Autoverse Studios has raised $8 million to develop its social drag-racing Web3 game Auto Legends.
Auto Legends aims to capture the real-life car enthusiast journey where multiple paths are available to becoming an automotive legend, from racing, collecting, team ownership, hosting tournaments, providing tuning services, building and selling parts, running car dealerships, and more.
Auto Legends will be a free-to-play game on PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. But players can opt to take advantage of Web3 features on the web if they want to get more depth. The game is available now on PC and Mac in a closed alpha testing environment via the Epic Games Store.
Autoverse Studios is led by executive chairman and former Cie Games founder (Car Town, Racing Rivals), Justin Choice, who brought together his ex-teammates for a run at making another great mobile racing franchise.
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The money will be used to complete the building of Auto Legends, with the aim of being the first game that brings Web3 mechanics of ownership and trade to the large global audience of traditional free-to-play gamers.
Joining Choice are Peter Pham, CEO, and Dinko Tontchev, head of product and tech, to “build the next great auto franchise,” Choice said in an interview with GamesBeat. Justin Mir, formerly of Xbox and Ubisoft, joined the company to lead marketing.
“We got the band back together,” said Pham in an interview with GamesBeat.
The three co-founders have reassembled a talented team from Cie Games, Glu Mobile, Riot Games, Xbox, EA, Ubisoft, and Scopely — with a strong pedigree for making racing games. Cie Games’ previous games — Nitto 1320 Legends, Car Town, and Racing Rivals — collectively reached 140 million players and were the No. 1 auto games on their respective platforms.
“When we started Autoverse Studios, we wanted to not only evolve the straight-line racing category, but also revolutionize the games industry as a whole with new social gameplay mechanics, creator support, and enabling players to own and trade their in-game assets,” Pham said. “Players love creating their own parts, trading cars, providing services to each other, hosting tournaments – and we are putting all of that officially into the game. We’re using Web3 technology to do this in a way that is entirely invisible to players.”
White Star Capital led the round with participation from Sfermion, RockawayX, Ocular, Sidedoor Ventures, MCE Group, Saison Capital, and LiquidX. Notable car industry luminaries such as Horacio Pagani, Miller Motorcars, and game industry veterans Niccolo De Masi, former CEO of Glu Mobile (acquired by EA), and Alex Thabet, founder and former CEO of Ludia Games (acquired by Jam City), also joined the round.
“We are very excited to partner with Autoverse Studios,” said Eddie Lee of White Star Capital, in a statement. “This is a team with a previous track record for dominating the straight line racing genre and building multiple No. 1 games in this category. We are excited about their approach to Web3 – one that will not turn off traditional game players and only enhance the player experience instead of getting in the way of it.”
The company will be at Gamescom with Immutable X, and it will hit the aftermarket car show in Las Vegas in November. The company launched its alpha test a few weeks ago on the game store, and it is planning to launch a closed beta, Pham said in an interview with GamesBeat. To join early access, go to the Auto Legends website and register for the beta.
Becoming an Auto Legend
Supporting Auto Legends as the most social, authentic, and competitive vehicle ownership experience are the game’s mechanics in giving players the opportunity to buy cars that are limited in ratio to their real-life production quantities, tuning them with realistic aftermarket parts, showing off their customized rides in social meet-ups, going head-to-head, racing against other players for status and prize money, or even risking the cars themselves in high-stakes “pink slip” races.
With the initial play environment set in Southern California, players race in various formats earning XP (PVE), fan following (PVP), cash, leaderboard status, and rare car parts.
As players progress, they unlock better performance shops, garages to hold their car collection, new areas, environments, and gameplay elements. Growing in rank, players upgrade their car with better parts and add new cars to their garage collection.
While racing is fun, this game isn’t necessarily just about winning races.
“The whole point of the game is actually to become legendary, as we call it Auto Legends,” Choice said. “It’s not about winning or losing. It’s really becoming recognized by other players and by the car companies themselves, which is a big goal if you’re a car enthusiast.”
The game has seven real-life licensed car brands representing over 50 models and trims for players to buy and collect including many car enthusiast tuning favorites. New cars are added at a regular cadence on recommendation from the Auto Legends community.
Choice said, “This game is not about racing. It’s not about who’s got the best record, or any of that. It’s not even about who has the most cars. What this game is about is — the reason why we call it Auto Legends — you could take a bunch of different paths in the game.”
He added, “You could decide to be the best tuner. You’re helping other players get the most horsepower out of their car because you’re really good at that. You could decide to be the best racer. You can become a team owner. You can decide to even host your own tournaments and become popular because you host the most popular tournaments. But in our game, the ultimate goal is not about winning or losing. It’s really a popularity contest.”
And what kind of popularity? The currency in the game that’s most important is how many followers you get. It’s kind of a form of street cred. And the ones who get the most popular in the game become legendary. So the goal of the game is not just to win or lose but to become recognized as a legend, Choice said.
Taking car competition from one generation to another
Autoverse Studios is an innovative developer and publisher of PC and mobile games. Founded in 2022, Autoverse is headquartered near Los Angeles, California.
Choi reminded me of his past work. Car Town was the 10th-largest app at the time on Facebook, back in the days when Facebook tolerated games on its platform.
In Car Town, you could build a custom garage. Racing Rivals, meanwhile, was a mobile-focused subset of a larger game built in 2004 called 1320 Legends, which itself was preceded by 1320 Challenge in 2001. After the 1320 games, the company created Car Town and then Racing Rivals.
This new game is reminiscent of 1320 Legends, which had its own built-in social network and more functionality that never made it into Racing Rivals.
“It really made an impression on game players,” Choice said. “Our core testers all played that game as kids, and they’re still fans today and they’re helping us with the new game.”
This new game will be the first drag race game that will work in a cross-device fashion, both PC and mobile.
Taking on CSR 2
When Racing Rivals debuted in 2012, it displaced CSR as the No. 1 racing game in the world. Racing Rivals was the No. 1 mobile game for its time. And it was one of the top 25 grossing app globally. Glu Mobile bought Cie Games for $100 million in 2014. EA now owns Glu, and so it’s part of EA Mobile. But Choice left and did other things until he began to study Web3 gaming and his chance to get back into racing games on new platforms.
“We’re hoping to do that again,” Choice said. “CSR 2 is monetizing really well, but it’s eight years old at this point.”
To take on such a big rival, the company is bringing something different. Its strategy includes an emphasis on skill gaming, esports tournaments, Web3 ownership, and lots of detailed car capitalism, from running car wholesale shops to pink-slip
