be seen. He shared a YouTube video (see above) titled “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”, a reference to a famous book by Douglas Adams with the same name. The video shows his beloved GTE Corvette exiting the final turn of Circuit Zandvoort at night, followed by a statement regarding his departure.

“By the end of May, it is time to move on”, states Offermans while simultaneously expressing his gratitude for his time with Studio 397: “Over time, we grew the user base by an order of magnitude, improved just about every aspect of the simulation and did some really cool projects and collaboration.” Offermans has been with Studio 397 since 2016.

Update: according to this SEC filing the heads of Luminis, the previous owners of Studio 397, received a million dollars to complete the acquisition of the company but with 2.2 million being differered for undisclosed reasons.​

Interestingly, his successor is apparently already in place to take over in June: “I am leaving rFactor 2 in very capable hands”, reads the penultimate line of Offermans’ statement – although it is not yet known who is going to take over the reigns or what the future holds regarding the simulation. The next content drop including two BTCC cars plus Donington Park, Brands Hatch and Laguna Seca is expected sometime in May.

What are your thoughts regarding this news? Let us know on Twitter @RaceDepartment or in the comments below!
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About author
Yannik Haustein
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

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B
Premium
Wayne Hutchison said:
From SEC filing on March 30, 2022:

"Studio397’s results of operations for the period from April 20, 2021 to December 31, 2021 included approximately $845,000 in revenues and $1,857,000 in net losses."
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Sure that would affect the value but I still I fail to see how guys think rF2 is not worth anything... you have be clueless about development and business in general. Also the numbers need to be looked in conjunction with backup data... looking at the from moon only shows a very small part of the story.
 
R.Man
boxer said:
Sure that would affect the value but I still I fail to see how guys think rF2 is not worth anything... you have be clueless about development and business in general. Also the numbers need to be looked in conjunction with backup data... looking at the from moon only shows a very small part of the story.
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The typical RF2 die hard fan that lead RF2 to the actual state. Man when we read the discussion , you are losing the argument, why do you insist? Sure the base code has value but it's not profitable. It's a cow that eat more food than give milk. A farmer would now the difference very quickly. I wonder if you really have clue about business like you claim it.
 
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Durge Driven
Maybe we could get Elon Musk to buy Studio 397? God knows he's got the money to do so.
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Not the worst idea, would be a great advert

Elon could sit in his Tesla let the AI drive run steam boot his sim, sit in same car while the AI drives or press button to control steering wheel and pedals so he can drive it :p


make full windscreen monitor, you don't need to see where you going with AI :laugh:
 
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F
I have been critical of rF2 over the last couple of years but was sad to read that Marcel is moving on.
I don't think he would have if all was rosy in rF2 land and its future.
Unfortunately I cannot see anyone picking up rF2 if MSG does implode.
It still needs far too much investment, not just in $ but manpower as well to be seen to be the finished article.
It is a shame when these small studios sell to larger corporates.
The studios do it to fund development and grow the game but the corporates do it to make a buck. Unfortunately that often means diluting the product and it's initial attraction to its player base in order to make it more attractive to more potential customers.
The only winners in that scenario are the corporates.
I have an idea, how about Marcel take over from the village idiot that is running MSG now?......
 
Durge Driven
Ironic isn't it ? Bleeding hearts club now :O_o:

No one stopped to think when reviewers and haters constantly bashed rF2 to death never letting up for a day so we lost ISI and 2 of the Godfathers of Sim Racing for 2 decades, now probably forever
So then they still went on like it was some sort of vindication and have not let up since

All through community all forums you know who you are
 
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R.Man
F1Aussie said:
The studios do it to fund development and grow the game but the corporates do it to make a buck. Unfortunately that often means diluting the product and it's initial attraction to its player base in order to make it more attractive to more potential customers.
Click to expand...
We may need to assume that it's not really MSG fault. RF2 at a time slowed the development but released DLC after DLC even if the players BEGGED for UI updates (which came years too late) , bug fix etc. Those can be chronogically verified on various Rf2 forums, youtube videos, steam reviews, etc. Yes a studio need to make money but we had the impression that they mainly wanted to make money via DLC during 2 to 3 years. That irreversibly fueled players criticism for years until today. RF2 was already in bad posture at least among the sim racing community before MSG acquisition. The past 2 years S397 was praised to improve the sim (dev blog, UI, graphic etc), in reality they didn't really improve the sim they just standardized it, I mean , just made it "work". Thus it's far from "it just works" in 2022, bugs are still big part of the sim. In conclusion both are somewhat similar and was joined by the attraction law...
 
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Antonio Castagna
rF2 was only great when there was ISI.
From Studio 397 onwards it has been a continuous disappointment, especially on the correction of a myriad of bugs that kept popping up like mushrooms since S397 got his hands on it and thought almost exclusively about inserting new cars and tracks.
 
