New Sim in Development: PISTA Motorsport Celebrates Argentine Racing

They sound legit!

Reading their devlog and Steam page, They tried to explain how they did every aspect of the sim; animation, graphics, laser scanning, the car, real divers input, physics, sound engine, tracks so far and upcoming, career and machine-learning AI. They know how to tick all the right boxes in a sim racing developer log.. as if they've been doing this for very long.

Has anyone seen a work from them before? Are they a modding team like Reiza?

azaralamouri said:

(Pre-edit: Sorry if my tone is cynical and aggresive. It's going to be a long rant.)

I will support this sim (if it's legit), but maybe you won't, because:

1- Sim racers whine a lot. They say they want an FIA truck racing sim, a Drifting 21 simulator, a touge hill climb sim, a moto bike ride racing sim, a folk racing wreckfest sim, a Kart Kraft sim pro, a rally Dakar sim but NO ONE buys them, neither for 200$ nor for 2$. Surprisingly they pay $$$$ only for one sim only because they're used to it or because they bought exploit fast boys setups. They only cry rip after LFS or pC2 or...etc goes out of business.
They say they need a budget geforce motion rig, a wind sim, a 3D virtual reality display, a tactile feedback seat pad and NO ONE buys them. Surprisingly the same (considerable) number who say they won't spend a 100$ for a base shaker spend $$$$ on badges wheel rims only because of a horn button or a dash screen to duplicate what they already see in game.

2- Sim racers, unfortunately do not appreciate a million aspects of a sim and above all the most important, physics. Physics-guys, although few in the world, are still un-appreciated. Check Aris drives or Niels Heusenkveld videos and you won't find views nor likes.
Sim racers only care about internet servers. And while I strongly agree that it's frustrating when you get disconnected or get a bug in what's otherwise exciting fun competitive gaming in your limited free time, I still say why not try sims and enjoy what's working well in them and just skip what's not good.

3- Many usual comments you find in every new sim thread usually are: "it's a scam", or "there is no need for improvements because the sims of the 2000's era figured everything out", or "a sim like this will prevent me from having my rally sim", or "they will force me to purchase this sim". One reply: BS!

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Now.. Why I will support this sim (if it's real) because:
Reality is not easy to understand and simulate. It's not only about one factor as the childish current thinking currently is. It's millions of variables interacting and producing trillions of possibilities. Every sim is an attempt by one person to recreate reality (especially physics). A sim might be closer to reality in one aspect and worse in others. Life is too short to not try as much as we can of what we have today, and too short to spend it writing a very long rant like mine lol.

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I have a stance similar to yours. I love racing, both real world and in simulators. The more good simulators out there, the better. Especially if more = more diverse content available to play with.

I think there may be two factors at play here, that cause the behavior of many of the more vocal sim racers in comment sections that are so negative.

The first is that many people lean towards a tribal or team attitude with their hobbies and interests. Once you are used to something, for example one simulator or developer of sims, it can feel the most right or realistic to the player, if for no reason other than familiarity. With this comes pride and a need to defend that title/developer or belittle the competition. Not unlike some sports fan fanatics, iphone vs android, the console wars, etc.

The other factor is simply finance. For many out there, new sims are not going to be appealing because they either cannot afford a pc that can play it comfortably, or they choose not to, because they are happy with what their system can run. I see nothing wrong with this angle, especially if they don't have the financial needs to buy the latest/greatest equipment.

Personally, I am glad so many simulators exist in this niche market, and that hardware continues to get better, and more affordable over time. My goal with sim racing was fun at a younger age, but as I've grown, it has become more about getting as close to the real thing as possible. The more development in sims and hardware, the better, in my eyes.

Sounds promising but I wonder why they don't team up with Reiza?
Well at least we will have another offering to turn out some laps in.

Definitely looks fun racing fiat unos!

Its clearly assetto corsa base, in fact they already have a bunch of cars in AC, puddles they mention are most likely rainfx mod for CSP.
So they make a game from assetto corsa i would guess. Hope they get a license for it.

azaralamouri said:

(Pre-edit: Sorry if my tone is cynical and aggresive. It's going to be a long rant.)

