Published 12/22/2022, 5:57 PM EST
In the past decade or so, we have witnessed massive growth in the sim racing communities, most prominently in NASCAR and IndyCar. Recently, a prominent racing magazine delivered a disappointing piece of news to the sim racing community. Dale Earnhardt Jr went on to call it a “gut punch” for the American sim racing community.
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iRacing is one of the most popular sim racing games worldwide. Earlier this year, Earnhardt Jr had been one of the main driving forces in working with iRacing toward the revival of the North Wilkesboro Speedway. It is widely known that the former Hendrick Motorsport driver is a big fan of the simulation racing game.
However, the magazine RACER recently announced that IndyCar’s license with iRacing will expire at the end of this year. This comes at the back of a decade-long partnership between IndyCar and iRacing. Soon after, Dale Earnhardt Jr took to Twitter to express how he took the news of IndyCar’s departure from iRacing.
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In his tweet, Dale Earnhardt Jr mentioned, “I don’t understand this decision by @IndyCar to not continue a decade-long partnership with @iRacing. This is such a gut punch for that community. After all both brands accomplished together, including during the past few challenging years…“
Why is IndyCar not continuing with iRacing?
Taking a closer look, we found that there’s a standalone IndyCar game in the pipeline. Back in 2021, it was announced that the publishers Motorsport Games were working on a dedicated IndyCar title. It is scheduled to launch next year (2023). It turns out that this is the primary reason for the licensing conflict.
No one likes the use of exclusive licensing in sports. Unfortunately, such is the nature of business practices, and Motorsport Games’ upcoming IndyCar title required that the license for the 2023 season belonged to them exclusively.
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Given the tumultuous history of Motorsport Games, the racing community is not happy with how things are panning out. Several people took to social media to criticize the exclusive licensing deal.
Fans react to the end of IndyCar’s license with iRacing
The community was left upset with the news of the iconic racing series’ removal from the popular simulation racing title. Agreeing with what Dale Jr had to say about it, many expressed their angst on social media.
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Fans of sim racing are definitely opposed to the idea of giving away something they cherish to a company that can’t even make a decent game to begin with. Previously, Motorsport Games had all but destroyed NASCAR games into an unplayable mush. Now with IndyCar’s official licensing heading to a poorly performing game dev, the future looks bleak for the virtual IndyCar series.