What exactly happened to Traxion.GG?

what happened to traction well we're about to find out but first a quick team overview I'm Tom editor-in chief of the traction website I'm Ross I'm features editor and since you're watching this on YouTube you probably already know that I am John and I am the content creator for traction Gigi I am also a YouTube person and I'm the video editor for the rejoy of the videos on the YouTube channel and I am boring and the non-creative here I'm CEO of traction and good finder so some familiar faces some new faces and together this is the new traction and before we go on I must say we're indebted to people who also used to work in traction uh but are no longer in this new version they're in our hearts and they're in they're found new paths in their career and we're excited to deal with them as well because they're still within Sim racing now that links in to what happened in the past so as you may be aware that traction was alive and then all of a sudden in about November last year it wasn't yeah it was about as dramatic and sudden as that wasn't it we well I say that we everyone who's followed the traction story knows that we were set up by mport games and there was you know there was always some Rumblings about the financial issues the last few years in particular uh and then yeah we were kind of aware weren't we as a group that you know based on the financial reports things were a little bit uncertain and then when it came to early November last year yeah I think we all learned on pretty much the same day that the the whole traction team was being made redundant along with other people I should say in the company as well I think it was a mass redundancy so it was a it was a pretty brutal day I posted on Twitter like soon after we're all made redundant and the reaction was amazing from the community and there were so many positive comments and H you know people we hadn't heard from before who we didn't know were readers or viewers they were coming out and saying the ATT traction was you know a good thing for some reason so it was it kind of made us all feel a little bit better um and the obviously bad circumstances at the time yeah I think uh like John mentioned there that we weren't the only people affected by mot games and I suppose um you know a Sim racing media Outlet on YouTube and social and website isn't the most important thing in the world however it was a it it you know really satisfying in some respects even though it was a Bittersweet time to see that how much we meant meant to people and uh that's just from ours on you know our point of view internally uh there was also so uh opportunities though that came about that externally right from people looking outside in well yeah I guess that that leads to me right I was I was a huge fan of traction I mean obviously still am guys still still a big fan B um but yeah I I was a huge fan of traction I was one of the many many tens of hundreds of bazillions and jillions of thousands of viewers and watches that that you guys had that would turn to to to traction for Sim racing news like it was it was a nice Community had a really good feel to it like you guys were really well likeed like you kind of were the brand the brand wasn't like this big kind of corporate scary thing it was just like well here's here's a lot of sim Racers that are loving talking about Sim racing and making videos of of sim racing and that came across I think to everyone else so you know I think I I shared in that reaction that initial reaction that everyone had God tractions that's a that's a bit of a shame it was it was was a sad day right um and and I guess Bittersweet as you as you say Tom to be on your side of the table and see that like oh that's nice but uh I mean I do now have to go and find a job uh which is what you guys all did right you went off and found um some some really cool jobs um but Fate has brought us back together yeah so traction itself just to be clear is no longer part of Motorsport games although we believe there might be a strategic partnership there for the one virtual series but the motor sport games does not own Traction in any way it's now uh a new company to us anyway in the form of raer racing yeah so um I guess I mean I guess this this story is long and complicated and at some points boring legal processes are very dull um but in other parts incredibly exciting um and I think my initial reaction when I saw the uh announcement and it I think if I remember right it was Ross's tweet the infamous Ross's tweet his ex sorry most popular ever tweet he were saying yeah it might have been called Twitter back then but good point good point show me um yeah so I saw that and like a lot of people that's that that's sad I was like maybe there's something we can do about it so at the same and this is all very kind of concurrent and I'm writing a very dull story on my LinkedIn at the moment about this but essentially as gdf finder was being bought by raer Racing Club and I'll come on to what raer Racing Club is in in a moment the opportunity for traction to be revived somehow also presented itself so less than 48 hours after the the Ross tweet um I was on the phone with stepen hood to to work out what his plans were for for traction was it going to be totally dormant was it going to be brought back later was it going to be repurpose into something else and you know I can't go into too many of details but there were a lot of plans that were all being considered um there's like four or five different options for for traction so I went back to Rafa Racing Club and uh a guy called Tony Calon one of the coolest guys in racing by the way shout out to Tony the guys Won Won leemon very cool who who I work directly with at Rafa Racing Club and was like Tony we need to talk about traction that should be the name of this podcast we need to talk about traction um and anyway long story short told him what traction was told him about the sentiment that