I will support this sim (if it's legit), but maybe you won't, because:

1- Sim racers whine a lot. They say they want an FIA truck racing sim, a Drifting 21 sim, a touge hill climb sim, a moto bike ride racing sim, a rock crawling sim, a snow/ mud/ off-road runner/ a folk racing wreckfest sim, a Kart Kraft sim pro, a city-cruising sim/ a rally Dakar sim but NO ONE buys them, neither for 200$ nor for 2$. Surprisingly they pay $$$$ only for one sim only because they're used to it or because they bought exploit fast boys setups. They only cry "rip." after LFS or pC2 or...etc go out of business.
They say they need a budget g-force motion rig, a wind sim, a 3D virtual reality display, a tactile feedback seat pad, but NO ONE buys them. Surprisingly the same (considerable) number who won't spend small $$ for a bass shaker spend $$$$ on fancy-badge wheel rims, only because of a "horn button" or a "dash screen" that duplicates what they already see in game.

2- Sim racers, unfortunately, do not appreciate a million aspects of a sim and most importantly physics. Physics-guys, although few in the world, are still un-appreciated. Check Aris drives or Niels Heusenkveld videos and you won't find views or likes.
Sim racers only care about internet servers. And while I strongly agree that it's frustrating when you get disconnected during competitive gaming, and I agree that it's silly to trouble-shoot bugs in your limited free time dedicated to have fun, I still say why not try sims and enjoy what's working well in them and just skip what's not good.

3- Many usual comments you find in every new sim thread usually are: "it's a scam", or "there is no need for improvements because the sims of the 2000's era figured everything out", or "a sim like this will prevent me from having my rally sim", or "they will force me to purchase this sim". One reply: BS!

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Now.. I will support this sim (if it's real), it's because:
Reality is not easy to understand and simulate. It's not only about one factor as the childish current thinking currently is. It's millions of variables interacting and producing trillions of possibilities. Every sim is an attempt by one person to recreate reality (especially physics). A sim might be closer to reality in one aspect and worse in others. In the 90's I thought Driver 1 was the most realistic ultimate sim of all times.
Life is too short to not try as much as we can of what we have today, and too short to spend it writing a very long rant like mine lol.

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You're right, many sim racers seem to ask for different content but in reality the majority just want to race with GT3s. It is what multi0le categories games have proven (pcars2, AC, Raceroom). And the majority won't bother to post comments on RD tobstate they just want to race with GT3s, just because they are already able to do it in all current sims. That's why it "seems" that many ask for.different content ; it may be less than 100 people (I don't know the real figure, 100 is just to get the idea), with the exact same tastes, on RD, which isn't enough to make a specialized game successful.

I like original content and like to buy and discover new titles to see how the reality is simulated. I'm more willing to buy content not available in other titles because I know I will enjoy something different. But I am not part of the majority and I understand it is a tough bet for a company to launch a different title. And as you imply, this kind of effort deserves support from the community. We can't make those who are not interested to buy a product though.

About the old games working better than the current ones, it is true unfortunately but they are just old. If really this fact makes some simracers decide not to buy a modern game, the blame should not be on them, but on the developpers. This trend started with rfactor1 and, excepted the Simbin series (before RRE) and ACC, most of the sim titles since have been unpolished games, in many aspects. In every other genre (FPS, TPS, RPG, flight sims...) this level of unpolishement and missing features would be unacceptable and an immediate failure.

On the contrary, the simracing community, even ridiculously overpolarized, has been supporting these never polished / fixed games for years. I think it can't be criticized about that. I really hope the developpers now understand that they won't be successful with this kind of game. Reiza has been making the effort with AMS2 to polish it, I assume the message has been understood and I hope the 1.5 version will be a step up (from the annoucement it seems it will be the real 1.0 version everybody hoped for).

So, the blame should not be only on the community, it has payed a lot to greedy publishers and incompetent / irrespectful developpers. Pcars, AC, whatever we think about their quality, have shown a bad way to deal with the simracing genre and these business practices must come to an end. And as a community it is our responsability to say no.

I don't agree with you when you state we have to try as much as we can. The racing sim developpers have been trying things for 15 years, letting down core aspects of the simulation, of the reality. Time has come to make good racing sims again, not just physics sims. We have enough of these and their complexity don't make them realistic racing experiences ; they for sure make them hard to develop with long early access periods, which are absolutely counterproductive with the community.

