mmaruda
I'll add my 2 cents. There is a big difference between a developer like ISI and Kunos. ISI probably does not make a huge profit form rFactor 2. As far as I understand rFactor Pro is their main source of income, so they could allow themselves to not target a broader audience, not be on Steam until recently and not add a ton of flashy Ferraris to fuel the sales. With Kunos and other devs it's a different story. They a have one product, which they still have to work on. They need to pay the people who work for them every month, so they need a source of income like DLCs and going for the console audience. In a perfect world (around 15 years ago lol), you would make a game, release it, make 2 patches to fix that odd font bug one guy is having and maybe improve FPS for the other guy that still uses this old Radeon card, than maybe make an Addon and move on to make the next game.
Unfortunately, nowadays games are more complex, take longer to make and are generally more expensive in that matter, the awareness of the public is greater (especially the sim-focused public), so they are more picky and complain a lot more (forums, comments, twitter and metacritic), so you need to constantly improve what you released. But at the same time, you have to pay the people who work for you. This is especially hard, when customers find bugs, announce them and further sales are in jeopardy, unless the bugs get fixed. And you still need to pay your team of programmers, graphic and sound artists etc. If you don't pay them, or pay them little, they will quit to work for someone else. AND THAT is also a big issue that is often overlooked.
I come from flight-sims primarily and you know what the big problem with these games is? People think that if the dev get more money they can hire a bigger team and produce a better product... Wrong! Because in order to do so, you need not only programmers, but programmers who know about flight physics and there is not many guys around who can both write code and be aeronautical engineers at the same time. I would assume that with racing sims it's the exact same issue. You can hire more coders, but how many of those will understand how tires and suspension behaves and can put that into you game?
Consider how many devs make racing sims... There is ISI, Kunos, SMS, Sector3, maybe Codies? ISI probably has the most experience, because rFactor Pro. Kunos is around 23 people and that included graphic artists, sound artist and I guess only Stefano is writing physics code. If it was as simple as the number of coders than we would have a crapload of quality mods for any given sim. But unfortunately, these people need to know what they are doing.
I'm not going to defend Kunos here, but I understand the situation they are in. It could also help, if the community would understand how this works and how being overly critical can turn the situation around and slap you in the bum.
Let me tell you a flight sim story. Back in the 90's flight sims were the hype. You had a ton of games to play and noone complained. But at some point 2 games came out. Falcon 4 and IL-2 Sturmovik. Both surpassed what anyone expected and murdered the competition. Everything else was arcade and the public wanted more. So the Falcon guys went out of business because the costs exceeded the profits and only thanks to the code being leaked and some talented people it lives on as BMS and is still unrivalled due to some features like the dynamic campaign. IL-2 on the other hand lives as something that is frowned upon. The devs decided to make a more realistic sequel and failed due to constant delays and problems with the engine, physics and so on. Cliffs of Dover eventually released in a broken state and only thanks to moders it's sort of playable, with online focus and... one server... with around 60 people on it. And those are all the 60 people who play it. When IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad released last year it lacked many core features like a proper SP campaign, maps and planes. Realism increased, but there is only several flyable planes compared to over 200 in IL-2 1946 and still most hardcore fligh-simmers hate it like the plague, because no campaign, no clickable cockpits, Russians OP and the works. There is also DCS which is getting better, but one plane costs around 50 dolars, it's in constant beta, and you can hardly count on even having a theatre to properly fly in (P-15 Mustand over moders Caucasus, yeah right). Also due to a more complex nature of the simulation, fewer people can get into it - you need to buy a HOTAS (joystick) which is either from Saitek/Mad Catz and is crap and breaks after 3 months and costs the same as a G29 or you can go Thrustmaster with prices around the same around as a T500. Mostly the hardware is out of stock though, so yeah. Add to that the fact that you need to read a 700+ page manual to fly the plane you bought (because realism or GTFO) and than learn to actually fly and use the proper tactics (about 6 months if you have a lot of free time) and the picture is... not very bright. And the funny thing is, there are still people who play the old IL-2, mod it and so on and... they are regarded as arcade kiddies, because people had read stuff, how broader knowledge on the subject and now know the physics in this game suck. What actually keeps this whole community going is the arcade stuff like War Thunder and the latest space sims, since people buy joysticks for it.
My point here? Don't bash the Assetto Corsas, Forzas and CARS, these are the games that bring new people to the hobby. Out of 100 guys who buy Assetto on console, if 3 consider the physics below their expectations and look for something better... like rFactor 2. Also out of those 100, probably around 80 will buy a wheel and thus tell Fanatec or Thurstmaster that it's still worth to produce those instead of switching to making gamepads.
