SimBin: 'Don't worry about bankruptcy rumours'

[Howard]

Various websites have posted news regarding potential bankruptcy of SimBin Studios AB, here's a little substantiated clarification.

RaceDepartment understands that the current SimBin Studios AB company is undergoing a large restructuring. Current projects, such as R3E, are expected to be continued under the new banner of the new studio.

It is understood that there have been a handful of job losses at SimBin, however the majority of the development team is expected to remain at the 'new' studio. We'd like to wish those who have lost their jobs all the best in finding a new position.

We're confident that the information we're providing to you is up-to-date and correct, and is not based on speculation from social media.

SimBin's own @Jay Ekkel said, on RaceDepartment's forums:

Ill keep it short and sweet for now.

New Studio, new (tbd) name, new location, (almost) the same team. And most importantly we will continue the development of the project(s).

More (good) news will follow soon (tm)

Don't worry about it, services and development will continue as planned.

There's nothing to worry about in regards to support of current games, or the release of future games. Content that has already been purchased will still function as normal.

Image: SimBin Studios AB​

 

[Bill Baggdude]

The question is... why did Kunos, Reiza, SimBin (with Race07) and ISI not give a single f*ck about DRM in their actual sim games?

Well, Kunos thought sticking zero petrol in the car would be enough (it wasn't - albeit it was more fun working around that than it was playing the game afterwards) So they didn't really have a game worth stealing. They certainly used online for FVA and then pulled the rug (although I didn't buy so I don't know the terms and conditions. Maybe people should have read the small print? If not, why don't you all kick up a fuss with Ferrari - except I guess most of you haven't played it for 4 years anyway)

Now, arguably they do have a game in AC, it is protected by Steam.

Reiza? Uses gameshield. That, more or less uses techniques that trojan/malware uses (if you've installed their game get something like FRST64.exe and it'll show you the hidden alternate data streams gameshield will have stomped all over folders in your hard drive) All to stop you playing the demo for longer than an hour - which is barely enough time to sort settings / figure your way around the awful interface and get out on the track to do a few laps. Soon they'll be on steam.

Simbin went bankrupt, and clearly embrace DRM now, so perhaps not the best example. Although I think race 07 was a reasonable game, they released it over and over and over to the point where I imagine pirates were trying to figure out ways to stop simbin releasing another "Race, err what words have we got left? 2007? No. Pro? Nope. Injection? Use that. .err, Action? Have we had a game called Race Action 2012 yet?"

That leaves ISI who are probably making more money from licensing anyway - they've got simbin, they've got the pro version in some big expensive sims etc.

For my money Sector3 need to convince that buying their content is safe. Going bankrupt, changing the name, saying "don't listen to rumours" is all well and good but then all their titles just disappear from steam with no explanation.

I've played around 100 hours with the free content, and although I'm tempted to buy something, I've never seen a computer game marketed and sold so badly before. I really can't be bothered to wade through the pricing / pack / experience nonsense trying to figure out what I get, what I don't get, how much it's costing in some recognisable Earth currency.

e.g depending which button I click I can get shown 2 or 3 differences prices for the same Experiences. Differing by more than £10. Is that a bug or a feature? Is there really a bonus extra 60% discount for people that know to click the right button? It's laughable how bad simbin are at running a business. You couldn't make a worse job if you had no experience at all you'd make better decisions.

 

[CDwyer]

Slightly related note. There was a game of the Super League Formula Racing, it was an odd concept and not a great game, but it seems to be impossible to buy now despite a big "Buy Now" button in the demo.

 

[Sean Kenney]

That leaves ISI who are probably making more money from licensing anyway - they've got simbin, they've got the pro version in some big expensive sims etc.

For my money Sector3 need to convince that buying their content is safe. Going bankrupt, changing the name, saying "don't listen to rumours" is all well and good but then all their titles just disappear from steam with no explanation.