I had supported Reiza because I trusted, and still trust, the ability of the team to make good use of the Madness engine. It was a bet, it takes time, patience is the key (I can't understand their working process though, as the work on the 1.5 update should have been the first thing to do, but ok...). Maybe it would have been a better idea to make a deal with a publisher and be able to accelerate the development (even if the sim becomes perfect, how many haters won't come back after all these years?).

This new team coming from nowhere won't get the same trust than Reiza (I think this is the last title with such a long development process, I doubt the community will accept that again, it is already divided on AMS2). It will have to show something else than just original content to get our interest. I am glad this ambitious project appears from nowhere but, making excuses from the beginning stating it is not a big company and blabla is already a bad signal. Just go find a publisher if you want money, go to the banks, search for partners. Do not tell your potential clients you are not able to compete with big players because your product at the end won't be treated differently than theirs. Do not try, it will be a failure.

kamov22 said:

Its clearly assetto corsa base, in fact they already have a bunch of cars in AC, puddles they mention are most likely rainfx mod for CSP.
So they make a game from assetto corsa i would guess. Hope they get a license for it.

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It is made from scratch. It is clearly not AC based.

VirtuaIceMan said:

Do tell more; I know Bundle Games took over the Turismo Carretera and TC2000 Argentinian rFactor based games a while ago - the former appears to be on itch.io with content up to 2022 https://bundlegames.itch.io/simulador-turismo-carretera

What's the deal with them then?

PISTA (Track in Spanish?) seems to have REG Simulations involved: https://regsimulations.com/ there's a devlog https://regsimulations.com/pista-motorsport

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roadyroad said:

Well, if these developpers are as evil as you state, I assume the community should know why.

I would find more relevant that this team would make a DLC for AMS2 instead of trying to recreate the wheel (and so contributing to create a global South American racing game, maybe it would motivate developpers from other countries from the continent to recreate their local series in AMS2), but if they want to create their own, why not. It is still an interesting project with unique content, a fresh air in simracing.

The fact that the developpers, if it is true, managed to stop Reiza from getting content from Argentina may looks bad but that's just a regular business move to keep the licenses for themselves and be able to bring this new game. Nothing evil there.

So if you have any interesting piece of information backing your point of.view, I am heavily interested, and I assume I am not the only one.

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As I was asked about it, this is what I have to say. It's going to be a long post, it's not something comfortable, and there is no TL;DR. Grab a cup of coffee and get comfortable in your chair with a good screen, this is not something for mobile. It's even in two posts because I hit character limit for a single one.

I have no issues with REG Simulations. They are producers of content for Assetto Corsa, with several paid mods featuring several regional/national racecars and tracks, and a free one which can also be obtained here at Race Department. What they charge for each mod may be alright or not, depends on what kind of currency equivalency it's used (Argentina is a hot mess on this regard, I can not even begin to explain it), but taken at plain official value, it roughly costs 3 dollars a kart track, 3.70 a car track, and 5 dollars a car. Which is more or less in line with what the well-known modders charge for their products. You can check their website, which also includes a DevLog of PISTA (yes, it means TRACK in spanish!): https://regsimulations.com/inicio

But this is a joint effort with Bundle Games, and with that group of people, I do have my problems...

The roots of this company can be traced back to nearly 20 years, when they were called 3DGeneration. They created a mod for F12002 game based on TC2000 cars (one of the top national series, featuring current cars with FWD delivering then +300 bhp and having several works teams), which then transformed into a standalone, licensed game called TC2000 25 Years, based on the F1 Challenge engine (sort of what Simbin did with the first GTR IIRC). The details of this, I do not know. Some claim shady things were already going on, but I won't talk about what I don't know. I do happen to have a friend who collaborated building these cars, so I will ask him a couple questions and expand this post with an edit if I find out about something noteworthy.

