Latest news with #Speedhunters
The Drive
6 hours ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
Speedhunters Was a Car Culture Juggernaut. This Is How It Died
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Speedhunters, as we know it, is done for. The car photography site that shaped a generation's automotive imagination went out with a whimper, not a bang, when publishing quietly froze in April. After I reported the news last week, past contributors flooded my inbox with notes as they sought to share their side of the story. Now that I've sat down with them for hours, talking over the phone and email while reaching out to other key figures in the Speedhunters saga, I'm publishing all my findings here. One thing I want to make clear straight away is that this isn't the comprehensive follow-up I hoped to write. Several high-ranking staffers failed to respond to my request for comment, and Electronic Arts—Speedhunters' parent company—didn't have anything to say, either. Still, I gained a ton of insight from five contributors who were willing to speak with me, four of whom asked to remain anonymous, citing professional and legal concerns. What's important is they worked at the site during its heyday and managed to stick around until the bitter, uneventful end. The story is tragic, but it can be summed up in one line: Speedhunters was never supposed to be so big in the first place. Here's an incredibly early version of the Speedhunters site, archived on the Wayback Machine with a date of May 17, 2008. Internet Archive Speedhunters was founded by Rod Chong in 2008 with backing from EA, the video game company that still owns the site now. It was created to connect EA with automotive culture, helping inform the content choices for its Need for Speed titles. In short, Speedhunters tied the games to the real world while building credibility among actual car people. The site's involvement with NFS was far deeper than most outsiders realized, as several contributors told me. They would attend massive events—think SEMA and Tokyo Auto Salon, but also the Nürburgring 24 Hours—then report back to the game's creators. One former Speedhunters contributor told me the access they had was 'unreal,' so much so that getting press credentials for virtually any car event in the world was a given. Boots-on-the-ground content capture then made its way into games like NFS: Shift , with early Speedhunters blogs featuring screengrabs and clips from the motorsport-focused title. This continued for more than a decade, across multiple NFS entries. Peep the Speedhunters windshield decal on this drifting Subaru BRZ from 2015's Need for Speed reboot. Electronic Arts One former contributor explained to me, 'I joined the creative directors in the making of one of the [NFS] games. We went to Miami and I set up a list of eight shoots that they joined me on, and so they just followed there.' They said the game's creative director was on location, looking for insight on world-building, along with several other Need for Speed crew members. 'There were cool moments like with that team and stuff, but they were completely, completely removed from Speedhunters. They didn't even really know what Speedhunters was. And I think that was kind of the problem,' he explained. Indeed, it seemed like most people outside of Speedhunters were clueless about their association with NFS , or at least didn't want to speak on it. One EA game developer told The Drive , 'Even when I worked on NFS , they didn't like to talk about the relationship between EA and Speedhunters. It was [expletive] odd to say the least.' Most of the site's audience was totally out of the loop, too. Comment sections and Reddit threads filled with people learning Speedhunters is owned by EA just last week prove it. On one hand, this proves that Speedhunters was something special, given that its corporate tie-in was so obscured; on the other, it meant that its future was always tethered to Need for Speed. To the rest of the world, Speedhunters was the go-to spot for authentic car content. The staff wasn't filled with pandering marketing majors; instead, they were real gearheads who went everywhere you wished you could. Household names like Larry Chen and Dino Dalle Carbonare filled the pages with beautiful and, honestly, inimitable shots. A fantastic team formed around them, and for years, Speedhunters was the dream outlet for shooters everywhere. 'I submitted my first story in 2009 to Speedhunters, and was offered a 12-month contract in 2010 to contribute regularly,' explained Paddy McGrath, one of Speedhunters' most prolific photographers, over email. 'It was a junior role, but I was straight out of college and pretty much into my dream job.' Of course, it was. Everybody—myself included—wanted to be a part of what was going on there. I remember pitching a story about a built Mk5 VW GTI that was local to me in hopes of being published on Speedhunters. (Spoiler: I never was.) A close friend of mine was just getting into car photography back in 2015 or 2016, and I wanted to become an auto journalist. Erik Cullins was kind enough to let us drive and shoot his crazy VW, even though it never resulted in any coverage. Ah, to be a teenager again. @jasonthackerphoto By then, Speedhunters was everywhere. McGrath covered European events, while Carbonare hopped around Japan and captured lore-worthy meets like the Daikoku Parking Area. Chen was usually in North America, shooting everything from Formula Drift to Baja and King of the Hammers. Meanwhile, Brad Lord was holding down the fort in New Zealand. And if a full-fledged staffer couldn't make it to an event, photographers lined up to work for free as part of the IAmTheSpeedhunter program. This was a clever initiative that enabled readers to post their photos on the site, effectively giving Speedhunters free content and also netting them some solid full-time talent down the road. 