WORRL.

What ever happened to that?


"Niles Anders" > wrote in message
...
> Byron, I have suspected paranoia too. But I think they really want to own
> SIM Racing. I know that sounds a little wacky but FIRST is modeled like
> the FIA and it appears they want to displace leagues with their model. I
> don't think their long term model is good for SIM racing overall.
>
> We've raced together before and I can't remember what league it was with.
> But you're Australian, right?
>
> Byron Forbes wrote:
>> Yep.
>>
>> To me, all iRacing need to do is offer their sanctioned stuff as well
>> as let everyone do their own thing.
>>
>> But is this a flashback to the crackdown on third party stuff for
>> N2003? Are they threatened by this also? Am I detecting a little
>> paranoia?
>>
>>
>> "Tony R" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Niles Anders wrote:
>>>
>>>> Think about that. If simply allowing private leagues would undermine
>>>> their licensing concept, what does that say about the viability of that
>>>> concept overall? To me it shows it's a weak concept. I would predict
>>>> that if they did allow private leagues that their "driving school game"
>>>> would die immediately because it has such small appeal now anyway. And
>>>> that contributes to why so few veteran SIM racers want to be involved
>>>> with it. The concept is a divider not a uniter.
>>>
>>> Sim racing has been a contracting niche since the early copies of
>>> Papyrus' Nascar titles sold in excess of 1 million. In the absence of
>>> any developer led or official sanctioning body grasping the nettle, sim
>>> racing fans have done a pretty good job organising themselves, arguably
>>> better than F1 right now!
>>>
>>> However, for potential new sim racers the entry into the decent leagues
>>> is a matter of luck and a simple google search a find plenty of examples
>>> of league forums that have disintegrated into flame wars and/or fizzled
>>> out mid season to a handful of drivers.
>>>
>>> For those in the decent leagues their only need is the sim - the rest
>>> they can do, but it is no recipe for expanding sim racing. As long as
>>> the sims keep coming why should they worry?
>>>
>>> The reality is the sims aren't keeping coming. The major publishers gave
>>> up on PC sim racing years ago in favour of either console racers or
>>> different genres. The small studios are doing a decent job along with
>>> the home made community mods, yet to attract in major developer is
>>> going to take a significant change in the market.
>>>
>>> Many consumers will focus on the now and view iRacing as another boxed
>>> title but with annoying restrictions. Simply feeding the existing niche
>>> community isn't going to justify the development costs. So it needs to
>>> provide the venue for races to pool sim racers for its systems of
>>> getting drivers racing of similar capabilities to experience the quality
>>> of racing first hand and establish numbers to gain momentum for new
>>> racers to come in. We now see the Nascar deal in a timeline where new
>>> fans can join in where there is already an established membership
>>> initially from the existing sim racing community.
>>>
>>> To gain this momentum iRacing need to control the numbers through
>>> limiting fragmentation. Fancy running Spec Racers around Daytona for 5
>>> laps? The option isn't going to be there. Sim racers used to zillions of
>>> options of cars and tracks and choosing their own rules wil be
>>> disappointed, yet this is exactly what destroyed pick up racing in the
>>> past. To bring order to this chaos iRacing have grasped the nettle and
>>> there will always be groups who will do something different and there
>>> are alternatives - but they will be the niche groups as we have in all
>>> sports.
>>>
>>> If iRacing succeeds it will become the de facto sim racing service which
>>> in my view is exactly what sim racing has needed for many years and may
>>> grow sim racing beyond its ill perceived computer gaming image.
>>>
>>> That doesn't mean everyone else packs up, the small studios will still
>>> have niche gaps to fill but we as consumers will have a major developer
>>> in the mix, something that wouldn't have happened without iRacing's
>>> vision for change.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Tony
>>