The firm evolved and changed name for 2pez, hired more professional people, and tackled what for many of us seemed like a dream project: a licensed Turismo Carretera game, with the full grid and calendar of the series, the heat -> finals racing format, a proper multiplayer mode, and so on. Based on rFactor engine, it took its sweet time to come out. Apparently, the game was ready to be launched for several months, but licensing issues with the ACTC (the organization that controls Turismo Carretera, well known to be nasty SoBs). When this was solved, the game finally came out, and was an instant hit in the country. It also kickstarted a surge on simracing, and for many Argentines, it was their first foray into simracing (Note: not myself though, I was into GPL from some time before, and got into rFactor thanks to GPC79 mod, which was what I played the most for my first years of simracing; Renato's work has influenced a lot of my simracing journey ).

It was called as the first ever paid rFactor mod. That seemed to be a bit unfair, given the extensive work done to model each track on the calendar, the 4 car models and the full skinpack that spanned +60 entries. But it is true that it costed the same price as an rFactor license (40 dollars), had the same activation system, all for getting a game who looked and behaved like rFactor, but without the modding. We are talking about 2007, when Steam had not hit its stride yet.

You did get the unique qualifying -> heat -> finals system, but that was it. On top of that, the work that was being charged for could be outmatched against the best rFactor mods. The cars looked fine on the outside but cockpit modelling was not on the same standard, with some cars with some questionable visibility. The handling followed the wrong concept of "difficult to drive, therefor realistic" and so cars featured impossible handling, questionable tyre dynamics, demanded weird setup techniques, etc. Plus, a not funny idea of disabling the HUD when onboard due to "you want realism, you get realism" without customization posible (as it was rFactor on its roots, you could easily bypass it by activating the option with a notepad though). The tracks were well executed, but were not graphically brilliant, and definitely behind the standards that VLM was setting on those days (near those months Mid Ohio and Le Mans 72-85 were released, those who were around by then know what this means).

Things were not perfect by any means, but I still don't have problems with anything stated. Here is where problems begin...

You could feel that the guys leading the company (Hernan Jardón and Martin Salaverry, known by their forum nicknames of ChArDoN and animal, respectively) began to develop a public arrogance that was disgusting, and their customer service was below par. Any time somebody came onboard asking for advice with a technical problem, usual reply would be "it's working for others, not our fault, up to you to get around it". The amount of sarcasm on each message of them was more and more difficult to digest. To make matters more "interesting", the company was intertwined with a simracing league that was pioneering the use of this game (we coloquially called it "Simu TC"), which was called ACVRA, intending to resemble more a real life racing series, but working virtually.

One night, their server went down, but with it, the whole matchmaking of the game stopped working, and nobody could find a server for any league. This triggered an outrage, with the league calling out the developers of being used without their knowledge, as they installed the matchmaking system on their servers, without the admins of the league actually knowing about it. This caused the first rupture between them and the community, as the ACVRA forums were being used as official 2pez/SimuTC ones for main announcements, official patch releases, technical support, and so on. This also pushed some members of the team, who also were vital members of the league, out of 2pez. But still, the game was succesful and selling well, many tournaments were opening, leagues starting around it, public servers were full all the time, and so on.

As 2pez was actually succesful at what they were doing, they secured licenses to develop more games from national series. What followed was the Top Race V6 game, another national series. It costed full price like before, had no modding available, reused all the tracks plus a couple new ones, and tried to imitate iRacing's systems with a ranking method that never took off as it caused nothing but crashes. Nothing wrong with that. But the problem here was that the game was just a couple of 3d models that were nothing to write home about, plus outright stealing the sound of the very famous Renault Megane Trophy Eurocup Mod for rFactor. Somehow, this flew below the worldwide radar, but those of us who were into rFactor and knew about the mods and the work behind them, were in shock and awe at how these devs were so blatant.

Of course, many people were not willing to buy this game, so the game was quickly cracked and pirated, with download links being posted at several sites. One of the biggest leagues in the country, RPM, with a big base of members, fell victim of this. As users were posting them several times, and were not getting deleted "quick enough", 2pez moved on, but with a backstab: somehow they knew who were the hosting and server providers of the league, so directly contacted them, threatened them with legal actions. The provider, instead of communicating, directly pulled the plug on their website and servers without notice. Again, more outrage, with some groups calling for 2pez products activities to be stopped forever. Some leagues actually did it.

