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News iRacing Acquires Monster Games

ILikeFeet

Warpstar Knight
Chelmsford, MA – January 4, 2022 – iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations (iRacing) announced today the acquisition of Monster Games, Inc (MGI). The Minnesota-based game development studio has a long history of racing game development, including the NASCAR Heat franchise and more recently Tony Stewart's Sprint Car Racing game. The acquisition will bring another level of expertise under the iRacing roof, and further the company's ability to bring the highest quality racing games to the broader market, including the console space.

This acquisition along with the previously announced Orontes Games purchase are standalone development studios and projects. The iRacing development team will remain 100% focused on continuing to develop the core product, iRacing. The iRacing platform is regarded as the most realistic and leading PC-based racing simulation on the market and features multiple forms of racing including – NASCAR, Dirt Oval, sports cars, open-wheel single-seaters, prototypes, off-road trucks and rallycross. In addition to its laser scanned tracks and officially licensed vehicles, iRacing provides a one-stop-shop for sim racers and race gamers – fostering a racing community with official races, multiple racing licenses and matchmaking, private leagues and more.


President and owner of MGI, Rich Garcia, will join the iRacing development team and be reunited with iRacing CEO & CTO Dave Kaemmer, who worked together at Kaemmer's former company, Papyrus Racing Games, where Garcia was instrumental in the early years of Papyrus in building the foundation for what iRacing has become today.

Garcia and his team will continue development on their currently unannounced project, with the aim to release the title later in 2022. Follow up titles from MGI will be developed using technology and content from the shared resources of all three development studios – iRacing announced last month the acquisition of Orontes Games, see announcement here.

"We are really pleased to be able to share this news, it's been in the works for some time now," said iRacing president Tony Gardner. "Rich and his team are a proven studio with unique skills that will really add to our already fantastic team here at iRacing. We'll be able to add a lot to MGI's products as well in the long run, to include assets, graphics, technologies and physics. We see a tremendous amount of synergies that we can take advantage of between the studios," Gardner continued. "That being said, our core strategy, values and culture will remain intact – to build the most realistic and best racing games possible."

"Rich and I worked together for many years at Papyrus, with great success," added Kaemmer. "We are at a point as a company that we are comfortable building out these two new teams to explore the broader racing game market to ultimately funnel serious sim racers to our flagship product iRacing on the PC. Rich and the Monster team will be an important part of that strategy as we use our code and experience to bring their games to another level. I am very excited to be working with Rich again, as well as the extremely talented team at Monster Games."

"I'm really excited for the future of Monster Games and iRacing," said Garcia. "To be working with my longtime friend and colleague Dave once again is awesome. Our studios will really complement each other's and I fully expect to see positive impacts on both products. To now have tools and resources, and quite frankly time, to build these games and to do it with the leading racing simulation company in the marketplace is beyond exciting for me. I can't wait to get started!"

Just as with the recently announced acquisition of Orontes Games by iRacing, combining forces with Monster Games enhances iRacing capabilities and will allow iRacing to grow further in the racing and gaming spaces. The core product, iRacing, will benefit in both the short and long term and remains the focus.

We look forward to sharing more information on the direction of these studios and the products they will work on in the coming year.

at least the studio has stable ground since they lost the NASCAR license. they put out some tony stewart games since that looks to have been decently received
 
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Well the hope of Nintendo collaborations return is dead now, unless some people leave after the acquisition. To their defense, though, Nintendo made them a 3DS port-house for a few years and didn't seem eager on a new larger project, neither.

Knowing that, Monster Games seems really into the traditional sport racing genre, so congrats on them to keep going. I didn't know they lost the NASCAR license, but I admit I cannot recall their quality being maintained as much in the last few years.
 
Yeah I can't say I really blame Monster Games for wanting to go off on their own. Looking at their portfolio, their passion has clearly always been arcade racers and while they did get to make some of those under Nintendo with Excite Truck and Excitebots, their last couple of projects with them were just as support for games like DKCTF or 3DS ports like DKCR and Xenoblade.
 