Peter Kerényi
gianlucaP said:
The old RF2 UI wasn't worst than the one in AC and AMS, RF1 and GTR2, NKP, FVA and iRacing. All of them are bad. Was an interface designed for a pc player, with mouse and keyboard, so it can't be slick and smooth like one designed for console and controller. How difficult is to understand? Even a monkey would have this clear at this time.
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I actually think the old UI (the one with the blue background) was the best so far. Simple, quick, smooth. I never understood the hate for that. The "old new UI" was a disaster, especially after all that waiting for it, the current new UI is and improvement but why do the animations have to be stuck at 30 FPS?
 
T
R.Man said:
The typical RF2 die hard fan that lead RF2 to the actual state. Man when we read the discussion , you are losing the argument, why do you insist? Sure the base code has value but it's not profitable. It's a cow that eat more food than give milk. A farmer would now the difference very quickly. I wonder if you really have clue about business like you claim it.
Click to expand...
They same way I could argue that you are the typical hater who seems to have barely any relation to the sim, it's development or the community. Why is it allways that people pull this stupid hater-fanboy-argument just to evade any meaningfull discussion? rF2 is in fact in the best state it ever was and it has allways been a long term project. So either you accept that or not. It's very simple. It could have been 20 years in development and would still be in the state that it is now. That argument is so out of date and I have no idea how it allways comes up. rF2 is a 2022 product.

I allways think that it's quite funny how people judge the value of a product based on a few numbers that some economists pull out of their cutest. It's one way to look at the value of something, but it doesn't tell the whole story. And I think that it's well worth to take a close look at other products in the sim racing industry, to understand how they developed and that good games aren't necessarily the most profitable products. GTR2, GPL and now rF2 are just few examples. iRacing took a long time to break even. From a business POV it might even be possible that ISI operated at a better level than S397. But in that case I can only give you the advice to boot up the last ISI build and compare it to what we have today. Better don't do it.

I also don't get all the fuzz. Nobody besides Marcel and propably a few other people really know why he leaves the studio. Maybe he is just sick of reading RD comments by tin foil hats? :p
 
Kenny Paton
Moderator
Premium
gianlucaP said:
Even a monkey would have this clear at this time.
You guys don't like the game? Move on, uninstall it and get lost! Go play whatever you like, keep vomiting your bile somewhere else.
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This type of inflammatory post really doesn't help your cause.
tr1v1um said:
Why is it allways that people pull this stupid hater-fanboy-argument just to evade any meaningfull discussion?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately that seems to be true, and not just with rF2.
So let's try to be civil and try not to show a toxicity that sim racers are often accused of.
 
Metla
Premium
My personal opinion of the game aside, rFactor 2 never seemed to recover from a disappointing launch and a ludicrous purchasing system.

If anything it felt like ISI were burnt out on the title after the long journey from their F1 games , and by the time 397 became involved it was already a case of beating a dead horse.

No idea how anyone involved put food on the table.
 
F
Durge Driven said:
Ironic isn't it ? Bleeding hearts club now :O_o:

No one stopped to think when reviewers and haters constantly bashed rF2 to death never letting up for a day so we lost ISI and 2 of the Godfathers of Sim Racing for 2 decades, now probably forever
So then they still went on like it was some sort of vindication and have not let up since

All through community all forums you know who you are
Click to expand...
I don't think anyone really wanted rF2 to fail but we're probably more frustrated with the direction of development and pace of development. I know I certainly have been. It would be a sad day if MSG go under and rF2 ends up with development stopped just at a time when the development has started to ramp up and the Sim is moving forward towards reaching its potential. That would be very unfortunate timing indeed.
 
F
R.Man said:
We may need to assume that it's not really MSG fault. RF2 at a time slowed the development but released DLC after DLC even if the players BEGGED for UI updates (which came years too late) , bug fix etc. Those can be chronogically verified on various Rf2 forums, youtube videos, steam reviews, etc. Yes a studio need to make money but we had the impression that they mainly wanted to make money via DLC during 2 to 3 years. That irreversibly fueled players criticism for years until today. RF2 was already in bad posture at least among the sim racing community before MSG acquisition. The past 2 years S397 was praised to improve the sim (dev blog, UI, graphic etc), in reality they didn't really improve the sim they just standardized it, I mean , just made it "work". Thus it's far from "it just works" in 2022, bugs are still big part of the sim. In conclusion both are somewhat similar and was joined by the attraction law...
Click to expand...
I guess one thing we don't know is would rF2 have been better staying under the luminis banner instead of going to MSG? I assume luminis got swallowed up by MSG or did they buy it off luminis? Either way you would think that if MSG go under the we the end user are the ones that lose out regardless. I guess we all have to wait and see how it plays out but it does not sound positive.
What other games fall under MSGs grasp?
 

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