In the middle, somebody managed to also crack the encoding that prevented porting the content from Turismo Carretera into rFactor, and previewed it with Youtube teasers, and a release date, anonymously. Two days before its release, out of nowhere it appeared an encoding tool that enabled putting rFactor mods into the Simu TC game. Which was obviously handed by 2pez themselves.


Hit character limit, continues below...

Next up came a TC2000 game. Again, they re-used some assets, but in terms of cars and tracks, this was probably their best effort. The cars actually looked gorgeous and drove good, even though they accepted too much trailbraking. But as usual, there was something fishy behind, and a fellow simracer found it: the tyre properties and behaviour were a carbon copy of the Race 07 WTCC cars. (which also worked on gMotor) This was aired publicly, and again turned away more people from them, but it seems like it did not reach Simbin's ears, otherwise I guess some sort of lawsuit would have followed? But, as there were loyalists willing to race virtual national cars at all costs, simracers simply had to shop around for a new league to race at, and 2pez coffers were kept full.


I don't know at what point it happened, I think it was when they started developing mobile racing games with these licenses, but they changed their name from 2pez to Bundle Games. Heads were still the same, and attitudes did not change one bit. Will name a couple:


Facundo Galella, a guy who designs 3D tracks for a living, literally, released a Balcarce track as a mod, for free. He got confronted by them, via a lawyer, and was asked to hand a full model of the track so they could verify it was not stolen, or otherwise lawsuits would follow. You can see the true intentions behind this, right?

H22, a national modder, released a high quality version of Buenos Aires track for Assetto Corsa, with all the layouts and even a drag strip. It was taken down from Race Department due to a complain by them that it was stolen from their games (yeah right, his version is better modelled and each aspect of it looks ten times better). It took several months for it to be solved, he had to demonstrate it was his work and not a rip, so it was finally reinstated, to the joy of many of us who cannot stand BG practices anymore. Lo and behold, a new demand came and it was removed again, this time permanently.

I cannot recall more stories at the moment, but I'm sure that if I dig inside my brain and ask some people, I can get many more, but I think that what I posted in here illustrates the situation more than enough. If I had to compare them with some other entity of the simracing world that can help people get a picture of who we are talking about, it would be with Sim Dream Developments. I think I'm saying more than enough with this.



Now, circling back to this game: my feeling is that REG Simulations has the know-how to build cars, and Bundle Games has the licenses, the contacts, and probably the funding. But then, creating AC mods is one thing; releasing a full, self-packaged game, is an entirely different body of work. I have no idea on which engine this will be run, but frankly, the technical execution of this product does not concern me. Just knowing who is involved on it makes me want to heed Kurt Cobain's advice and STAAAAAAAYYYYY, STAAAAAYY AWAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

PD: save this page. Knowing them, it wouldn't surprised me if this post gets reported/removed, and my user banned.

Ole Marius Myrvold said:

I still wish I could find and try Superleague Formula 2009: The Game. Which was a game made by ISI.

Click to expand...

You can get it on archive.org. Without a license code (downloaded before the license server was killed many years ago) it'll only run in demo mode for 60 minutes. And thanks to the DRM it won't run on anything newer than Windows XP 7.

Edit: I've got rid of that nasty wrapper, so now the game runs on modern Windows editions too. I've uploaded the fixed executable here.

Skinny McLean said:

You can get it on archive.org. Without a license code (downloaded before the license server was killed many years ago) it'll only run in demo mode for 60 minutes (unless you're naughty and start it with a util called am-launcher.) And thanks to the DRM it won't run on anything newer than Windows XP.

Click to expand...

So they DRM'd that one, but not any other rFactor-based games. Interesting.

pai said:

H22, a national modder, released a high quality version of Buenos Aires track for Assetto Corsa,

PD: save this page. Knowing them, it wouldn't surprised me if this post gets reported/removed, and my user banned.

Click to expand...

Oh. That's the track that got converted to rFactor 2. We did a "Buenos Aires Trophy" back in 2022. A whole month, just doing different layouts. Awesome!

