Before we move forward with Part 2 and the update release itself, allow me to expand on the licensing complications that have been impacting the timing of this release as these challenges have become more complex over the course of this week; it is important we address the implications both for current as well as future Automobilista 2 content.
As most of you can hopefully appreciate, AMS2 is an unusually complex project from a licensing perspective, with a vast collection of manufacturers, teams, championships, circuits, and historical content, each governed by its own set of agreements and restrictions; as the title continues to expand and bring new players and things continue to evolve also for the respective IP holders, new restrictions emerge iin areas that were previously unaffected.
This has proved to be the case following recent discussions with McLaren Racing regarding an extension of our existing licensing agreement, which the intent of also bringing additional McLaren F1 cars to AMS2; These negotiations ultimately reached an impasse as recent commercial developments involving McLaren prevent the company from licensing or re-licensing its F1 cars to games that also feature officially licensed F1 content from other manufacturers, be them current or from other eras.
The practical consequence for AMS2 is that we will likely be required to make a difficult choice as to which officially licensed F1 cars remain in the game for new purchases; either the McLarens or the Brabham, Lotus, and Renault F1 cars will remain official content; the content we opt out of would become generic models.
Let me highlight again that existing users would not be affected by this - content already owned will remain available exactly as it is today. Any eventual change to the content would apply only to future game and DLC purchases.
Given the uncertainty surrounding these restrictions and how we could best navigate them, we have elected to change our plans for the upcoming release and the Formula Pack meant to be released with it as covered in Part 1 of the June Dev Update; rather than releasing them as a new DLC pack as was planned, the new cars will be integrated as free base game content for all users— that includes the recently announced Renault F1 cars, for however long these remain part of the game. This will be a financial hit for us but our priority is to get the content out for our users to enjoy.
Irrespective of how this turns out, we almost surely will be forced to disable some of the official F1 cars in the game which is a disappointing outcome to everyone, not least to ourselves as we have invested significant time, resources, and passion into developing all this content with the expectation that it would remain part of the AMS2 ecosystem for years to come. But this is a reality we need to navigate while developing a product that relies partially on third-party intellectual property
It is important to emphasize that there is no dispute, ill intent or targeting from any party here – certainly not from McLaren who have been nothing but kind in their efforts to try accommodate us alongside their existing commitments. This is simply the result of evolving contractual obligations between multiple parties, which have created restrictions where they didn´t previously exist; it is unfortunate, but it comes with the territory.
We will continue doing our best preserve AMS2´s unique content pool complete for existing and new players alike, and will keep you informed if and when things develop in a direction that might not allows us to.
