The internet’s leading sim racing community and mod depository RaceDepartment has been purchased by German media outlet Overtake.GG.
RaceDepartment has, up until now, been an independent forum for PC sim racing mods and lively debate, founded by Bram Hengeveld in 2006.
Overtake.GG became public in 2020, and is run by the digital marketing agency Freaks 4U Gaming with funding from German sports car manufacturer Porsche.
“The ongoing growth comes with a lot of challenges, and as we always welcome your constructive feedback we have listened closely and identified a few areas where you asked us to improve in 2023: website and download speeds, overall user experience, esports, social media, video, and written content,” read’s Hengeveld’s blog post, curiously with the comments disabled.
“On top of that, I have a long list of improvements I would like to add myself to help me run this website on a daily basis: a larger team and more resources are just a few of them.”
“Of course, we like to add all improvements on top of the many features this forum already offers.
“With Overtake.gg we have found a like-minded brand that shares our values and also acknowledges our role in the sim racing community for the last sixteen years.”
Complete takeover
“RaceDepartment and OverTake decided to work together on the task of providing a home for the lovers of sim racing,” explained Hengeveld in a later forum post.
“As this also had to be “manifested” in some sort of legally binding arrangement, OverTake acquired RaceDepartment in order to merge both platforms under one legal entity.”
Overtake.GG and Traxion.GG have a friendly rivalry, with many commenters confusing the two. Just to be clear, Traxion.GG is part of the Motorsport Games family of brands, which in turn is majority-owned by Motorsport Network (Autosport, Motorsport.com, Motor1 etc). Traxion.GG does not work with or for Overtake.GG or RaceDepartment.
Overtake to subsume RaceDepartment over time
“We are working to bring Overtake and RaceDepartment under one roof,” said Product Manager at
Freaks 4U Gaming GmbH, René Buttler during the Overtake.GG reveal video.
“Overtake will be your go-to address for everything you need for your virtual racing endeavours, integrating all the beloved features and content from RaceDeparment.”
“Being a sim racer for over 15 years by now, this is really a special day,” explained Buttler to Traxion.GG.
“RaceDepartment builts a great community with a ton of knowledge and an undeniable passion for sim racing and I can´t even recount how often the forum saved me from going crazy about an issue I had with hardware or software.
“RaceDepartment had an interest in building its content, such as YouTube, while we at OverTake were looking into how to build a forum, among other things, that could help out other lovers of virtual racing.
“We realised that we had all of that if we would join forces, so here we are! Now it is time to put our heads together and use our combined forces to improve the platform for everyone.”
We wish everyone at RaceDepartment and Overtake.GG the very best for 2023 and beyond – here’s to sim racing!
Full disclosure – Traxion.GG is part of Motorsport Games and the Motorsport Games family of brands. All Traxion.GG content is editorially removed from Motorsport Games video game development and created by a dedicated team.
Image source: Overtake.GG and RaceDepartment
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