It's RD... It will take a bit more than a miffed dev. over a post to get posts/users removed.

pai said:

Next up came a TC2000 game. Again, they re-used some assets, but in terms of cars and tracks, this was probably their best effort. The cars actually looked gorgeous and drove good, even though they accepted too much trailbraking. But as usual, there was something fishy behind, and a fellow simracer found it: the tyre properties and behaviour were a carbon copy of the Race 07 WTCC cars. (which also worked on gMotor) This was aired publicly, and again turned away more people from them, but it seems like it did not reach Simbin's ears, otherwise I guess some sort of lawsuit would have followed? But, as there were loyalists willing to race virtual national cars at all costs, simracers simply had to shop around for a new league to race at, and 2pez coffers were kept full.


I don't know at what point it happened, I think it was when they started developing mobile racing games with these licenses, but they changed their name from 2pez to Bundle Games. Heads were still the same, and attitudes did not change one bit. Will name a couple:


Facundo Galella, a guy who designs 3D tracks for a living, literally, released a Balcarce track as a mod, for free. He got confronted by them, via a lawyer, and was asked to hand a full model of the track so they could verify it was not stolen, or otherwise lawsuits would follow. You can see the true intentions behind this, right?

H22, a national modder, released a high quality version of Buenos Aires track for Assetto Corsa, with all the layouts and even a drag strip. It was taken down from Race Department due to a complain by them that it was stolen from their games (yeah right, his version is better modelled and each aspect of it looks ten times better). It took several months for it to be solved, he had to demonstrate it was his work and not a rip, so it was finally reinstated, to the joy of many of us who cannot stand BG practices anymore. Lo and behold, a new demand came and it was removed again, this time permanently.

I cannot recall more stories at the moment, but I'm sure that if I dig inside my brain and ask some people, I can get many more, but I think that what I posted in here illustrates the situation more than enough. If I had to compare them with some other entity of the simracing world that can help people get a picture of who we are talking about, it would be with Sim Dream Developments. I think I'm saying more than enough with this.



Now, circling back to this game: my feeling is that REG Simulations has the know-how to build cars, and Bundle Games has the licenses, the contacts, and probably the funding. But then, creating AC mods is one thing; releasing a full, self-packaged game, is an entirely different body of work. I have no idea on which engine this will be run, but frankly, the technical execution of this product does not concern me. Just knowing who is involved on it makes me want to heed Kurt Cobain's advice and STAAAAAAAYYYYY, STAAAAAYY AWAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

PD: save this page. Knowing them, it wouldn't surprised me if this post gets reported/removed, and my user banned.

Click to expand...

Interesting and informative stories. We still have no idea whether REG and Bundlegames are working together. Why the latter would not be part of the annoucement?

What is half true is that Bundlegames has been updating the old game each year with the new season so the company still pay for the licence. Why half true? Because, from what I read, the community, leagues, update the cars and tracks for free (which is illegal). It result in bad quality updates. And o ly one category imhas been updated, but bundlegames still still stopped any initiative from modders to develop mods for other categories it owns ("rent" iis more accurate) the official licence.

It seems indeed they cut any Reiza ambition to bring these categories in AMS2. I've warched a video of a young Argentinian simrzcing youruber trying to explain the topic, bundlegames obviously made him understood it in the illzgal way they wanted him to understand ; that's spreading misleading information.

I don't understand what this company has been trying to do for all these years, selling an old low quality game at full price. Without mods and modern titles, these categories just don't get any international recognition (I personnally knew about their games as a ISI games conpulsive collector in the mid late 2000, but this TC game was just... bad ; and it seems it still is bad). The licenser, ACTC, too has been also very bad in its image management giving the license to such a non ambitious company.
I assume it's a matter of minutes to figure out how much gains could be expected by working with a company like Reiza or any serious developper, in terms of money, notoriety and image.it is absolutely cpuntrr productive.

We still don't know how REG has been able to get the license for this new game. Maybe Bundlegames just rmade REG pay or just lose the license (which in both case would be good.news).

A video from one year ago about REG's work :

Anyway, let's hope ACTC has realized how much it could gain by stopping working with such a bad licensee, it had lost already many years of income. We may think it's comparable to the Motorsport Games debacle but it can't be, as the mother company is the main partner to all the big racing associations for their broadcast, other interests are at stake (we won't get rid of MSG that easily ; I'm surprised there is no article there about the new debacle around the new Nascar Heat 5 DLC making the game unplayable for some and with big bugs for.those.who can play the game - or how to ruin a game, which worked fine, by trying to sell a 10 euros DLC...).

