Interesting thread, one thing I would like to understand is the parallel between online activity and longevity of a SIM. I have very little interest in MP and I am convinced I am part of the majority playing Racing Games (SIM). So why would a minority in a group of player be a sign of a game popularity? An even smaller group within the minority of online MP player are the one who are part of a league, yet they are very present on forum like Race Department, who caters and live on online activity. Since online require communicating and recruiting player, that group being more active on social media, makes total sense, yet among the players of a particular game, they are a small percentage. R3E, does not need a powerfull MP to be interesting or have along life. Updating the content, feature and physic is all that is needed for the majority of the ( paying) users.
Because as mentioned a few times now, the Steam stats give an exact figure for the number of people playing R3E (an always online game) at any one time. It doesn't make good reading. The lack of success of online racing at RD is simply indicative of a wider problem and that's what this thread is about. Single player users are the majority without a doubt, but the majority of 'not a lot' is still 'not a lot'.
It is difficult to know what the secret to sales success is. You can;t always go by the loudest voices on forums. IRacing charge very high prices for content and they combine this with a monthly fee. How could that be a commercial success? But for on-line racing on PC they have grown to dominate. Look at all the negative reaction to Steam when Simbin went that way 9 years ago, and still crops up when developers like Reiza nas ISI make belated adoption of Steam, but developers know that Steam is the key to sales these days. Five years ago we had three big players in the PC sim racing market. ISI, Simbin and iRacing. Today, two of these three have arguably failed to capitalise on the popularity of their last generation of sims. Instead, Kunos, developer of a very unpopular (in terms of sales and participation) sim - NetKar Pro - has come through to beat the established developers in terms of sales. It is puzzling. Its easy to think rF2 and R3E have struggled because they were released in Beta, but so was AC. Kunos believe licensed content is vital to sales success and I'm sure they are right, but rF2 has far more licensed content than rF1 but hasn't been as successful, even though it has rain (sort of) and night racing, features missing from AC and often requested in forums. For me R3Es key issues were the lack of AI and on-line racing for so long, and the poor value of the original DTM experience compared to Simbin's previous titles such as GTR, GTL and RACE 07. But AI and on-line racing have been added, and the value of recent packs has been much better and if you wait for the regular sales, are very competitive. I really think S3S are heading in the right direction. The experience package is a good concept IMO. You can buy it on Steam without vpn points. The recent involvement of real drivers and teams is another good thing. Whatever the secret to sales success is, I really hope they find it as I feel we need a developer like S3S who produce complete (or as near complete as licensing issues allow) European racing series of cars and tracks and rules.
What I really don't get is how some people tie the success of a racing sim to mp user numbers. I guess goose and the others saying you should rather go and be online instead of complaining there's no one about hit the nails head, cause I dare you to go into any of the other sims mp lobbies (except iracing) and show me those vastly better user figures. They aren't there either. The only number that somewhat reliable is competition entries, cause here you also see the casual sp player and hotlapper and those numbers aren't that bad. What's the alternative? Start from scratch and lose 3 years of development work? If only it was that simple. This is exactly why J-F was right in saying the game was released to public too early. AC, which is the contender when it comes to (human) resources, was in development for 3 years (2008-2011) before they even announced it. Too little, too early, I agree, but this decision, like many others, was made by a) the producer (RR) and b) some individuals who are no longer with S3S (for a reason I guess). What are they supposed to say? Sorry, we don't have the say we'd like to when it comes to such decisions? You're not happy, ok, but why the black and white comments all the time? If someone only read your posts it'd sound to them like nothing apart from content has changed in the past months, which doesn't reflect what has happened here. Those changes were huge, core altering changes that have to be fitted into what's already there. I guess I'm glad you're even here still and didn't give up on it like many others claim they have. You're voicing your discontent with the status quo (maybe not the way I would but ok) which is alright and I hope the updates that are to come will please you (although the things you seem to desire will take a little longer, sorry).
You can also go back and look how both AC and R3E played back when AC was released, and then compare both sims now on how much have happened to them since then. Shouldn't really think along those lines. But just imagine how the steamcharts would look if R3E was released just a year ago!.. . Probably a big grief for the devs when they think about that.
Just as an aside, I think rF2's problem is, as a package, it's very niche, esoteric and unappealing to a mainstream audience (I think ISI and the user base are fine with that!). Yes, it has more licensed content than rF1, but what it offers doesn't hold up against the likes of AC, R3E and pCARS. They have a greater selection of famous cars and tracks that people want drive including well-stocked GT3/GT2 classes that are always popular. By comparison, rF2's licensed content looks like a budget offering, which is exactly what it is. The original rFactor had a very vibrant modding scene that took a few years to get going but as rF2 approaches four years in the wild, the selection of quality mods is still thin on the ground. Perhaps ISI expected the modding community to pick up the slack and bolster the content offering, but that hasn't really happened. As something gets more complex (as rF2 supposedly is), the number of people with the talent and free time to work with it diminishes. So to bring this back to the point, Kunos (and Sector3, Slightly Mad Studios) are absolutely right in putting the emphasis on acquiring desirable, licensed content in order to achieve commercial success. Good-looking, licensed cars and tracks are what draw people in above all else, like it or not. R3E has a stellar content line-up, good visuals and class-leading sounds so it's puzzling that it doesn't have the same mainstream appeal as AC and pCARS. The ingredients are there but something is holding it back.