that the Sim racing Community had for it discussed how it might sit beautifully alongside uh grid finder now grid finder is this technology platform that can host racing and traction is the best at telling those stories um and and perhaps we can we can bring the two together perhaps we can revive uh the traction brand and obviously the complication was that Grid findind at that point was being was being bought but um so it was a bit of a risky strategy because you know our fate wasn't wasn't sure yet but I I I pushed on and through the the winter months and and then into January February grid finder uh we we we sold in December and then early this year can't I think it was January that we actually did the the deal on traction kept it very quiet but the big thing for us was that we had to have you guys like traction is nothing without you guys um so it was never going to work and you know fortunately uh We've managed to revive the brand and bring back as you say most of the of the team with a few additions yeah it's been great to get to know over the past couple of weeks the the new additions uh obviously the People speaking on the team here you know it's a slightly smaller video team slightly more smaller editorial team uh but we do have extra support around that which is why I think that's uh extremely exciting for the followers of traction yeah hopefully we'll be able to deliver just as much if not more but with the with the as you say the slightly kind of compressed editorial team and we're doing that by combining the CES of grid finder and traction together so grid finder has a marketing and events team and now traction is basically going to be tapping into that same marketing and events team so uh Matt who's the creative director of grid finder who designs all of our our social media posts and he does all of our uiux all of the dashboards that you see in the grid finder League manager for example the front page or the communities that Matt does that and he's fantastic at it he's now going to be lending his hand to the traction brand um we've also got Liam who's our marketing manager at grid finder who's now going to be helping to Market traction same Mick our social media manager is's now going to be doing traction and grid finder um and then we've also got Dan Terry formerly of SGP so any SGP fans um who have been in the SGP Discord will have definitely spoken to the legend that is Dan Terry um he's now going to be working across uh grid finder and traction on on activations and things we might want to do with the the traction community and grid finder and then Charlie Spence who's our community manager who's just just just a big fan of sim R I think he's just happy to be here to be honest um he just he he just sends to join some of the calls occasionally I'm kidding Charlie's great so we've got this core team that's going to be uh servicing both uh entities and very excitingly Chris honble who was a co-founder at gdf finder the first person to join me on the the grid finder Journey almost well over three years ago now he is now fully dedicated to traction so he is traction CTO which means we can build traction into do more than just a news blog and it's not just a news blog obviously it's so much more than a news blog you know it's in our hearts it's a it's a way of life traction is a way of life right um but he's going to be building out the technology side of traction GG so there's going to be a lot of things that we can do I don't want to give too much away but there's a lot that we can do with traction to make it more valuable to the Sim racer to provide more function to the Sim racer um and yeah we're excited to to to bring Chris into the fold and then finally Emily um who used to freelance for traction doing a lot of the social media uh graphic design stuff and she's been recently doing a very very great job at SRO doing the same thing she's now back on board as well so we've managed to bring back a lot of the core team but those who we haven't managed to brought back we're kind of trying to complement that that that lack of uh resource with uh the the the combined arms of grif finder andaction I think it's cool because in in recent times when we've obviously had discussions about this and I think a lot we're all on the same wavelength right we all love Sim racing and racing games a huge amount and I think there's a lot of uh things that grid finder stands for that traction has always stood for as well that you know the difference being of course like the situation with Motorsport games uh is well documented a lot of people you know there's there's controversy around that there's you know all of these things but at the end of the day even though we all got made redundant and the the site and the channel were essentially dormant we we all also were given the opportunity in the first place and we did a lot of great stuff with them you know and we always were able to kind of uh do what we needed to do we were editorially independent so it was great in the first place place but then also now with new ownership everyone's you know in the facing the same direction don't we don't have any of those kind of conflict of interests in the same way that we had to work with and around whilst we were in our first phas sorry I've just smacked my microphone uh so that's really exciting I think as well and you know just even just talking to you guys talking to Rafa about the sort of things we can be doing I think um there's just so much potential you know our brainstorming sessions have been far too long and we still feel like we've got hours and hours of chat still to go so I think everyone's just pumped yeah because I think a key thing is that uh grid finder and Rafer racing alongside traction have similar values and Ethos which is we're trying to get more people into the space right so Rafa Racing Club is going to be building these physical locations where people who are looking to get into racing uh didn't weren't