iRacing Acquires Monster Games

iRacing have continued their recent expansions by today announcing the acquisition of Monster Games. MGI developed NASCAR Heat (including a few of the recent ones) and the more recently released Tony Stewart titles.

It reunites former Papyrus co-founder and iRacing co-founder Dave Kaemmer with Rich Garcia, who was the first Papyrus employee and worked for the last six months on their first title; Indy 500, plus a number of other titles until he formed his own studio.

This is a very interesting continuation from iRacing in acquiring these studios. In many ways it brings a direct parallel in business practice to Motorsport Games, who operate a number of studios around the world developing a number of products and coming together to combine resources where necessary. It certainly sounds like this is the plan based on the full press release below.

I think it can only be a good thing to have this kind of competition once one company has decided to go this direction, you need another.

iRacing Acquires Monster Games

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 the 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, including 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.