'Like so many people, I read Speedhunters nearly every day growing up,' another contributor told me. 'It had the perfect mix of drifting, JDM tuning shops, crazy builds around the world, projects, and brilliant adventures. It was so influential in my life and shaping my automotive hobby, and I even got in trouble in school when I changed the background of the school notice board PC to a Speedhunters watermarked pic.' McGrath stepped into the role of Editor in Chief around late 2017, where he served for roughly two years. Every contributor I talked to spoke highly of his tenure, saying that the Speedhunters Slack was super active and engaging throughout that time. That same creative energy regularly spilled onto the pages of the site. 'As my progression into taking pics of cars and motorsport grew, the goal always remained to just have a picture published on the site,' that same anonymous photog told me. 'By 2018, my brain melted when I had the first piece of my own published under the IAmTheSpeedhunter program, and it was like the best day of my life in 2019 when I got asked to become a full-time member of the Speedhunters team.' Things were moving, and fast. Speedhunters was publishing four to five stories a day at this point, every one of them featuring original reporting and photography. 'It wasn't always easy,' McGrath admitted. 'There was nearly always some sort of internal politics at play, but I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunities Speedhunters afforded me. I got to experience things I never would have otherwise, got to work with some of the very best in the industry (Dino was one of my biggest influences long before Speedhunters), and it gave me the opportunity to grow and learn as a photographer that I likely would not have been able to do otherwise.' All the while, Chen's automotive celebrity grew. One of his last contributions to Speedhunters in 2017 proved that, as he was invited up Pikes Peak to capture Ken Block conquering the mountain in his Hoonicorn Mustang. 'Behind the Scenes of Climbkhana' featured some genuinely iconic shots, including the one where Block nearly slid off the 14er, only to save it at the last second. You could make the argument that, during these years, Speedhunters hit its peak. While everything was humming at Speedhunters in the late 2010s, big changes were set into motion. Chen left the site in 2018 for Hoonigan, and a year later, he started his own YouTube channel. While that was the most visible switch-up, another was taking place behind the scenes. 'EA, whom I had been dealing with for payment on stories from the start, were replaced by Scene-Media, and their people suddenly became involved in the running of the site and handling payment,' a contributor told me. 'All creative ideas suddenly became directed by Scene-Media, it felt, rather than the editorial team.' This is where Ben Chandler comes in. Chandler, the director of Scene-Media, had long been associated with Speedhunters, having contributed there since 2013. His company eventually took on a much more active role, elevating him to Speedhunters' commercial director. He was put in charge of handling sponsorships and other business relations, as his title implies, but several sources tell me the transition was a massive flop. Now is the time when I say that I reached out to Chandler repeatedly for comment, but did not hear back. As such, it was impossible to verify these claims made by several ex-colleagues. Speedhunters Creative Director Mark Riccioni, also of Scene-Media, failed to respond as well. '[Ben] was a fun guy,' one photographer told me, 'but working with him was very difficult.' Another said that once Scene-Media took over regular operations, 'the wheels started to come off the Speedhunters project.' The most common gripe amongst the contributors I spoke with was that Scene-Media not only lacked communication but made it next to impossible for others. This allegedly involved disabling the key Slack channels that creators used to pitch stories so they could 'save a few bucks.' Site output was stifled as a result, and the collaboration that made Speedhunters what it once was faded away. Several people told me that Scene-Media's communication problems went beyond the pitch process, too. It allegedly resulted in delayed payments, with contributors receiving mixed instructions about invoicing. 'With communication taking weeks, it turned out to be impossible to pitch stories, and getting actually paid for them seemed like a myth,' one creator explained. Indeed, another told me that 'money went into this black hole at Scene or something and didn't reach people doing the work.' They said they were paid $150 for a story that took three days to assemble, but people from Scene-Media 'still suddenly had multiple sets of TE37s' on their cars as a result of corporate partnerships. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BC (@ben_scenemedia) One major point of contention was the Speedhunters merch store. For one reason or another, the site was never able to get that part right, at least not for long. Scene-Media had a deal with 'a designer guy in LA' to get the online storefront up and running, one source told me, but it never resulted in any gear being sold. Contributors even went as far as volunteering to run the merch site in hopes of getting some of the money, but Scene supposedly shut that down. They pointed fingers at EA, saying the company 'won't let us' due to 'licensing.' Suspicion grew among the contributors that Scene didn't want anyone else controlling the merch since it was such a potential moneymaker. All the while, activity on the site slowed as a result of the pitch bottleneck. The work that did get published was stellar as always, but without most of the main personalities that drove the site to stardom, it didn't get the same recognition. This is when Speedhunters began disappearing from public consciousness. Speedhunters survived the pandemic years and even managed to post daily through 2024. It did so with a host of new faces and names on the site, some of which simply appreciated the chance to be published. Others, however, quickly picked up on the dysfunction. 