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Well the hope of Nintendo collaborations return is dead now, unless some people leave after the acquisition. To their defense, though, Nintendo made them a 3DS port-house for a few years and didn't seem eager on a new larger project, neither.

Knowing that, Monster Games seems really into the traditional sport racing genre, so congrats on them to keep going. I didn't know they lost the NASCAR license, but I admit I cannot recall their quality being maintained as much in the last few years.
NASCAR Heat 4 was their last game and that looks to have been well received. their Tony Stewart games also has some positive reception

 
Not surprising. It’s funny how Nintendo can make hit games and then just leave a franchise alone. I would take an excite truck over a splatoon any day if the week.
 
NASCAR Heat 4 was their last game and that looks to have been well received. their Tony Stewart games also has some positive reception


Ah cool. I guess they sorta settled into their own niche area. iRacing seems like the most ideal place for them to end up, all told. Beats getting acquired by EA/Codemasters! Wishing them the best of luck!
 
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Not surprising. It’s funny how Nintendo can make hit games and then just leave a franchise alone. I would take an excite truck over a splatoon any day if the week.
"hit"

probably why you didn't see much Excite after that
 
Not surprising. It’s funny how Nintendo can make hit games and then just leave a franchise alone. I would take an excite truck over a splatoon any day if the week.

Excite Truck was neither a commercial nor a critical hit, unlike Splatoon.
 
Well the hope of Nintendo collaborations return is dead now, unless some people leave after the acquisition. To their defense, though, Nintendo made them a 3DS port-house for a few years and didn't seem eager on a new larger project, neither.

Knowing that, Monster Games seems really into the traditional sport racing genre, so congrats on them to keep going. I didn't know they lost the NASCAR license, but I admit I cannot recall their quality being maintained as much in the last few years.
There never really was any reasonable chance of them going back.

They also weren't a port house.

They made an original game, ported DKCR and contributed an entire bonus world with original levels, then got to work on the big sequel with Retro and THEN got to make an impossible port for new hardware.

That's not really a "port house".
 
Not surprising. It’s funny how Nintendo can make hit games and then just leave a franchise alone. I would take an excite truck over a splatoon any day if the week.
that word, I don't think it means what you think it means
 
Monster Games made two launch titles for Nintendo and neither managed to hit a million unit sold.

pain.jpg
 
Real shame that Nintendo let them slip through their fingers. But hey, they REALLY wanted to work on Nascar; so it's good that they got to follow their passion and do what they wanted.
 
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There never really was any reasonable chance of them going back.

They also weren't a port house.

They made an original game, ported DKCR and contributed an entire bonus world with original levels, then got to work on the big sequel with Retro and THEN got to make an impossible port for new hardware.

That's not really a "port house".

Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound as negative as I did regarding "port house," especially given that they did really good ports and added content. Nintendo seemed driven to fill 3DS with ports, and the projects Monster did were quite good (Xenoblade 3DS is nuts). I wonder if Monster decided that racing was more their desire, and Nintendo was not interested in another Excite at the time.

I also just remembered Pilotwings Resort. That was a fun game, and I hoped they'd have made another.
 
I wonder if Monster decided that racing was more their desire, and Nintendo was not interested in another Excite at the time.
racing was always their desire. if anything, Nintendo was the weird period in their history

