An observation is making waves. Parallels have surfaced, between rFactor 2 and RENNSPORT code. Theft denied by developer, confusion over licensing and misleading claims remain.
Stolen code, lack of transparency in development, false promises – the developer of the new ESL SimRacing title RENNSPORT is facing various accusations. What happened?
“Compared to current racing games, RENNSPORT is not a further development of an existing software”, was written on the homepage of the SimRacing novelty in January 2022. In other words, they wanted to build something of their own from scratch. A false promise?
A few days ago, the user “haunetal1990” shared his observation in the official forum of Studio 397, the final developer of rFactor2. He stated that there are parallels between the code of RENNSPORT and that of rFactor2 and proved this with screenshots.
Code stolen? RENNSPORT denies
A discovery that quickly went viral and also left room for speculation. How could RENNSPORT have got hold of the code? The community also discussed a possible theft on various platforms. This conjecture was fuelled by a statement from Motorsport Games, which had taken over Studio 397 in 2021.
“Motorsport Games has not currently licensed the rFactor technology to any game developer,” nor is the publisher aware of any licences issued prior to the acquisition. The American company concluded by warning forcefully that “no element of rFactor2” should be used “without the express permission of Studio 397. “
RENNSPORT CEO Morris Hebecker also reacted to these “rumours and accusations” with a statement. In this, the Munich-based developer clarified “that all content used for the production of RENNSPORT was created, commissioned or appropriately licensed by us”. The developer gave a more detailed insight in a deep dive on the driving physics and at the same time rowed back regarding the initial promise.
“When we started developing RENNSPORT, our goal was to develop something from scratch. That originally meant custom physics, tyre models, graphics and sound. Initially we experimented in many ways and came to the conclusion that we needed a base for some aspects to speed up development. We approached an industry leader: Image Space Inc. to license the use of their physics processing system (known as “ISI technology”) to serve as our foundation,” the post reads.
Licensing continues to raise questions
Image Space Inc. developed a number of racing games such as some Formula 1 titles. But just also rFactor1 and initially even the second part. In September 2016, the company then handed over these tasks to Studio 397, which explains the parallels between the two codes – but does not completely resolve the confusion about the licensing.
Did Image Space Inc. grant usage rights for elements of rFactor2? According to the statement by Motorsport Games that they had not licensed anything to anyone, it would then still have to be clarified whether such a process would have been legal. eSport asked the RENNSPORT developer about this, an answer is still pending.
But why was existing software used, contrary to what had been announced? The goal is still to develop customised physics, Deep Dive says. However, “this is a multi-year undertaking” to develop something like this from scratch. Instead, they believe they can “get there with incremental improvements on the solid foundation […]”. Basically, RENNSPORT wants to ensure more transparency in the future and provide insights into what is currently being worked on in a separate blog.