Nice one...! Historic reputation. You can see that often with games that got released too early. Even if they recover and in following years repair the damage done from premature relase, fix all broken stuff, fill up the missing gaps, and add new content, they still fight an uphill battle. Its kind of unfair, yes, but thats how it is. X Rebirth serves as an example from my corners of my mind, I was with the first release. Terrible. Now: its okay, its good. But the chance was missed, the crowd is gone, the company fights for its survival. It will never no more become the breat thing it was planned to be and could have become if they would have waited longer. However, there are also examples when bad starters later recovered and become successful. But those examples are somewhat rare, and it always was a complicated struggle. First impression of people counts, first impression is of utmost importance. Miss that opportunity, and you will regret it.
I don't think the free2play buisness model is inherently bad for racing games, it's just that S3 don't use it's strength to its best in my opinion. Some ideas: - Introduction of a weekly rotation of free stuff (similar to League of Legends), where you can race 1 or 2 cars on a track for free. - When a new track is released, add a week long challenge for it. - Make the cars cheaper and the liveries more expensive to reduce community splitting. You could randomize the livery you get when buying the car, to prevent having everybody the same livery. One extreme measurement would be, to make the tracks completly free and compensate it by making the cars more expensive. That way you would only have one requirement to join a race instead of two.
You should note that I was pointing out the inconsistency of another post (and thats pretty easy to see as I quoted it in the post) - that his points of view were juxtaposed - don't paint me as a hater I have spent this thread defending Sector3.
Ahh, I paint nobody nothing. Seriously, I probably misread that comment with a question mark at the end rather than a full stop. That whole conversation was rather fragmented, too me at least. Therefore I apologise for misunderstanding your point. @Winter: Some of what you said is more or less how things are handled (competitions, when introducing new stuff and to let people test) and some of what you said might not be that far fetched... Sorry, just teasing again. Getting good at this, J-F, if you ever need a substitute..
The reputation of AC was/is a result of a hardcore approach (born with netkar). The same with iRacing... and doesn't matter how expensive iRacing is, the public is solid. RR was born almost as an arcade game. And in many aspects, this arcade nature persists. In fact, this culture could be seen in the last Simbin titles, after Race 07. A very generic approach, plenty of "easy money makers". Nothing new, just new and unattractive series. The signs are crystal clear... it doesn't work. Go hardcore or perish. PS. I really don't get it.... the effort of bringing real drivers to help the sim is great. There was a live stream last week, right? It was announced here???? The answer is: NO. WTH!!!! What kind of publicity is that???? PS2. Some of you guys still think that there is no relation between success and MP...ok, look at the SP numbers...analyse the leaderboards... Take Spa as example...
It wasn't announced because it was to be determined by the schedule and availability of the driver. Majority of these sessions aren't for public eye, they are for the devs and beta testers to participate in, discussing and giving feedback among each other. Last thing they wanna do is announce a public viewing event and for the driver to not be able to make it This was a planned session but upon the driver being there, which was at the last minute and with little time. I would say look more forward to the coming months of live streams since the drivers will be more free during the winter break.
Yeah, of course you would pick the latest addition... Spa has been out for how long? Why don't you have a look at the competition leaderboards, especially those that lure out everybody cause they grant great prizes (btw, something like this on AC/PC/ir ?) or let people drive interesting stuff. Go hardcore or perish...almost sounds like you work at the US International Affairs Office.
By all those who express their feelings about such matters... From what I've learned the sim racing crowd is a slow moving one (ironically). Many people just play casually and there are even more who are waiting for a discount on it and the new content/packs/experiences that are to come. I'm not trying to convince you that everything is fine or that everybody should be happy with the state we're in cause it isn't and we shouldn't, but you need to understand that such fundamental changes take more time than you and a bunch of other people obviously expected. So what do you say, what is hindering R3E to become a bigger success? Missing features is what I read from you most of the time, but this is just as lopsided as blaming it on the business model/pricing only I think.
What's the difference between RRE and it's predecessor, Race 07. What's NEW regarding: - the physics of the cars - the collision model - the damage model - the track/weather dynamics - graphics - directX10/11/12 and of course, the core features: fuel, tyres, pit stops, etc
That's what I have been saying a few time now. They need to come out of Beta ( that would remove all the previous ""steam professional review"" ) . Bring a starter pack that includes pretty much all the tracks and a single car of each series for a decent cost ( maybe $49.99 ish ). That would get people talking, we would get real review from people who actually are playing it currently. This would be a chance for a lot of people to get that "first" impression all over again.
Agreed. Also I wonder if the game should have effectively re-launched/re-branded under a different name? 'Raceroom Racing Experience' is a crap name as far as I'm concerned and a title that is clearly tainted for many potential customers due to the game's poor start in life.
Careful there, I predict that doing that again will trigger plenty of criticism of this format: "Heck, look the new game that pretends to be new, but under the hood and the shiny title its just the old stuff from 3 years ago!" I would recommend to just shorten this hilariously long name and simply call it "Raceroom", and not more. I do that anyway already. There could be a line with a subtitle on posters, however: "Raceroom - Your Racing Experience": that makes an awful lot more sense to me.