Worried about the future of rF2

[Richard Eriksson]

As the topic suggests...

As a long time ISI supporter and follower, i am now feeling a bit worried for the future.The number of new users coming in to rFactor2 seems to be dwindling.

Also there is a long time between the new official content. And even when there is official content released, it seems to fail to gather an interest (Civics in December) amongst the yet unitiated.

Also, the mod community seems a lot more reluctant than for rF1, with very few members adding content.This is even more worrying as it was the foundation of rF1 and a big selling point for bringing more people to the franchise (race anything you like).

ISI now also faces a stiff competition as the "sim" genre has become "hot" again with more titles in the works, that seem to gather a LOT more interest: AC, pCars etc.

The old veterans like myself are finding ourselves drawn to the likes of GSC, and newcomers are moving towards AC and probably DTM Experience.


I start this topic to see if someone shares my worries, and also to discuss if something can be done to once again bring more interest to rF2?


My personal idea is to go for Steam greenlighting (i actually REALLY like Steam as a platform), to gain exposure and also simplify the purchasing as well as updating.
Connecting it to Workshop makes modding interesting again, like what AC proposes.


I want rF2 to succeed, it is by far the most comprehensive take on simulating the actual race mechanics and based on that it should be the goto title for the serious sim-user, but right now i fear it is not.


Discussions on graphics i will however discard personally, as a) rF2 is pretty enough and b) the prettiest of settings in something like pCars is inaccesible to 95% of users.


So, what is your view of the status of the product?



Points of improvement needed going forward as identified in this thread so far:

* Better GUI (incoming)
* Steam integration and release
* Possible new distribution method that would automate updates and sync, if not steam
* New official content
* More transparent development
* Shorter build intervals
* More efficient code and optimization of codebase
* A possibility to "lock down" the core functionality, to deliver something considered stable and final
* New updater that allows automatic updating of content as well, including adding NEW
content

 

[Guy Moulton]

It's true what Bram says about a fragmented community, but often times that arises from necessity too. Leagues don't always run the sim you want, the mod you want or the time you want it. I've tried running with other leagues but that didn't help the empty grid problem. I held on with SimRacingPro for a long time until I got sick of very small grids & it became obvious they wanted to stick with Race07.

Some leagues don't run the settings or races you may want also. It's tough finding compatible leagues that work for you- so sometimes you try it on your own. That's when the low numbers of people racing rF2 becomes apparent. Being in the US does not help. I often can't race at euro-friendly times.

In the US the rF2 community is very small and ISI isn't doing anything about it. I was watching a Nascar race (OK, so I have now officially become a stereotype ) and iRacing has sponsored a cup car. Full iRacing livery. SRW has tie-ins with real racing drivers (and their brothers) and advertising online. When was the last time you saw a rF2 ad online? They have never advertised on ISR and "bought" a good review there. They have to play the game. I want to see a rF2 livery on a F2 car, or an Indycar and ads on internet broadcasts about sim racing and banner ads. I'd like the real F2 driver who tested the F2 for ISI to show his face and say "It's awesome!".

THIS is what's needed to grow rF2.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

It's true what Bram says about a fragmented community, but often times that arises from necessity too. Leagues don't always run the sim you want, the mod you want or the time you want it. I've tried running with other leagues but that didn't help the empty grid problem. I held on with racedepartment for a long time until I got sick of very small grids & it became obvious they wanted to stick with Race07.

Some leagues don't run the settings or races you may want also. It's tough finding compatible leagues that work for you- so sometimes you try it on your own. That's when the low numbers of people racing rF2 becomes apparent. Being in the US does not help. I often can't race at euro-friendly times.

In the US the rF2 community is very small and ISI isn't doing anything about it. I was watching a Nascar race (OK, so I have now officially become a stereotype ) and iRacing has sponsored a cup car. Full iRacing livery. SRW has tie-ins with real racing drivers (and their brothers) and advertising online. When was the last time you saw a rF2 ad online? They have never advertised on ISR and "bought" a good review there. They have to play the game. I want to see a rF2 livery on a F2 car, or an Indycar and ads on internet broadcasts about sim racing and banner ads. I'd like the real F2 driver who tested the F2 for ISI to show his face and say "It's awesome!".

THIS is what's needed to grow rF2.

Yes, I dont understand that either. I mean they have got data from Marussia and build their F1 car in rF2, but never heard anything about it in the press.

I think rF2 doesn't have a marketing department at all at least for their consumer products.

