As reported by Traxion earlier this week, the future of Le Mans Ultimate is uncertain, as parent company Motorsport Games confirms job losses and has announced it is open to a potential new owner or merger.
In what could be seen as a drastic measure, the Nasdaq-listed sim racing outfit has announced that it is considering “strategic alternatives.”
“The Board of Directors has authorized management to consider strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value, including a potential sale or merger of the Company,” reads the statement by the custodian of Studio 397 – the team developing both rFactor 2 and Le Mans Ultimate.
“Management is also seeking funding that would allow it to deliver on viable opportunities including bringing Le Mans Ultimate to Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox gaming consoles.”
Le Mans Ultimate utilises an official licence for both the 24 Hours of Le Mans event and the FIA World Endurance Championship. It was released for PC players, in an unfinished early access state, in February of this year.
Since then, several patches and hotfixes have been deployed. Recently, a beta version of asynchronous cooperative play was added. 2024-season-replicating content, however, is available only through additional paid-for content packs.
Following the emerging news of redundancies across both Motorsport Games and Studio 397 on 3rd October, the Miami-headquartered company has confirmed that by today, 4th October 2024, “approximately 24 employees and contractors” had lost their jobs.
“The workforce reduction is expected to impact approximately 39% of the Company’s employees worldwide,” it continued. In March of this year, it reported that it had “65 people, made up of 46 full-time employees.”
“We have implemented a strategic restructuring to further streamline operations, reduce costs, and strengthen our financial foundations,” said Motorsport Games CEO Stephen Hood in the wake of the job losses, which Traxion understands affected key team members pivotal to Le Mans Ultimate’s creation.
“These changes position us to become a more agile, focused, and efficient company – one that is conscious of our forthcoming operating requirements as well as within-reach growth opportunities.”
“With our core talent and cutting-edge technology intact, we are excited about the future. The successful launch of Le Mans Ultimate, our pivotal role in F1 Arcade, and our plans for an innovative new title are clear signals of our commitment to driving the company forward.”
“A growing number of enquiries”
Motorsport Games was unavailable for comment as of yesterday. Despite issuing a public statement acknowledging that a sale, or merger, may be necessary to continue its plans, the firm mentioned that it does “not intend to comment further on this consideration of strategic alternatives process.”
Traxion understands that talks with prospective buyers have been ongoing throughout the year.
“Our board remains fully dedicated to delivering shareholder value and maximizing the business potential demonstrated by the recent and ongoing success of Le Mans Ultimate,” continued Hood.
“Alongside this, our steadfast cost-cutting measures have optimized cash flow, allowing us to reverse prior over-expansion and operate more efficiently while investing in future growth.
“We continue to receive a growing number of inquiries from interested parties regarding strategic transactions, reflecting the positive response to our ongoing turnaround, not to mention growing confidence in our brand, vision and ability to deliver innovative games.”
They could always try lowering the price for the early access which probably would have earned them more sales …
Some promotion wouldn’t hurt either considering I’m a pretty big racing fan and while I had heard of this and was excited.. I had no idea the EA was available at all