'I had the (questionable) honor of being an 'official contributor' after writing multiple stories over the course of around two years,' one photographer wrote in. 'When they asked me to become official and therefore paid, I thought I made it big, only to find out none of the glitter was actual gold.' Another creator who had been there for years told me they were 'kicked out after [they] questioned some stuff internally that didn't make sense.' By the end of it, contributors say Scene-Media was micromanaging photographers, down to telling them what camera presets to use. Certain wheel brands allegedly weren't allowed to be shown on the site, and one photographer told me that Scene even imposed a ban on all Hoonigan content. Scene allegedly passed it off as Hoonigan's rule, but when the photog asked a Hoonigan employee about the ban, they claimed they never heard of it. When I asked why they would do that, the source said, 'I think it was to make Larry [Chen]'s life difficult, practically, because he was doing so much' with the brand. Now, Chen's work shows up everywhere. He has a regular deal with Hagerty , as well as several major corporate clients, from Pennzoil and Acura to Yokohama, Sunoco, and more. With the usual content now off the table, contributors struggled to get stories published. According to more than one person I spoke with, they have hundreds of photos and multiple stories that could have been posted years ago, but now they're left to sit on hard drives because their sell-by date is past. It's wild to think that high-quality work from internationally recognized photographers wasn't enough to be published in the last days of the site. From what I'm told, sirens started sounding internally after NFS: Unbound launched in late 2022. That game received its last update in February 2025, and EA put out a press release saying no more would follow. With NFS on pause indefinitely, EA apparently has no use for the car culture site that influenced millions. 'I've read the comments online, and it seems that everyone is pretty quick to lay all of the blame on EA, which I don't think is right or fair,' McGrath said. 'Speedhunters would never have existed without them, and they kept it running for 18 years, despite the fact that Speedhunters never really adjusted to the times.' EA even built a new Speedhunters site that was set to launch in early 2025. However, it never went live, and the last glimmer of hope was a merch store relaunch that saw all apparel sell out before things shut down again. 'At the end of the day, EA's business is selling video games, and if the NFS franchise is on hiatus, then it really doesn't make sense for Speedhunters to still be around when NFS isn't,' McGrath added. Eventually, in April, the last story was published to Speedhunters—one about installing ITBs on an NSX Project car. Each person I spoke with said the site shut down without so much as a word from Scene-Media or EA. One photographer said they only found out after flying internationally for a story; he was told through a group chat started by some of the other contributors. Speedhunters, as it has sat for the last several months. Speedhunters And even after we reported the news last week about Speedhunters going dark, none of the site's bosses have posted about it online. Brad Lord, the site's editorial director, was the lone member of leadership to respond to my request for comment. He politely declined. In theory, if another Need for Speed game drops in the future, Speedhunters could return. It's completely dormant for now, though as one source tells me, the site isn't being managed or monitored closely. While the most recent post that's visible now is titled 'A How-To Guide to ITBs With Project NSX,' another was supposedly published after that by a rogue contributor and later deleted. 'Any contributor can hit publish on a story,' the source said. 'Like, I could go on there and publish something right now, almost certainly, unless my password's been deactivated,' which they admitted is 'probably likely at this point.' Other parts of the site remain frozen in time. 'If you go to the top banner and you hit 'More,' and you look at the photojournalists and Speedhunters crew, it's an old list from like 2017,' they continued. 'They couldn't figure out how to edit that.' Speedhunters At least one former contributor wishes that Scene-Media would turn the site over to people passionate enough to carry the torch, even if they don't get paid. 'I can almost assure you a group of the contributors would have carried it on and said, 'You know what, fine. We're gonna take IAmTheSpeedhunter submissions, we'll review them, we'll publish them, we'll publish our own free stuff, this can just become like a free blog. And it's like nobody's getting paid here, everyone understands that.' The passion was there, but not with the people who actually control the budget.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mike Garrett (@japanifornia) McGrath acknowledged that Speedhunters' unwillingness to evolve beyond written words and photo content may have been its undoing. 'We did try going the video route, but ultimately the budget wasn't there and at the time, the formula for 'YouTube Car Guy' content hadn't really been figured out,' he recounted. 