 

[Blkout]

Yes, I dont understand that either. I mean they have got data from Marussia and build their F1 car in rF2, but never heard anything about it in the press.

I think rF2 doesn't have a marketing department at all at least for their consumer products.

if they do, they should all be fired and replaced.

 

[Guy Moulton]

I play rf2 and the game is amazing it drives great and provides the best racing and a few times I've been on big grids and it's the best. But that just sets me up for the next grid with only 5 drivers and i feel like ISI cheaping out on advertising is cheating ME. And let's be honest- why would ISI not advertise? They are being cheap and cheating us IMHO.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

I play rf2 and the game is amazing it drives great and provides the best racing and a few times I've been on big grids and it's the best. But that just sets me up for the next grid with only 5 drivers and i feel like ISI cheaping out on advertising is cheating ME. And let's be honest- why would ISI not advertise? They are being cheap and cheating us IMHO.

I don't know. I checked their homepages today and in the section rFactor events they have pictures from Lewis Hamilton in one of their mobile simulators as well as Red Bull Racing and I know that some of the simulators used by F1 teams are powered by rFactor Pro.

Why the sell don't they use that advertising potential??? Are they not allowed to talk about it by some contractual restrictions?

I mean a slogan like: "Drive the Simulator, that Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton use to train their skills and prepare their races"

Seriously who wouldn't try something, that is advertised like that?!

I don't know ISI's business model and how much of their business is business orientated and how much is consumer oriented. I mean rFactor and rFactor Pro is the foundation of so many simulators, so why don't use that for advertising?!

 

[David O'Reilly]

I play rf2 and the game is amazing it drives great and provides the best racing and a few times I've been on big grids and it's the best. But that just sets me up for the next grid with only 5 drivers and i feel like ISI cheaping out on advertising is cheating ME. And let's be honest- why would ISI not advertise? They are being cheap and cheating us IMHO.

We need to remember that your advertising budget is a factor of your revenues and total pricing.
You have a % of sales to re invest. ISI have a philosophy of offering great value for money. If you are I-racing and taking a few hundred dollars a year from people you have a big marketing budget. ISI take $80.00 from you once and you own it for life. So word of mouth is critical.

I have had the best racing ever on this sim and it is awesome when you have say 30 cars.
Its up to us to make that happen by winning people one at a time.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

We need to remember that your advertising budget is a factor of your revenues and total pricing.
You have a % of sales to re invest. ISI have a philosophy of offering great value for money. If you are I-racing and taking a few hundred dollars a year from people you have a big marketing budget. ISI take $80.00 from you once and you own it for life. So word of mouth is critical.

I have had the best racing ever on this sim and it is awesome when you have say 30 cars.
Its up to us to make that happen by winning people one at a time.

Thats for sure, but they don't even bother to make a bit of marketing on their own website! I mean that doesn't set you back a lot of money.

You can do some trailers on youtube or maybe show of a bit of the professional side of their company. That are all things, that don't have advertising costs. Ok, you need someone to do it, but you have to sell your product at the end of the day?!

I don't expect them to book big advetising time slots on TV. Just give a bit of insight on development, show us a bit behind the scenes of a real racing simulator etc. Basically that is something Kunos does pretty well without a big budget.

The product is great, but it doesn't feel like they don't even care to sell it. So many people are turned off by the 85$ or so price tag and you have to dig deep to find out, that you can purchase the cheap license and later extend to lifetime etc.
These are things, that actually cost you near to nothing, but would increase sales and thats something I cant understand

 

[David O'Reilly]

Thats for sure, but they don't even bother to make a bit of marketing on their own website! I mean that doesn't set you back a lot of money.

You can do some trailers on youtube or maybe show of a bit of the professional side of their company. That are all things, that don't have advertising costs. Ok, you need someone to do it, but you have to sell your product at the end of the day?!

I don't expect them to book big advetising time slots on TV. Just give a bit of insight on development, show us a bit behind the scenes of a real racing simulator etc. Basically that is something Kunos does pretty well without a big budget.

The product is great, but it doesn't feel like they don't even care to sell it. So many people are turned off by the 85$ or so price tag and you have to dig deep to find out, that you can purchase the cheap license and later extend to lifetime etc.
These are things, that actually cost you near to nothing, but would increase sales and thats something I cant understand

Fair points.
They make a good technical argument on their web site but yes the other multi media avenues are not exploited fully. I seem to Remember Lee Ross AKA nismo used to do some great Youtube videos.