serviced in in the right way or so you know you can rent supercars or get advice or training and it's all in one place grid finder doesn't look down upon people playing on consoles or older equipment in the way that traction will cover the the Pinnacle of sim racing Esports or the iRacing Indie 500 but we will also cover uh Need for Speed and Test Drive Unlimited which we're very excited about because we see that as a way of getting people into the space and therefore making Sim racing a sustainable Place yeah absolutely and and you know I've been uh in and around Rafa racing club now for um over over a year actually 18 months it's gone it's gone really fast and uh you know in various gues um they were kind of a little bit involved now they're very much a lot involved they own us as about as involved as you can possibly get um and you know there's a whole podcast to be done on on the the kind of like the emotional journey of selling a company when it starts out as a passion project like this one has but you have to be very careful when you when you if you if you sell a company right it's it's a it's a it's a marriage that will last forever like you know dog is not just for Christmas an acquisition is is forever right so we had to be um really sure of this um of this partner um and what I can say is that you will not find a more passionate engaged and uh open and friendly group of sim racing and Motorsport fans uh than in Rafa Racing Club like everyone there is absolutely Motorsport obsessed and that starts at the very top so Rafael Martinez the found of Rafa Racing Club um again his story could be a whole podcast because his story is incredible how he came from El Salvador with next to nothing and then you know made a huge success of his career and is now kind of you know funding this this vision for making Motorsport accessible and he he races himself he races in Sr GT4 and he races in the the Porsche Motorsport Sprint challenge North America it's punchy it's a Punchy it's a Punchy uh name for that series anyway he racing that he's obsessed with racing he absolutely loves it and he Sim races all the time because he's practicing for those series and like you say Tom you had this vision for how do you make Motorsport more accessible when he turned up um to a RAC trck there's really funny story about he he turned up like he bought a trailer and put his car in the back and he got to the the track and then didn't know how to get the car out of the trailer um and there was just like no support there's no way that you know you have to just study and and watch these YouTube videos to work I hard to do every little thing and he's like what wouldn't it be cool if there was a club that would help people into real world motorport and that's kind of what grif finder has been trying to be like how do you get into League racing how do we help people enjoy racing more so bringing traction into this group is perfect because now we have grid finder which is a group of people building a platform that's going to to make it easier for people to go racing we have traction which is making content to help people enjoy racing more so with your with your your guides your hatos your reviews Etc um and it's all owned by by a company that is absolutely obsessed with this world that we're in and has is on the very same Mission so grid finder and traction together between us obviously you know one doesn't own the other we sit side by side we're working collaboratively between us we can create a a space online that will help Gamers enjoy racing and so part of of that I guess is uh the content you mentioned there for traction which we don't envisage will change that much but we are making some subtle tweaks yeah I mean we we can cover video first since we're on the YouTube channel but essentially what the sort of videos you guys expect from traction will continue so we'll still be making reviews we'll still be doing guides howt tips and tricks all of these things hopefully some entertainment and fun challenges along the way as well the actual structure itself may be slightly different you know it's myself and Oley it's slightly smaller team on that front so we're going to try and make our scheduling consistent so you guys know when you can expect a traction video on what day at what time hopefully to start with at least Thursday evenings you can expect videos but of course we know things are timely in this racing game Space so there will definitely be changes to that and it's an Ever developing thing right we're we're warming up the engines right now but hopefully we can you know build towards things in the future and just know that if you've enjoyed the content in the past you should still be able to enjoy and find the same sort of uh you know usefulness in the content nowadays as well and similarly um editorially like there's only two of us now but we will still try and you know write the same kind of things we did before um but we may just have to you know have a look at things that maybe didn't hit so well the first time around um at least in the short term H but again we'll cover everything from you know professional Esports actually myself and John recently two years ago we were racing in SRO Esports against like paid professionals but also we play grand T Mo 7 and like last year I used to play like gun rally 2 which is a small indie game but you know we cover everything so we expect to do the same thing again yeah from my point of view two games that are really excited for the rest of the year are test Drive Unlimited solo Crown a big online open world thing set in Hong Kong right that's accessible and a set of course Evo right which is going to be a hardcore simulation so or we suspect anyway so we we'll cover those with both the same passion and enthusiasm and detail as Each Other Well we get B career as well finally maybe maybe not I mean you can tell from the way that we're that we're chatting here that a when we did the the All Hands