  • 1998 – Viper Racing (Microsoft Windows)
  • 2000 – NASCAR Heat (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Game Boy Color)
  • 2001 – NASCAR Heat 2002 (PlayStation 2, Xbox)
  • 2002 – NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona (GameCube, PlayStation 2)
  • 2004 – Test Drive: Eve of Destruction (PlayStation 2, Xbox)
  • 2006 – Excite Truck (Wii)
  • 2009 – Excitebots: Trick Racing (Wii)
  • 2009 – Excitebike: World Rally (WiiWare)
  • 2011 – Pilotwings Resort (Nintendo 3DS)
  • 2013 – Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (Nintendo 3DS)
  • 2014 – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U) Co-developed with Retro Studios
  • 2015 – Xenoblade Chronicles 3D (New Nintendo 3DS)[5]
  • 2016 – NASCAR Heat Evolution (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2017 – NASCAR Heat 2 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2018 – NASCAR Heat 3 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2019 – NASCAR Heat 4 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2020 – Tony Stewart's Sprint Car Racing (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2020 – Tony Stewart's All American Racing (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2021 – SRX: The Game (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)

 
racing was always their desire. if anything, Nintendo was the weird period in their history

  • 1998 – Viper Racing (Microsoft Windows)
  • 2000 – NASCAR Heat (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Game Boy Color)
  • 2001 – NASCAR Heat 2002 (PlayStation 2, Xbox)
  • 2002 – NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona (GameCube, PlayStation 2)
  • 2004 – Test Drive: Eve of Destruction (PlayStation 2, Xbox)
  • 2006 – Excite Truck (Wii)
  • 2009 – Excitebots: Trick Racing (Wii)
  • 2009 – Excitebike: World Rally (WiiWare)
  • 2011 – Pilotwings Resort (Nintendo 3DS)
  • 2013 – Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (Nintendo 3DS)
  • 2014 – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U) Co-developed with Retro Studios
  • 2015 – Xenoblade Chronicles 3D (New Nintendo 3DS)[5]
  • 2016 – NASCAR Heat Evolution (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2017 – NASCAR Heat 2 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2018 – NASCAR Heat 3 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2019 – NASCAR Heat 4 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2020 – Tony Stewart's Sprint Car Racing (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2020 – Tony Stewart's All American Racing (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2021 – SRX: The Game (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)

hahahaha they had to work on xenoblade once and never looked back
 
I bought Excite Truck at launch, awesome game.

Excite BOTs and Excite Bike World Rally were also seriously fun, it's a shame there hasn't been anything since.
 
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One of the co-founders of Monster passed away unexpectedly during the 3DS era, that no doubt had an impact on their change in direction .

Best luck to them with their future endeavors, they're a talented group no matter who is backing them.
 
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This is like lamenting Silicon Knights or Factor 5. Monster and Nintendo both went their seperate ways a long time ago.
 
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racing was always their desire. if anything, Nintendo was the weird period in their history

  • 1998 – Viper Racing (Microsoft Windows)
  • 2000 – NASCAR Heat (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Game Boy Color)
  • 2001 – NASCAR Heat 2002 (PlayStation 2, Xbox)
  • 2002 – NASCAR: Dirt to Daytona (GameCube, PlayStation 2)
  • 2004 – Test Drive: Eve of Destruction (PlayStation 2, Xbox)
  • 2006 – Excite Truck (Wii)
  • 2009 – Excitebots: Trick Racing (Wii)
  • 2009 – Excitebike: World Rally (WiiWare)
  • 2011 – Pilotwings Resort (Nintendo 3DS)
  • 2013 – Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (Nintendo 3DS)
  • 2014 – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U) Co-developed with Retro Studios
  • 2015 – Xenoblade Chronicles 3D (New Nintendo 3DS)[5]
  • 2016 – NASCAR Heat Evolution (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2017 – NASCAR Heat 2 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2018 – NASCAR Heat 3 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2019 – NASCAR Heat 4 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2020 – Tony Stewart's Sprint Car Racing (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2020 – Tony Stewart's All American Racing (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
  • 2021 – SRX: The Game (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)


This post is pretty eye-opening. The acquisition makes a lot of sense now. I had no clue how little of their history was with Nintendo. I loved ExciteTruck/Bots, did not like Pilotwings Resort, and never played their ports.

I hope this brings Monster and it's employees success and stability. Unfortunately, I have absolutely zero interest in NASCAR games.
 
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