I've played around 100 hours with the free content, and although I'm tempted to buy something, I've never seen a computer game marketed and sold so badly before. I really can't be bothered to wade through the pricing / pack / experience nonsense trying to figure out what I get, what I don't get, how much it's costing in some recognisable Earth currency.

e.g depending which button I click I can get shown 2 or 3 differences prices for the same Experiences. Differing by more than £10. Is that a bug or a feature? Is there really a bonus extra 60% discount for people that know to click the right button? It's laughable how bad simbin are at running a business. You couldn't make a worse job if you had no experience at all you'd make better decisions.

A bit over the top.

I do agree the marketing is not the best, but the company is rebuilding itself, they are behind and have a small team. It shouldn't be an excuse, but it is the same for almost all companies going bankrupt. The pricing is a bit odd, but the more I understood it, the better I thought it was. It is just modular gaming. I don't think it is that hard to figure out, takes what 5 minutes? I don't get any price differences for products, unless there is a sale. They are all the same for me and have been, can you give an example? People get discounts for related content. If you own DTM 2013 you will get a discount for DTM 2014. Not really anything new or too complex.

 

[RoboCop69]

I've never seen a computer game marketed and sold so badly before

It's laughable how bad simbin are at running a business. You couldn't make a worse job if you had no experience at all you'd make better decisions.

"So badly"? "Laughable"? "Couldn´t make a worse job"?

Maybe you should write a application.
Your knowledge will be appreciated.
But please send it not to "Simbin". "Sector 3" is the new name.

 

[Bill Baggdude]

"So badly"? "Laughable"? "Couldn´t make a worse job"?

Maybe you should write a application.
Your knowledge will be appreciated.
But please send it not to "Simbin". "Sector 3" is the new name.

Send them an application? I think step one would be asking for and reading through their applications.

A bit over the top.
I don't think it is that hard to figure out, takes what 5 minutes?

Not really. Assetto corsa or project cars takes a couple of minutes, I can see on one page what features, cars, tracks and so on the games have. How much that costs in local currency. That is not the case with this game. Prices are quoted in "Simbin Gungobeans" or something and there are "packs" called the same thing as "experiences" and other ones where there is a pack and no experience and others where the year changes.

Which cars are included and which tracks is on the pack, and then you have to cross reference to see that the same tracks are in other packs and experiences and then you can buy the cars and tracks individually too.

When you start adding things to the cart prices start appearing and various popups tell you that duplicates have been removed. You're left with a number. It could be hundreds of pounds or a few quid.

And then just when you think it couldn't get more ridiculous you notice that on steam they have some DLC too. Is that the same price? Of course at the moment it's gone from steam (thanks Gabe) but presumably these people want it back.

Perhaps there's one smart, cost effective way to buy everything (or most things) or a single pack or an experience, but it's taken longer than 5 minutes just describing what a pile of crap it is, and I'm thinking these guys must be muppets. They surely want to fail?

Indeed, to me it seems the only sane thing to do is play the free content until a steam sale makes the stuff a couple of quid and spend £40 on either AC or PCars.

Even if there is one smart, cost-effective way of buying stuff that we can find - why do they bother having a bunch of dumb non-cost effective ways to buy the same stuff? The only reason can be is because they want to take advantage of and rip some of their customers off. Yes?

And then presumably in the future they will add some more content that is actually the same content (i.e the same tracks, maybe different cars) and you're thinking - should I just wait? Should I just wait until they've added it all, because all I can see anyone who bought early in this title was ripped off. They paid over the odds.

But what you're basically saying is, all I have to do is waste a bunch of time - and I think 5 minutes is understating it - adding and removing stuff from the cart so that sector 3/raceroom ag or whatever they are called don't rip me off. That's the new gimmick of 'free to race' ?

And that's all ignoring the elephant in the room - the fact that clearly some of their customers are not that confident the game will still be playable in the future. The irony of that is, of course, if people don't buy stuff because of this fear it'll probably be self fulfilling.