meeting last week where we had all 15 people from grid attraction we just spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke for like two days solid like just did you could not stop us from talking about Sim racing so I pretty much knew that I was in the right room from the moment I walked into it and everyone was just chatting about different uh Sim racing news and talking talking about Sim racing podcasts so traction obviously had a very popular podcast the the traction G podcast and um we did a over kind of over a grid find of a little bit kind of like independent it wasn't gfinder branded but it was it was you know I kind of talked about gfinder a lot because you know that's that's my identity at this point um but we had a podcast called The Sim Sundays podcast where we had a different person from from the Sim racing industry come every single week so whether that was an Esports driver like James Baldwin or or a manufacturer owner like Matt Sten from from track racer or hanu from simy Cube Thomas jakay from from fitech and Aris from from kunas we had all these people we would talk about like their journe like what led you to do what you're doing now like how do you end up working in Sim racing and becoming the people that you're becoming it was really really it was very interesting but then we had a dilemma because obviously if between us we have grifer attraction it obviously makes all the sense in the world to put all the content on the traction side because we are gfinder a technology platform traction is a Content platform so we have to work out what to do with the podcast so we're still coming up with some still doing bit of The Branding exercises and working out what we want it to look like and sound like and all the rest of it but uh we will be bringing back the Sim Sundays podcast and the traction GG podcast but as a kind of combined project of sim racing nerdery and when that happens who knows but I I can't wait for it yeah should be good and we've got a we've got a list of guests we'd like on uh but it's going this is not happening in the immediacy so just bear with us we are still get up to speed and very much focusing on social media YouTube and the website content first of all and then we shall uh run after we can walk I practice in the mirror every morning though I don't about you Tom you do I do a quick quick quick one-on-one Sim Sundays podcast while I'm brushing my teeth right yeah know I don't do that okay maybe I should do maybe that's where I was going wrong all these all these years yeah we've also got the Discord Channel as well so we we we've always had a Discord Channel as our server I should say should get down with lingle right uh as traction but we never really utilized it fully some of you may be aware of it some of you may not be um but hopefully now we can start to use it a little bit more and we can maybe reorganize the way that's set up so all of these things uh as we're been clear are work in progress but it's worth going and joining that server as well uh the URL I can't actually remember the URL tom. Discord there you go yeah so so head over there as well join the server and uh as I say bear with us but we will be getting up and running and and doing some more with it to get you involved in things as well so that that's something to look forward to and to follow all the latest uh articles on the website and videos released on YouTube as soon as they are we will also share that to our social media feeds so we're on let's see if I can remember them all X forly Twitter Facebook Instagram threads Tik Tok suppos you might want account YouTube community in there we have got an email newsletter as well uh don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn oh we have got LinkedIn that's a very very very important are we on bbo nice we are on bbo who here's a quick question traction GG's bbo who would be our top eight friends who be our other half it' be a grif finder now wouldn't it or is that that's a bit corny I don't get the reference cuz I was never it be Sim racing that would be it okay we can cover that in a future podcast we should I should say that actually uh we did get a request to be on masteron we're not there yet bear with us maybe something to consider what's masteron it's another form of Twitter it's like a it's open source I think something like that but it's private as well but apparently it's a better version but I mean social media is not better anyway let us know in the comments if we should be on masteron anyway that's not where we're expected to go so I think we should say at this point that yeah just to reate it's work in progress but we're really excited and we're really thankful of all the support that that has we've seen not just when we closed down in November last year but the recent relaunch a week ago from a week before now was just mindblown it was simply uh a inspiring and we're here to serve the community yeah 100% And also just while you know while we're on the subject of thanking people for all the support as well um Lads of our ex- colleagues as well have been hugely supportive of this to so everyone we worked with in the past H you know you guys are incredible and we look forward to to catching up with you all soon but generally speaking all of us have been pretty overwhelmed I think by just the messages the the posts the sharing you know all of these things there's so so many people out there rooting for us just you know despite everything and being away for 6 months so for from all of us I think we're all the same right we all just really really really appreciate the support and hopefully we can give back to you guys some of the the excitement and the energy that we've got for this space because um if we can kind of lift it all bring you more content more good news hopefully everyone is happier and Sim racing is a better place because of it so that is our absolute determination yeah um I did want to say that obviously the circumstances