Anyway, thanks for the information (and the reminder about *********************, it's never enough to do a reminder) and good.luck to REG, may they not fall in the same bad low ambitious trap than Bundlegames. There's a lesson to learn there : if it was a successful company, it would have been known as much as Reiza and years before. Low ambition and toxic maneuvres do not pay.

In general, I don't think going independant to develop an ambitious game from scratch is a good idea. Reiza, with the amazing reputation gained with one (good) game has been showing for years now the difficulties of such a project. The team will partnered with Ian Bell who has already found a publisher. We may think whatever we want about this people but they have already been successful and pretty know what they are doing (and must know the community is probably not ready anymore for unfinished products). The small indie dev steiking the market with a trmendous product is a nice dream, last one who did that was Reiza with AMS1, but with less ambition (no rain...) at a time where sim racing titles were experimenting, foxusing on aspects and cutting other, which is now unacceptable. I do think that racing titles development process are still stuck in the 2000s, which make them obsolete facing the technology the developpers have at their disposal nowadays. Maybe it is already taken in account for the next generation of sims, if not, we are again going for 10 years of experimentations... Partners, financers, are a key to success, because these titles are more and more complex and because they are not just about racing.

EDIT : I must state that I understand tour concern about REG being worling with Bundlegames as I read some of the devs comments on the video about Bundlegames and he was basically defending the point by bringing a non related topic, games piracy : if only 10% of your players have paid for your game it can became complicated with your licenser. Well, in 2023 you can make many things to avoid that. It was understandable in the old TC game which, as you explained, itself used a league server without paying, but right now, you have many means at your disposal and a passionate community, if you're sure of your product (remember LFS? These devs have never been afraid and it is still an active game since around 2005). Again, bad attitude...

roadyroad said:

Interesting and informative stories. We still have no idea whether REG and Bundlegames are working together. Why the latter would not be part of the annoucement?

What is half true is that Bundlegames has been updating the old game each year with the new season so the company still pay for the licence. Why half true? Because, from what I read, the community, leagues, update the cars and tracks for free (which is illegal). It result in bad quality updates. And o ly one category imhas been updated, but bundlegames still still stopped any initiative from modders to develop mods for other categories it owns ("rent" iis more accurate) the official licence.

It seems indeed they cut any Reiza ambition to bring these categories in AMS2. I've warched a video of a young Argentinian simrzcing youruber trying to explain the topic, bundlegames obviously made him understood it in the illzgal way they wanted him to understand ; that's spreading misleading information.

I don't understand what this company has been trying to do for all these years, selling an old low quality game at full price. Without mods and modern titles, these categories just don't get any international recognition (I personnally knew about their games as a ISI games conpulsive collector in the mid late 2000, but this TC game was just... bad ; and it seems it still is bad). The licenser, ACTC, too has been also very bad in its image management giving the license to such a non ambitious company.
I assume it's a matter of minutes to figure out how much gains could be expected by working with a company like Reiza or any serious developper, in terms of money, notoriety and image.it is absolutely cpuntrr productive.

We still don't know how REG has been able to get the license for this new game. Maybe Bundlegames just rmade REG pay or just lose the license (which in both case would be good.news).

A video from one year ago about REG's work :

Anyway, let's hope ACTC has realized how much it could gain by stopping working with such a bad licensee, it had lost already many years of income. We may think it's comparable to the Motorsport Games debacle but it can't be, as the mother company is the main partner to all the big racing associations for their broadcast, other interests are at stake (we won't get rid of MSG that easily ; I'm surprised there is no article there about the new debacle around the new Nascar Heat 5 DLC making the game unplayable for some and with big bugs for.those.who can play the game - or how to ruin a game, which worked fine, by trying to sell a 10 euros DLC...).

Anyway, thanks for the information (and the reminder about *********************, it's never enough to do a reminder) and good.luck to REG, may they not fall in the same bad low ambitious trap than Bundlegames. There's a lesson to learn there : if it was a successful company, it would have been known as much as Reiza and years before. Low ambition and toxic maneuvres do not pay.