I don't get any price differences for products, unless there is a sale.

What if you don't have an experience and you go to a leaderboard for that experience and click 'challenge' isn't the price for the experience quoted there significantly less than the price in the store? It says 1000vrp / £7.xx for me. Bug? Feature?

Not really anything new or too complex.

It's not something I'm going to bother wading through simply to give them money. It's up to them how much they want customers, I suppose, but doing a crossword puzzle or solving a python programming puzzle is fun. Trying to figure out how to buy some content from Simbin is not. If they have any sense they'll simplify it.

 

[CDwyer]

{long quote removed for space}.

Each to their own I suppose, I like that there are discounts on compiled content. I like that we get cars across years. I like that related content is available together even when an experience does not exist

 

[Bill Baggdude]

Each to their own I suppose, I like that there are discounts on compiled content. I like that we get cars across years. I like that related content is available together even when an experience does not exist

Are there discounts though? I note it tells me I'm saving money - but saving money compared with what? When was the experience/pack sold at the higher price?

It's just a fake sale isn't it? (Illegal in UK stores)

 

[CDwyer]

Are there discounts though? I note it tells me I'm saving money - but saving money compared with what? When was the experience/pack sold at the higher price?

It's just a fake sale isn't it? (Illegal in UK stores)

The discounts savings refer to the cost of buying items individually. The packs are not on sale, they are discounted for bulk purchase.

e.g. The tracks cost under half price when bought in a pack compared to the individual price. I paid 158 for the European pack to get Zolder, as opposed to it being 399 outside of the pack. (I paid 549 for Bathurst)

 

[Brandon Wright]

I managed to figure it all out pretty easily and got a lot of content for a decent price. Because: Genius. ​

 

[Sean Kenney]

Send them an application? I think step one would be asking for and reading through their applications.



Not really. Assetto corsa or project cars takes a couple of minutes, I can see on one page what features, cars, tracks and so on the games have. How much that costs in local currency. That is not the case with this game. Prices are quoted in "Simbin Gungobeans" or something and there are "packs" called the same thing as "experiences" and other ones where there is a pack and no experience and others where the year changes.

Which cars are included and which tracks is on the pack, and then you have to cross reference to see that the same tracks are in other packs and experiences and then you can buy the cars and tracks individually too.

When you start adding things to the cart prices start appearing and various popups tell you that duplicates have been removed. You're left with a number. It could be hundreds of pounds or a few quid.

And then just when you think it couldn't get more ridiculous you notice that on steam they have some DLC too. Is that the same price? Of course at the moment it's gone from steam (thanks Gabe) but presumably these people want it back.

Perhaps there's one smart, cost effective way to buy everything (or most things) or a single pack or an experience, but it's taken longer than 5 minutes just describing what a pile of crap it is, and I'm thinking these guys must be muppets. They surely want to fail?

Indeed, to me it seems the only sane thing to do is play the free content until a steam sale makes the stuff a couple of quid and spend £40 on either AC or PCars.

Even if there is one smart, cost-effective way of buying stuff that we can find - why do they bother having a bunch of dumb non-cost effective ways to buy the same stuff? The only reason can be is because they want to take advantage of and rip some of their customers off. Yes?

And then presumably in the future they will add some more content that is actually the same content (i.e the same tracks, maybe different cars) and you're thinking - should I just wait? Should I just wait until they've added it all, because all I can see anyone who bought early in this title was ripped off. They paid over the odds.

But what you're basically saying is, all I have to do is waste a bunch of time - and I think 5 minutes is understating it - adding and removing stuff from the cart so that sector 3/raceroom ag or whatever they are called don't rip me off. That's the new gimmick of 'free to race' ?

And that's all ignoring the elephant in the room - the fact that clearly some of their customers are not that confident the game will still be playable in the future. The irony of that is, of course, if people don't buy stuff because of this fear it'll probably be self fulfilling.