weren't ideal back then but the uh so MSG overall was obviously negative in the public eye but the fact is that everything that we Sorry everyone that we worked with back then was just um incredible to work with and like the opportunities that we had um when we were working there were just amazing like obviously traction is one of them we did activations at lemon itself doing lemon ultimate um things introducing it to the public properly um even doing lemon virtual series as well which was absolutely unbelievable like the whole um two of the times that we did it it was just like even though it didn't one of them didn't go down very uh very well it was still an incredible opportunity um and then also some some of the guys I didn't personally manage to get to um specific tracks around the UK and do laser scanning for the supporting games as well and just you know having those opportunities with multiple games was pretty awesome and that's not a sponsored thing that is literally myself saying that yeah the people the people working there are incredible still now and yeah you're right oie there's just a difference between the public perception and some of the mistakes they definitely made in the past to the team that is working there now and trying very hard to pull through so we wish them all the best of course we will judge Lon ultimate for what it is I'd just like to jump in here and just say that as somebody who was for a long time external to traction I think one of the things that we the the the the fan basee of traction saw most people not everyone admittedly but most people would have said traction GD does a really good job of being independent considering it's owned by mot sport games that has a portfolio of games themselves like you know it would almost kind of be uh less newsworthy attraction GG was just writing about motorport games games because then you like well of course it is game entity but you didn't you you know you you whenever something went arai you would write about it and if they were launching something you would write about it but equally you wrote about all the you you know you would promote all of their competitors when you were paid by them um and I think um I think that went a long way with the the community I I certainly noticed it um that you managed to maintain that kind of like journalistic integrity and that Independence despite the one in aund comments where somebody would be like you're own by motorport games of course you'd say this um even even if you were saying something that was totally negative by mport games which was always funny many positive things so well exactly right so probably the least covered games as well to be honest like anything you know we did so many things for so many different games but um yeah it was it was always something that was inevitable with the situation right and I think it's worth saying that that wasn't missed by by me and I'm very conscious of the fact that even though grid finder is totally independent of any will manufacturer conf manufacturer or game studio um uh even though we are independent we like traction is not going to become like an advertising hub for grid finder stuff I mean even even today well I mean today I guess this is going out on Thursday but even I guess yesterday or the day before Tom was putting an article out about a new SGP point system because it's newsworthy and the Sim racing everyone in Sim racing should know about it and so it's being posted about and that will continue to be the case it will continue to be independent and if you guys manage to stay uh independent and maintain your journalistic integrity whilst you were owned by mple games but can't and we but we can't manage it when you're owned uh you know you're part of the same portfolio as gitf finder then we've really done something wrong so you know it's something that we're that we have right at the front of our minds to continue uh how you guys left off absolutely and it was a lot of hard work to gain that sort of status within industry it took time but from the very start we've always been open and honest with with everything and we shall continue that speaking of which if I could just mention for everybody watching please let us know in the comments below what you'd like to see from us so on the website on social media future video ideas we would like your feedback and that'll be really important and we're going to do things slightly different there going to be initially just maybe one or two videos a week we're not trying to do a video every single day and at the same time we will be posting every single day on the website so please follow there but maybe just not quite as much as we did in the past but we shall get there yeah you're not full robots you're just partial robots can't can't do everything all the time no it' be really great if an AI could do it for us all but then it wouldn't have any charm or character or actual knowledge so hopefully that's many years down the line okay well I think that just about wraps it up for what we'd like to say in this particular thing we are a dominative team but we really care about racing video games and Sim racing and growing the scene and entertaining you so thank you very much don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you very soon bye bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: TraxionGG

Views: 8,424

Keywords: traxion, traxiongg, traxion gg, traxion.gg, simracing, racinggames, sim racing, racing games, an important announcement, traxion track guides, acc traxion, traxion acc, traxion raceway, track guide, traxion news, traxion oval, traxion simracing, traxion rims racing, traxion videos, traxion best of, traxion youtube, traxion gp circuit, ultimate track guide, iracing back to back, gt track, new track, race track, new track acc, track guides, new track guide, track building

Id: a5deJdyJrS0

Length: 26min 57sec (1617 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024