SimBin's Race On

Now, going back to Judge’s earlier post about Race On and PC gaming. I’ve been thinking.

Major knows of an individual who used to race with us many moons ago, who now runs his own PC racing league on rFactor.

Now while I am in no way suggesting that (I, certainly, or) anyone joins up (long story, nothing against the guy who runs it, just some of the people who race in it), it’s got me wondering about something like a Race On setup.

This rFactor league runs on servers they pay to rent, the exact amount escapes me, but it didn’t cost the earth. And if that cost could be spread out (thinking out loud, not saying it would be a mandatory subscription fee) amongst regular members then it really reduces it down.

They had a race in just ONE of their rooms the other night (they have 4) with 32 people in. No lag, no issues other than drivers getting too excited, as some may do in real life races anyway.

That to me sounds like a great option. Even if you just had 20 in a room at any one time, heck, you guys know what I’m saying.

Consoles exist for a reason. They exist because not everyone wants to game on the PC for whatever their particular reasons maybe, albeit cost, (perceived) complexity, (perceived) costly peripherals (but in reality you can probably get the DFP for the same price as the MS wireless wheel now-a-days, and even back when, it was only £90. You’d save that £20 difference on paying £24.99 for your PC game rather than £39.99 – £44.99).

They exist because it’s a quick fix. An almost immediate gratification experience. Ideal for the “A.D.H.D.” “I want it, and I want it now!” generation.

People who PC game are more likely to be:

A). a little older (averaging out the gamer base ages) than console gamers
B). happy to tinker with things like their PC, so guess what? If they’re petrol-heads, they are likely to be very happy tweaking car setups to try and eeek out that last 1000th of a second performance from their motor. It’s in their nature, so a much truer sim can be delivered to critical acclaim.

Console gamers (on average) are not so patient. “That’s far too much effort. I just want to turn the thing on and play”. And a fair point. Nothing wrong with that at all.

As someone who writes software for a living, I see what goes on in development houses, and I have no reason to think that games devs are any different to the rest of the industry. What do I mean by that? Well a prime example of the past 6 months or so would be Google Chrome (their web browser for those who are unaware). It was launched to a fanfare, and trumpeted and lauded as the next great breakthrough in the online browsing experience, merging the online and offline worlds like never before seen.

This “revolution” was actually a bit of software called WebKit. And that’s been around for years. Safari (Apple’s browser) is built using WebKit. And do you know what happened only hours after Chrome launched? Hackers brought it to its knees using years old exploits (Bad Google. Lazy Google!) that had long since been patched in Safari by Apple. They tried to pass it off as something it wasn’t and were taught a valuable lesson. BTW, Chrome is still a very very good browser by the way, that’s not in question. My point is it’s all too easy to rehash what’s been done before, add some spit and polish and say it’s all new, all singing. Stick with me now, there is a point coming.

Let’s look at the target market for the 360. MS state its main demographic is Mr. Smith, aged 18 – 35. It’s viewed as a more “hardcore gamers” console over say the Wii. However, the bean counters at MS know that a large portion of their gamer base is made up of under 16’s, either using their dad’s Xbox, or even better, one of their own.

You’d be a very foolish games developer (on the whole) to discount a large portion of your potential gamer base (certain games you may say, such as GTA, are targeting over 18’s, but let’s get real, parents still buy that for little Timmy anyway).

So, you’re SimBin. You are well known for great racing sim titles on the PC. You have (as Judge has pointed out) a new title upcoming on the PC. But you’ve decided to dip your toe into the murky waters of console gaming. You know all age groups like to race. From the under 10’s (and there will be petrol head kids, not just Need For Speeders) out there in Live Land, to the over 60’s and beyond.

Do you make a game true to form, that’s so realistic, only the most hardcore of motorsport fans will buy it and positively review your game, or do you dumb it down, and embrace the wider market? I know what I’d do from a business point of view. It’s a no brainer. Why just cater for the hardcore? You already have them on the PC.

“Ah yes, the PC, damn, forgot about that.” Indeed. And also with that lies your reputation. So you do the next thing that makes business sense. Preserve that reputation and make a stonking game on kit you know very well. “But wait! That means we can’t devote the resource needed for the console game.”

Solution? Buy in TOCA base code from Codies. Add a couple of features and say it’s a “next-gen” title. Everyone’s a winner. They still deliver their AAA PC title, they deliver a good (but not genre defining) game for the console at minimal cost and overheads, thereby making a tidy little profit for not a huge amount of work.

Which reminds me. Did TOCA 2 ever get a patch on the old XB for all its issues? I’m betting it didn’t, otherwise the issues that Race Pro suffers from wouldn’t exist. Didn’t Codies even say at point blank “No, we won’t be patching and supporting the game”?

My proposition is I will look into the cost of one of these servers (to rent, obviously). Games (as in rules, setups etc) can all be locked down, even more so than console games. I know Major will be dying to point out the GTR fiasco years ago with another group of gamers, and their lying ways. Well, that’s only because they chose to abuse the trust that was bestowed on them, and that can be stopped very easily now-a-days.

If it’s not too expensive, I may well run a server for a few months, and see how things turn out. If things go alright, then we can look into making it a more permanent thing. If you already own a semi-decent PC (and mine will play rFactor no worries, and no, it’s not a monster of a PC, it’s a 4 year old P4 with HT, 3Gb of RAM and an NVidia 6800GT 256Mb graphics card. I can buy a better spec from Dell these days for about £350 off the shelf! How much would a 360 Elite set me back?), and a wheel, what would you have to lose? Sure rFactor on my PC could look better, but it looks as good as Race Pro, if not a tad better I’m sorry to report.

You’d be getting the Race game you truly want, not a rehashed compromise (assuming it is up to SimBin’s other previous PC offerings), with a much larger scope for modding from the community at large, both cars AND tracks, and (over time) you’d have bigger grids with minimal online issues (benefit of a central server rather than the hosts Xbox and Internet connection performing such duties).

Probably going to get bitch-slapped down for this, and I don’t want to be seen as causing a division. I just think you all deserve the best online racing experience you can get your hands on without paying stupid money, and I’m just saying PC gaming is not the techie fortress or preserve of the rich that it may once have been.