'If anything, I recall the low-quality style vlogs being a bit cringeworthy at the time, and we wanted video to match our high standards of photography. As we now know, that wasn't the correct path, and quantity over quality is the way forward now.' Ultimately, Speedhunters is still a valuable property with real brand cache. That's likely why EA is holding onto it, even though practically nobody there knows much about it. 'I would be shocked if it doesn't come back in the future,' McGrath admitted. 'Perhaps the time offline will be good for Speedhunters in the long term, and that it can regroup and come back with a fresh approach.' Here's hoping it's not gone forever. 'Speedhunters always tried to shine a light on parts of the car world that others wouldn't touch, and I still don't think there's another outlet out there like it,' McGrath reminisced. 'It's a damn shame that it's gone (for now anyways) but that nobody really noticed it was gone for almost three months is telling.' Y'know, I don't think I could sum it up any better than that. Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@
Time of India
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Need for Speed franchise may have been cancelled by EA, and this game could be the reason why
Electronic Arts has reportedly put its long-running Need for Speed franchise on indefinite hiatus, according to claims from industry insiders and contributors to the EA-funded car culture website Speedhunters. The decision comes as developer Criterion Games has been fully reassigned to work on the Battlefield series . Matthew Everingham, a photographer and longtime contributor to Speedhunters, broke the news on Instagram, stating: "Speedhunters is on ice. EA shelved Need For Speed, and that means no more funding for the site. Grateful for everything — the trips, the stories, the lifelong mates." The announcement has sent shockwaves through the racing game community, as Need for Speed has been a cornerstone franchise for EA since 1994. The series' most recent entry, Need for Speed Unbound, was released in December 2022 but failed to achieve commercial success despite initial promise. Speedhunters, which has been closely affiliated with Need for Speed since 2008, hasn't published new content since April 2025. The site's store has gone offline, and its social media accounts now display blackout profile pictures, further supporting claims of the shutdown. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like An engineer reveals: One simple trick to get internet without a subscription Techno Mag Learn More Undo Criterion's Battlefield assignment leaves racing fans in the dust The writing appeared on the wall earlier this year when EA announced that Criterion Games, the studio behind Need for Speed Unbound, would be joining the multi-studio effort to revive the Battlefield franchise following the poor reception of Battlefield 2042. Former Speedhunters contributor Paddy McGrath provided insight into the site's precarious position in a Reddit comment: "There were so many times that Speedhunters was circling the drain over the last decade. We rarely knew ahead of time if our contracts would be renewed each year. A lot of brilliant and dedicated people put a lot of work in to keep things going as long as it did." EA has not issued an official statement regarding the franchise's future, though the company recently announced that Need for Speed Rivals' online servers will shut down on October 7, 2025. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Metro
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Need For Speed 'shelved' by EA as Forza Horizon 5 PS5 sales hit 2 million
EA's plans for Need For Speed seem to have been put in hold but Forza Horizon 5 has proven there's still a strong appetite for racing games. Arcade racing series Need For Speed was once a juggernaut franchise for EA, with its best-selling entry, 2005's Need For Speed: Most Wanted, selling over 16 million copies worldwide. The popularity of the Fast & Furious films, at around the same time, no doubt contributed to some degree, as the Need For Speed games pivoted from Hot Pursuit to street racing, with 2003's Need For Speed Underground debuting two years after the first film came out. However, while the Fast & Furious films continue to be box office juggernauts, Need For Speed's popularity has nosedived over the past decade. The last game was 2022's Need For Speed Unbound, developed by Criterion, which was a financial failure. There have been rumbles of another Need For Speed being in development at Criterion, most recently in February last year, but it seems EA has put those plans on hold. According to photojournalist Matthew Everingham, who was a contributor to an EA-backed car culture website called Speedhunters, the developer has pulled its funding for the site because it has 'shelved' Need For Speed. 'Speedhunters is on ice,' an Instagram post from Everingham reads. 'EA shelved Need For Speed, and that means no more funding for the site. Grateful for everything – the trips, the stories, the lifelong mates. I'm still shooting, just shifting gears into more video.' Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. The Need For Speed IP is listed as an 'entertainment partner' on the Speedhunters website, which is described as an 'international collective of photographers, writers, and drivers with a shared passion for uncovering the world's most exciting car culture stories'. GameCentral has reached out to EA for comment. If Need For Speed has been shelved, this might be due to Criterion's commitments on the next Battlefield. Criterion is one of four studios working on EA's plans for a 'connected Battlefield universe', alongside DICE, Ripple Effect, and EA Motive. EA announced it had moved the 'majority' of Criterion staff onto Battlefield in 2023, but a blog post at the time claimed 'work will also continue on what's next for Need For Speed' at the developer. Earlier this year, EA laid off up to 400 staff across various studios, so it's possible Need For Speed has been caught in the crossfire as it prioritises Battlefield. It seems racing games in general have been knocked down EA's priority list, after the company ended its partnership with the World Rally Championship in May this year. 