In general, I don't think going independant to develop an ambitious game from scratch is a good idea. Reiza, with the amazing reputation gained with one (good) game has been showing for years now the difficulties of such a project. The team will partnered with Ian Bell who has already found a publisher. We may think whatever we want about this people but they have already been successful and pretty know what they are doing (and must know the community is probably not ready anymore for unfinished products). The small indie dev steiking the market with a trmendous product is a nice dream, last one who did that was Reiza with AMS1, but with less ambition (no rain...) at a time where sim racing titles were experimenting, foxusing on aspects and cutting other, which is now unacceptable. I do think that racing titles development process are still stuck in the 2000s, which make them obsolete facing the technology the developpers have at their disposal nowadays. Maybe it is already taken in account for the next generation of sims, if not, we are again going for 10 years of experimentations... Partners, financers, are a key to success, because these titles are more and more complex and because they are not just about racing.

EDIT : I must state that I understand tour concern about REG being worling with Bundlegames as I read some of the devs comments on the video about Bundlegames and he was basically defending the point by bringing a non related topic, games piracy : if only 10% of your players have paid for your game it can became complicated with your licenser. Well, in 2023 you can make many things to avoid that. It was understandable in the old TC game which, as you explained, itself used a league server without paying, but right now, you have many means at your disposal and a passionate community, if you're sure of your product (remember LFS? These devs have never been afraid and it is still an active game since around 2005). Again, bad attitude...

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Thanks for the reply, all that you said is true, even expanding on what I stated with details I forgot about at the time of writing.

I wonder if Bundle Games is trying to keep a low profile because they know what the community knows about them? We will find out sooner or later.

pai said:

Thanks for the reply, all that you said is true, even expanding on what I stated with details I forgot about at the time of writing.

I wonder if Bundle Games is trying to keep a low profile because they know what the community knows about them? We will find out sooner or later.

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Yes absolutely, sooner or later...let's hope all of this will end with a good game.

pai said:

This looks like being headed Bundle Games; aka the biggest a-holes in the history of Argentine simracing.

As an Argentine, I think nothing good will come out of it; I would not have this title on my library even if it was gifted to me, and I won't be sad one bit if it turns out to be a flop or never comes out. Because, together with more reasons and stories than what I could write here, it's for this very group of people that Reiza could not have more Argentine content in AMS2. They can Foxtrot Oscar for all that I care.

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AFAIK they don't have any law power to block Reiza to do anything. And, while that would be AMS2 (Project Cars) content with its physics engine, weren't losing much.

A man with a Harmonica said:

AFAIK they don't have any law power to block Reiza to do anything. And, while that would be AMS2 (Project Cars) content with its physics engine, weren't losing much.

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They do have the law power by existing agreements that are exclusive to BG, and block anybody from doing anything better than the turds they produce (which is also the fault of the racing series), and they used it to prevent Reiza from signing a new agreement to bring Argentine cars into their sim. As for your last sentence, speak for yourself. As an AMS2 user, I do care, and I'm losing, because it was the chance to have officially licensed national racecars, reproduced with decent quality.

pai said:

They do have the law power by existing agreements that are exclusive to BG, and block anybody from doing anything better than the turds they produce (which is also the fault of the racing series), and they used it to prevent Reiza from signing a new agreement to bring Argentine cars into their sim. As for your last sentence, speak for yourself. As an AMS2 user, I do care, and I'm losing, because it was the chance to have officially licensed national racecars, reproduced with decent quality.

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The worst part is that the "law" does not protect them, it is simple extortion that they do. They don't have the rights to what they do.
If someone is interested in doing something related to Argentine motorsports and is afraid of legal problems, send me a PM. This "people" still cannot ban American Stock Car for rFactor 2 on the Steam Workshop and they will never make it.

Ole Marius Myrvold said:

So they DRM'd that one, but not any other rFactor-based games. Interesting.

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AfAIK rFactor was wrapped in the same DRM (ActiveMARK Trymedia) before it was released on Steam.

Btw, I've repaired the Superleague Formula game so that it runs on current Windows versions. I've added the link to my post above.

Does that mean you can run Superleague without ActiveMark? I've got one or two other old games locked down by that, if you know how to bypass it?