Personally, I am disappointed with Assetto Corsa, but still enjoy it quite a lot, but I am not a hardcore virtual racer. If going console helps them gather the money to keep the game going, that is fine (though as a gamer in general, I think they have no idea what they are doing, if they think they can compete with the likes of Forza) It's also worth mentioning that my Virtual Squadron lost 2 members last year to iRacing... I played it around summer for some time, tapped the brakes during a high speed corner and my first thought was "I would have spun out 3 times in rFactor at this point".
Unfortunately, nowadays games are more complex, take longer to make and are generally more expensive in that matter, the awareness of the public is greater (especially the sim-focused public), so they are more picky and complain a lot more (forums, comments, twitter and metacritic), so you need to constantly improve what you released. But at the same time, you have to pay the people who work for you. This is especially hard, when customers find bugs, announce them and further sales are in jeopardy, unless the bugs get fixed. And you still need to pay your team of programmers, graphic and sound artists etc. If you don't pay them, or pay them little, they will quit to work for someone else. AND THAT is also a big issue that is often overlooked.
I come from flight-sims primarily and you know what the big problem with these games is? People think that if the dev get more money they can hire a bigger team and produce a better product... Wrong! Because in order to do so, you need not only programmers, but programmers who know about flight physics and there is not many guys around who can both write code and be aeronautical engineers at the same time. I would assume that with racing sims it's the exact same issue. You can hire more coders, but how many of those will understand how tires and suspension behaves and can put that into you game?
Consider how many devs make racing sims... There is ISI, Kunos, SMS, Sector3, maybe Codies? ISI probably has the most experience, because rFactor Pro. Kunos is around 23 people and that included graphic artists, sound artist and I guess only Stefano is writing physics code. If it was as simple as the number of coders than we would have a crapload of quality mods for any given sim. But unfortunately, these people need to know what they are doing.
I'm not going to defend Kunos here, but I understand the situation they are in. It could also help, if the community would understand how this works and how being overly critical can turn the situation around and slap you in the bum.
Let me tell you a flight sim story. Back in the 90's flight sims were the hype. You had a ton of games to play and noone complained. But at some point 2 games came out. Falcon 4 and IL-2 Sturmovik. Both surpassed what anyone expected and murdered the competition. Everything else was arcade and the public wanted more. So the Falcon guys went out of business because the costs exceeded the profits and only thanks to the code being leaked and some talented people it lives on as BMS and is still unrivalled due to some features like the dynamic campaign. IL-2 on the other hand lives as something that is frowned upon. The devs decided to make a more realistic sequel and failed due to constant delays and problems with the engine, physics and so on. Cliffs of Dover eventually released in a broken state and only thanks to moders it's sort of playable, with online focus and... one server... with around 60 people on it. And those are all the 60 people who play it. When IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad released last year it lacked many core features like a proper SP campaign, maps and planes. Realism increased, but there is only several flyable planes compared to over 200 in IL-2 1946 and still most hardcore fligh-simmers hate it like the plague, because no campaign, no clickable cockpits, Russians OP and the works. There is also DCS which is getting better, but one plane costs around 50 dolars, it's in constant beta, and you can hardly count on even having a theatre to properly fly in (P-15 Mustand over moders Caucasus, yeah right). Also due to a more complex nature of the simulation, fewer people can get into it - you need to buy a HOTAS (joystick) which is either from Saitek/Mad Catz and is crap and breaks after 3 months and costs the same as a G29 or you can go Thrustmaster with prices around the same around as a T500. Mostly the hardware is out of stock though, so yeah. Add to that the fact that you need to read a 700+ page manual to fly the plane you bought (because realism or GTFO) and than learn to actually fly and use the proper tactics (about 6 months if you have a lot of free time) and the picture is... not very bright. And the funny thing is, there are still people who play the old IL-2, mod it and so on and... they are regarded as arcade kiddies, because people had read stuff, how broader knowledge on the subject and now know the physics in this game suck. What actually keeps this whole community going is the arcade stuff like War Thunder and the latest space sims, since people buy joysticks for it.
My point here? Don't bash the Assetto Corsas, Forzas and CARS, these are the games that bring new people to the hobby. Out of 100 guys who buy Assetto on console, if 3 consider the physics below their expectations and look for something better... like rFactor 2. Also out of those 100, probably around 80 will buy a wheel and thus tell Fanatec or Thurstmaster that it's still worth to produce those instead of switching to making gamepads.
Personally, I am disappointed with Assetto Corsa, but still enjoy it quite a lot, but I am not a hardcore virtual racer. If going console helps them gather the money to keep the game going, that is fine (though as a gamer in general, I think they have no idea what they are doing, if they think they can compete with the likes of Forza) It's also worth mentioning that my Virtual Squadron lost 2 members last year to iRacing... I played it around summer for some time, tapped the brakes during a high speed corner and my first thought was "I would have spun out 3 times in rFactor at this point".
