Project CARS 2

They could have waited a year or two but they wanted to have something like wmd again so they were forced to announce it to get people to join.

 

That is absolute nonsense, sorry. They have developers they need to pay and those developers need work. So the only thing that is reasonable is to have them work on the next title and keep some of them busy with bugfixing and supporting the current game. Before you mentioned it, yes I think they haven't done a brilliant job at bugfixing, since there seemingly still are bugs in the game, but the general decision wasn't wrong.
Call it greedy, I'd call it honest. Plus there is no way around that if you want to have some kind of (limited) early access.

Also there are going to be 2,5 years between the releases of pC1 & 2, which is perfectly reasonable in my eyes.

I'm not a fan of SMS by any means nor have any interest in getting back to the pCars franchise, but this is quite simply an unfair accusation.

 

Which comes first, Pcars 3 or AC2?

 

Yes, that's reasonable.

I think it was mainly the time of the announcement that drove people away. Also together with the statement that they won't support pCars1 for much longer.

Personally, ongoing support is what I'm after. That's why I like games like DCS or AC so much.
Good or bad physics aside, this is one point that they won't deliver. After pCars2 it will be on to the next title (almost) directly. There is no need to expect anything different.
Such a business model is of course ok and in the long term it is likely cheaper for the customer (I've certainly spent more on AC than pCars1), but I rather like one title to be improved over the years rather than recurring iterations of the same thing with smaller changes every year.
tbf, pCars is far away from that (as you said above ~2.5 years and the changes will be bigger), but you get the idea.

 

iR TM8.

Wait no, forget that.

 

I hope AC2 with rain, night race and Fonsecker sounds

 

If 4/5 people work on AC2... pCars6

 

Duke Nukem Forever 2.

 

While I wouldn't agree on the fact that it is cheaper for the customer (after all pCars had monthly DLC for a year, that was roughly priced the same as ACs IIRC, I agree on pretty much everything else in your post. I just simply can't stand those standartized yet plain wrong arguments about SMS and even though I'm not a fan of them by any means, I think you should treat them in a fair way. (Plus there are enough points that you could criticize them for anyways... )

 

I think we are going to see here, how this kind of business model is going to work out.

One model is the one we have seen so far, the last years anyway. You make a good engine and over the years you tweak it here and there with some or little room for massive improvement, you sell cars for it and tracks. As a customer you know the product will be around for potentially many years and you will have current content for many years as well.

The second model is what SMS did (or are on the way of doing). Build a game engine (over the years they learned too of course), make DLC for it, but only support it for game-breaking issues for 1-2 official years. You make (potentially) bigger improvements to your engine and tyre model than the previous business model can, and resell the title as a sequel. Of course your data for tracks and cars are going to be available for the sequels as well if they choose to.

Both models have their pros and cons, but I feel that when you are developing a "new" game, you are able to push larger changes, for better or for worse, other than the tweak here and there that the first model can afford, either financially or because of their following. You can't push a completely different tire model on iR or AC, people will ***** about it and alienate your community. You can more easily do that with a new title and tweak it from there.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out in the long run.

 

Marco said something about that in the stream with Stefano. Basically the sales of DLCs aren't as high as the sales of a game.
Thus for a smaller team, it can work out, otherwise you need either higher prices (like DCS does, where every model costs about 40-60€ or R3E, where you pay like 6-10€ per track and they are not laser-scanned afaik) or an immense customer base (I think EU4 goes in that direction).

Bigger features or a complete series can't be justified by making DLCs according to Marco, because the revenue from that would be too low.

 

1 month, second time.

 

nice i can finally recreate those clasic F1 races from senna days in snowy conditions /s

 

DCS module prices are more or less justified by the complexity and amount of work it takes to create each model. Some takes years.

 

I'm not questioning the prices.

 

I am saying that I don't see anything in simracing what could justify DCS module like prices for single car model. I do think iRacing models are already overpriced. Although cars like recently released Honda MP4-30 F1 is closer to justify the price because of the amount of features simulated.