What if you don't have an experience and you go to a leaderboard for that experience and click 'challenge' isn't the price for the experience quoted there significantly less than the price in the store? It says 1000vrp / £7.xx for me. Bug? Feature?



It's not something I'm going to bother wading through simply to give them money. It's up to them how much they want customers, I suppose, but doing a crossword puzzle or solving a python programming puzzle is fun. Trying to figure out how to buy some content from Simbin is not. If they have any sense they'll simplify it.

I really don't know what to say... best to just move on, imo.

 

[Heppsan]

Are there discounts though? I note it tells me I'm saving money - but saving money compared with what? When was the experience/pack sold at the higher price?

It's just a fake sale isn't it? (Illegal in UK stores)

What @CDwyer said.
And you don't pay again for purchased content!..
So above the discount you get from buying packs, you will be discounted for owned content in those packs!

 

[SnappyDEe]

They should think about making it simpler. Even though I may or may not agree with @Bill Baggdude, it is possible (likely) that other potential customers are holding out for similar reasons. Lets face it: S3S needs customers supporting their efforts by purchasing the product. The bottom line is the bottom line. I would love them to be successful because I really like the product so far and believe that they are on the right track. Maybe it's off Steam right now because they are simplifying things? You never know.

 

[David Wright]

Maybe it's off Steam right now because they are simplifying things? You never know.

I doubt it. All Simbin/S3 games have vanished including RACE 07, GTR2 and GTL. These needed no simplifying. And last time I checked the forums were gone too. Its been gone at least 10 days. I'm afraid I'm getting a bad feeling about this.

 

[Andi Goodwin]

I doubt it. All Simbin/S3 games have vanished including RACE 07, GTR2 and GTL. These needed no simplifying. And last time I checked the forums were gone too. Its been gone at least 10 days. I'm afraid I'm getting a bad feeling about this.

all of the steam forums are still there , http://steamcommunity.com/app/211500/discussions/ r3e one

As for the why , i have no idea but my assumption is that business men play business games and sometimes it takes a while for all of the stuff to fully transfer

Andi

 

[David Wright]

all of the steam forums are still there , http://steamcommunity.com/app/211500/discussions/ r3e one

Glad its still there but if you try to find it from the top level its not listed

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/

 

[Bill Baggdude]

business men play business games

Whatever the reason is it's self-evident that can't be the reason behind it.

 

[Andi Goodwin]

Whatever the reason is it's self-evident that can't be the reason behind it.

ok

Andi

 

[Bill Baggdude]

I managed to figure it all out pretty easily and got a lot of content for a decent price. Because: Genius. ​

You might be a genius, but sector 3 are stupid.

The people that just buy everything shouldn't be discounted. That's dumb. The people that just buy everything regardless of cost should pay more. That's what Nvidia do when they sell a top tier graphics card, or Ferrari do when you buy a supercar. They charge you more. Not less.

What logic or business decision made sector 3 charge people more if they just want one car or one track? That's stupid. They waffled at length in interviews about building the game you want.

But in truth, the game is significantly - hundreds of pounds / dollars cheaper if you buy everything - and you are ripped off if you don't. This only encourages people not to buy content - except the few who will just buy everything regardless of what it is, or of the cost.

But, there probably aren't enough of them for sector 3 to keep in business. If there were they'd probably still be called 'simbin' and I wouldn't laugh so much when you call them "business people"

The casual gamer that buys one car and one track is not served by this business model. Perhaps in one meeting years ago someone said "F2P is in the news" and they all nodded in spite of having no clue at all how F2P works. Then one guy said "free to RACE!" and they all clapped and thought they were smart.

Since then every decision after that they clearly don't want f2p and they just want to sell the full game and then bring out some more stuff and get people to buy all of that too. To that end they made the F2P experience bad in the hope that people would think "this content is bad, I'll pay so it isn't" - which is a remarkably dumb approach and then they decided to charge you 60% or more over the top if you didn't buy everything in one go, with not only discounts for the packs, but with a "bulk vrp" discount too.