'For now, we are pausing development plans on future rally titles,' EA said at the time. Presumably EA feels racing games no longer attract the audience they once did, but there's no obvious reason why they shouldn't, as Microsoft has proven with the Forza Horizon franchise. More Trending Open world arcade racer Forza Horizon 5 has sold two million copies in one month on PlayStation 5, according to the LinkedIn profile of a former game designer at Turn 10 Studios (as spotted on ResetEra). This is particularly impressive considering the original game came out on Xbox Series X/S and PC almost four years ago, in November 2021. At the same time though, the more serious Forza Motorsport was a sales disappointment for Microsoft and developer Turn 10 was badly hit by company wide layoffs earlier this month. But Need For Speed has rarely been a serious racing game, so the problem here seems to be with EA, not changing consumer tastes. EA even has a back-up franchise to fall back on, in Criterion's Burnout series, but there seems even less chance of that returning in the short term. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Xbox handheld prices accidentally leaked by Asus and they're super expensive MORE: Games Inbox: What is the hardest game on PS5? MORE: Patapon 1+2 Replay review – a PSP classic comes to Nintendo Switch
Engadget
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Engadget
EA is reportedly hitting the brakes on the Need for Speed franchise
The Need for Speed franchise could be making its last laps — at least for the time being. Matthew Everingham, a photographer who frequently contributed to car culture website Speedhunters , said in social media posts that Electronic Arts has "shelved Need for Speed" and is "quietly parking" the series. Speedhunters , which was funded by EA and was last updated in April of this year, will also reportedly cease operations for now. EA hasn't released an official statement on the fate of the Need for Speed franchise, but several internal decisions point to an uncertain future. Earlier this month, the publisher announced that it would shut down online servers for the cult classic Need for Speed Rivals on October 7. Before that, the developer behind Need for Speed, Criterion Games, shifted most of its employees to focus on the Battlefield franchise, leaving only a "core group" to continue working on the racing series in 2023. However, Battlefield head Vince Zampella told EuroGamer earlier this year that the rest of that Need for Speed team would be "joining their colleagues working on Battlefield." The longstanding franchise dates back to 1994 when the first title, The Need for Speed , was released on the original PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles. Since then, the series pumped out more than 20 games, with the most recent being Need for Speed Unbound. Released in December 2022, the latest title in the franchise is currently sitting at a Mixed rating with more than 40,000 reviews on Steam.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Dead: Speedhunters
Read the full story on The Auto Wire Gearheads are shocked to learn that the once-popular Speedhunters car website is pretty much dead now. With the flow of new stories completely stopped in early April, combined with sections of the site just gone, we've lost yet another automotive site as the industry continues to seems the first real public notice of Speedhunters essentially shutting down was a post on the r/shootingcars subreddit. One commenter who claimed to be a past contributor to the site said it was well known the site was 'circling the drain over the last decade.' That's true for many automotive sites, even popular ones, right now. Founded in 2008, Speedhunters quickly became a touchstone for automotive culture online. It combined interesting writing and original photography featuring the many different genres within the hobby, drawing in large audiences. However, it seems Speedhunters was in financial trouble for some time. At least that's been the rumor in the industry for years and this latest development seems to confirm the veracity of those tales. It was hardly a sudden thing, with the flow of new stories posted to the Speedhunters website slowly tapering off to fewer and fewer over the last several months. Many fans aren't all that surprised, even if they still mourn what once was. But the fact it's taken a couple of months or so for people to even realize Speedhunters isn't posting new content on its site (thanks in large part to a recent report from The Drive) is a real sign interest had dwindled considerably. Enthusiasts just stopped caring about Speedhunters as it was increasingly neglected. Lately, quite a few media outlets are going under, including some big car sites. This is a time of considerably shifting in the industry, thanks to a number of factors like outlet consolidation, private equity money, the effects of social media, even geopolitics. Backed by video game giant Electronic Arts (EA), Speedhunters solicited content from photographers and writers around the world. It quickly created a nice community of enthusiasts and helped Larry Chen and others rise to popularity. Image via Speedhunters/Facebook Join our Newsletter, subscribe to our YouTube page, and follow us on Facebook.