 

Simbin was founded by Ian Bell. During development of GT Legends the large majority of the Simbin team left Simbin to form Blimey! Studios. Blimey! Studios was owned by GTR/GTL/GTR2's publisher - 10Tacle. When 10Tacle went bust, Blimey! soon followed but was reformed as Slightly Mad Studios.

The following is taken from the GT Legends Credits. People working for SMS are coloured in red. I have used the pCARs forum listing of staff members - I have no connection with SMS.

GAME DEVELOPMENT

Head of Development/Creative Director
Ian Bell

Technical Director
Andy Garton

Lead Designer/Producer
Rod Chong

Associate Producer
Stephen Viljoen

Art Director
Eric Boosman

Physics and AI
Doug Arnao

Art Lead
Gustavo Olivera

Build/Asset Manager
Viktor Kolomiets

Programming
Jens Agby, Jon Bäcklund, Darren Barrett, Robert Dibley,
Steven Dunn, Andy Garton, Paul Houbart, Anders Johansson, Ged Keaveney, Steve Wilson

Additional Programming
Pontus Eriksson

Lead Car Modeller
Perran Truran

Car Modelling
Bryn Alban, Casey Ringley

Additional Car Modelling
Ruben Campiña, Angel Campiña, Martijn Haans, Kalle Helgesson,
Gustavo Olivera, Cornelis van Steenbergen

Lead Car Texturer
Jan Frischkorn

Car Texturing
Vincent Dambreville, Patrick Dontigny, Daniel Karlsson, Jonathan Moore, Gustavo Olivera

Additional Car Texturing
Eric Boosman, Bob Dye, Hui Guan, Bram Knot

Track Modelling
Andy Garton, Dominik Rühl-Mezzetti, Sean Vollmer

Track 3DO Modelling
Luis Barata, Roe Tengco, Daniel Thies

Track Texturing
David Driver, Cyro Pires Filho, Marcio Ramos

Additional Track Production
Eric Boosman, Shimon Cohen, Jay Ekkel, Sven Moll, Andreas Moll,
Danilo Monno, Gustavo Olivera, Perran Truran, Stephen Viljoen

Menu Graphic Design
Marcel Dortland

Sound Director & Music Composer
Stephen Baysted

Sound Design
Engine, Vehicle & Environmental Sounds by:
Greg Hill - Soundwave Concepts

20 people who worked on GT Legends over 10 years ago are working for SMS. By contrast, no one working for Sector3 Studios (Simbin's official successor) worked on GT Legends.

 

@David Wright: I know about the story of SMS, Blimey etc.
And I know that a lot of them were previous Simbin members, no doubt about that.
Unfortunately that doesn't tell you much about what they can achieve, because it's only part of the team.
(In that case maybe around 50%, didn't count.)
It can really matter which part of the team you take. And it's not only about individual skills, but quite often also about the connection of the respective team members.

Anyway, the main point is that there was and is a significant difference between the products that Simbin made and the ones that Blimey/SMS made.
And except for one (NFS Shift 2), I tried every single one of them.
Simbin titles were always spot on simracing titles. Not perfect but almost about as good as they could get with the technology at the time.
Blimey/SMS titles were always much more simcade. pCars did go a tiny step towards more sim-orientated gameplay, but it was only a subtle step.
Maybe they would be capable of delivering a true sim, quite possible, but what on earth would lead you to believe that they would? They seem to follow a quite clear path and that path is simcade.
(Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, after all pCars was very successful.)

Also, regarding Simbin. Quite some part of the devs from Simbin did go and form another company called Sector3 Studios.
They do some random game called R3E and while it surely is far from being perfect, it is much closer to a proper sim than anything Blimey/SMS did.
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but … well, you can connect the pieces.

(Actually that sort of speculation was already there when Blimey split off Simbin.)

 

You seem to think this paints SMS in a bad light. It doesn't. If the studio is run properly, then the core technology people should already start on PCARS 2 way before 1 is out, when it reaches the (asset) production stage. The timing for announcement is early because of early access / fund raising / player feedback.

If they have lots of resources ($$) or they don't care about player feedback, then for sure it's normal practice to announce late, then start hyping. I'm pretty sure it's not the case.