Since skidding onto the App Store, Burnout Masters by Road Burn Games has amassed more than 3 million players, along with a fiercely loyal community of fans across social media. But the official Burnout game almost hit a brick wall.

“Car-obsessed” co-founders Tim Millard and John Wilson chatted to the App Store Editors about how they were able to, ahem, stay on track.

“We had two existential moments where we thought Burnout Masters was dead in the water,” Millard tells us. “A year before release, a very similar game to ours launched and we thought, ‘we’re gone’.”

Thankfully, Burnout Masters had a unique point of difference for car enthusiasts. “Rather than just changing the body kit and the car’s colour, we were allowing players to completely build and swap out engines in 3D.”

The game was unveiled in 2019 in front of 100,000 fans at Summernats, the Aussie home of burnout competitions. (Fun fact: it was also the first time the two founding members met in person). “We had signage all over the event, game trailers being shown on the big screen – and it was the first time we shook hands – it was absolutely wild,” says Millard.

Fans were thrilled at how faithfully the chaotic energy of a burnout tournament came through in the game. “We focused on the smaller details that were missing from other gaming experiences,” Wilson explains. “We put a lot of effort into tyre smoke generation, for example, to the point where you can get ‘lost’ in it like in real life. No other games were doing that.”

Then, a few months after launch… lockdown. “Again we thought everything we’d planned was out the window,” says Millard. “Our whole go-to-market plan was around physical events.”

So they pivoted and became the gathering place for Burnout fans throughout COVID. The team faithfully recreated cancelled motorsport events, such as Summernats 34, and introduced multiplayer mode so players could play together. They were also quick to jump on a trend of people doing burnouts in their driveway by creating an in-game map of a fenced driveway titled “Isolation”.

Today, the loyal community they built continues to shape the game’s evolution. Millard jokes its fanbase has become somewhat of an insatiable beast: “Sometimes we feel like hamsters in a wheel: our players are like, ‘give us this car, give us this track – but don’t change anything else!’”

And their players’ ingenuity never ceases to impress him. “People have hosted gender reveals in multiplayer because you can customise the colour of your tyre smoke. Or, we’ll see players lining up, taking turns to do burnouts, even though there’s no mechanic making them do it.”

Following the success of Burnout Masters, Road Burn Games grew from a duo to a team of 15. While working on follow-up title, Drift Runner, they identified another untapped opportunity: celebrity motor rally Gumball 3000. “I've been a fan since I bought the Gumball 3000 DVD as a kid!” Millard enthuses.

When Gumball 3000 was forced to cancel in 2020 due to COVID lockdowns, Millard proposed bringing it to life on mobile with its founder, entrepreneur Maximillion Cooper. But he was too late. The Gumball team were already working on a game that was expected to launch in the near future.

But this is just another pit stop in their story. “I kept sending Maximillion progress of Drift Runner. After about a year he asked if we could jump on board and build the [Gumball 3000] game quickly on mobile for the next Gumball rally and we very naively said yes!” says Millard.

Turning Gumball around in two years was the ultimate challenge as they delved into a new world of fashion and character customisation.“ While Burnout Masters is ‘build your engine, do your burnouts’, Gumball 3000 is more high-speed racing through exotic locations in supercars,” explains Millard.

Creating the official Gumball 3000 game has been a wild ride for Road Burn Games, allowing them to travel all over the world. “When we went to Cambodia, the government declared a public holiday for the rally and Gumball hosted a concert with 50,000 people!” says Millard.

Millard is excited to bring that jubilation to a mobile device. “There are plenty of racing games, but not many that bring in real-world locations with that festival party vibe. That’s what we try to do differently in the Gumball 3000 game.”