If you get someone to buy one car, or one track the ball is rolling. They are more likely to buy more in the future. If you rip these customers off they won't give you any money - they'll wait for a 50% off sale and buy Assetto Corsa or Project cars.

 

[CDwyer]

You might be a genius, but sector 3 are stupid.

The people that just buy everything shouldn't be discounted. That's dumb. The people that just buy everything regardless of cost should pay more. That's what Nvidia do when they sell a top tier graphics card, or Ferrari do when you buy a supercar. They charge you more. Not less.

What logic or business decision made sector 3 charge people more if they just want one car or one track? That's stupid. They waffled at length in interviews about building the game you want.

But in truth, the game is significantly - hundreds of pounds / dollars cheaper if you buy everything - and you are ripped off if you don't. This only encourages people not to buy content - except the few who will just buy everything regardless of what it is, or of the cost.

But, there probably aren't enough of them for sector 3 to keep in business. If there were they'd probably still be called 'simbin' and I wouldn't laugh so much when you call them "business people"

The casual gamer that buys one car and one track is not served by this business model. Perhaps in one meeting years ago someone said "F2P is in the news" and they all nodded in spite of having no clue at all how F2P works. Then one guy said "free to RACE!" and they all clapped and thought they were smart.

Since then every decision after that they clearly don't want f2p and they just want to sell the full game and then bring out some more stuff and get people to buy all of that too. To that end they made the F2P experience bad in the hope that people would think "this content is bad, I'll pay so it isn't" - which is a remarkably dumb approach and then they decided to charge you 60% or more over the top if you didn't buy everything in one go, with not only discounts for the packs, but with a "bulk vrp" discount too.

If you get someone to buy one car, or one track the ball is rolling. They are more likely to buy more in the future. If you rip these customers off they won't give you any money - they'll wait for a 50% off sale and buy Assetto Corsa or Project cars.

Bored now.

 

[Brandon Wright]

So, if I buy one experience pack that has a bunch of tracks, and then buy another experience pack that has some of the same tracks, you're suggesting I should have to pay again for those tracks that I already own? Now that's a bad business model.

And you obviously misunderstand the purpose of "free to play". In every instance I've seen of this model (mostly on mobile devices) you get a limited amount of content so you can try it, get hooked on it, and then WANT to PAY for the rest of the content. This is fairly clever, if you only offer a free game you don't make any money and if you only offer a pay game then there's a large amount of people who won't try it and you won't get any money from them. By letting everyone sample it for free you're sure to get more people "hooked" on it and then giving you money for it. GSCE lets you try a free demo for 30 days with a few cars and tracks, if you want to continue to play it you have to give them money, it's really no different than that (other than GSCE is one flat rate to purchase) but I don't see you ripping Reiza a new a$$hole?

Another wise business move is giving returning customers a discount because it encourages them to keep coming back and giving you more money. Making people who buy all of your products always pay full retail price is going to limit your income and your return customers. Enticing existing customers to buy more content by giving them discounts is a way to build your customer base and your income. It's much like when I go to my local sandwich shop and if I buy 5 sandwiches the 6th one is free, this encourages me to regularly buy sandwiches from them because I eventually get one for free. It's good for both of us.

If you actually take a few minutes to figure out how the R3E model and discounts work, it's not very complicated and you can get a lot of content for not much more money than you'd pay for a console game (I've spent around $70 and have about 3/4 of the content). Here's a tip, put the items in your cart and whatever price it shows in your cart is the price you pay and it's converted to your local currency, not at all difficult to figure out. But obviously you prefer a model that gouges the customers for as much money as possible, like iRacing. It's not hard to figure out, but we've already established that I'm a genius so I quickly pick up on basic things that save me money.