For all those hardcore race fan gamers out there, this week’s news out of Electronic Arts is not good. EA’s exclusive production agreement with NASCAR is up at the end of this year and the game developer announced it has no plans to renew the deal. What this means for fans is no new NASCAR 2010.

NASCAR and EA have been partners since they signed an exclusivity agreement in 1997. Over the years, the game has developed to include different aspects of the sport such as being able to race as teammates, intimidate opponents and race for the Chase. The latest editions of the game focused more on the racing, giving players more control over the set-up and adjustments made on the car. After debuting NASCAR 09 in 2008, this year’s edition was a complete change to a cartoon version of a kart racing game.

"There are no plans right now for NASCAR from EA," Peter Moore, president of EA Sports said in an interview with Gamestop.com earlier this month. "We had a great relationship over the years that I thoroughly enjoyed when I first got here. Unfortunately…we had to make some tough trade-offs. We've had to redeploy some of those folks. A number of the NASCAR team has moved over now to EA Sports MMA, which will be shipping next year. [We're] still a huge fan of NASCAR, but no plans right now to develop any further games for NASCAR from EA Sports."

The SportsBusiness Daily recently reported sales of EA’s NASCAR game have dropped from almost 900,000 for “NASCAR 05” to a disappointing 443,116 for “NASCAR 09” and this year’s “NASCAR Kart Racing” has failed to move more than 200,000.  For now, fans will just have to break out those old games and wait until another developer steps up to take on the NASCAR series.

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