 

[Ben Eastman]

Personally I know that the lack of players on rfactor at any given time compared to codie's f1, forza etc. is much lower.

However I feel it makes up for it with a much more immerse experience.

Rfactor is the only game where gritting my teeth to the point of cracking them(yes this just happened today) actually has an effect on my laptime. Because it's the only sim I've played that I personally feel like I have a car moving under me, the way ISI have modelled the suspension and grip is perfect IMO.

 

[Guy Moulton]

We need to remember that your advertising budget is a factor of your revenues and total pricing.
You have a % of sales to re invest. ISI have a philosophy of offering great value for money. If you are I-racing and taking a few hundred dollars a year from people you have a big marketing budget. ISI take $80.00 from you once and you own it for life. So word of mouth is critical.

I have had the best racing ever on this sim and it is awesome when you have say 30 cars.
Its up to us to make that happen by winning people one at a time.

You have to spend money to make money. They advertise, more people buy the product, they make more money That is how we get more people on grids.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

You have to spend money to make money. They advertise, more people buy the product, they make more money That is how we get more people on grids.

ISI's reaction:

 

[David O'Reilly]

You have to spend money to make money. They advertise, more people buy the product, they make more money That is how we get more people on grids.

Well yes to an extent. But a coy has to make a forecast on revenues and dedicate a % of that to marketing.

 

[Jonathan Menéndez]

I remember Tim said on numerous occasions that they would make advertising when the simulator reach a point where they are happy with it, never before.
ISI doing things their own way

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

I remember Tim said on numerous occasions that they would make advertising when the simulator reach a point where they were happy with it, never before.
ISI doing things their own way

Ok, so we might see something in 2020, just kidding.

But at least a bit on their twitter channel featuring big rF2 events etc. I mean posting a livestream of a big rF2 event on their twitter feed or facebook is done in a second and that is bascially free advertising for them.

A lot of communities provide great livestreams and racing, which is great PR for ISI.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

Nice to see this thread growing in my absence (been working like an absolute dog lately so all work and no play)

I agree with the idea of more marketing and treating it as final product now.

But i also maintain my sentiment about Steam. I helped a friend install rFactor2 the other day at work because he just could not understand the process, with getting the separate files, putting them in different folders, using some standalone manager to add content, in some specific order and then use a strange and somewhat confusing external system to get an account. I might add here that my friend and colleague is a software engineer like me and not what you would call "tech newbie"... Still he struggled with this a bit.

If he wants to add mod content or get into online, i will need to help him again.

Let's face it... In distribution and packaging, rFactor2 is still 1998.

Anything NOT on Steam in 2014 is not going to sell that well. Steam is now the de facto standard of releasing, distributing and maintaining a pc online title. This is a fact.

It also offers structure for many things rF2 does poorly, like groups, team management, workshop for mod content, auto install and update etc.

It is also an excellent PR window with a user base far exceeding anything out there...

So, still maintaining that rF2 will have to go on Steam or die eventually, despite being the superior race sim, as in true "simulation"...

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

Nice to see this thread growing in my absence (been working like an absolute dog lately so all work and no play)

I agree with the idea of more marketing and treating it as final product now.

But i also maintain my sentiment about Steam. I helped a friend install rFactor2 the other day at work because he just could not understand the process, with getting the separate files, putting them in different folders, using some standalone manager to add content, in some specific order and then use a strange and somewhat confusing external system to get an account. I might add here that my friend and colleague is a software engineer like me and not what you would call "tech newbie"... Still he struggled with this a bit.

If he wants to add mod content or get into online, i will need to help him again.

Let's face it... In distribution and packaging, rFactor2 is still 1998.

Anything NOT on Steam in 2014 is not going to sell that well. Steam is now the de facto standard of releasing, distributing and maintaining a pc online title. This is a fact.

It also offers structure for many things rF2 does poorly, like groups, team management, workshop for mod content, auto install and update etc.

It is also an excellent PR window with a user base far exceeding anything out there...

So, still maintaining that rF2 will have to go on Steam or die eventually, despite being the superior race sim, as in true "simulation"...

I don't think it is going to die because of it, but for most people it is a pain.
Luckily my rF2 is pretty stable and I have most available content in that installation.
Once in a while I do a seperate installation and getting the content needed into that installation is a pain even though I only have to copy it.

It would be really great to have a repository for all the content on steam etc. but I think ISI would run into copyright issues there as some Mods use official car names like Audi R8 and ISI doesn't have the license to use it and then you will run into big trouble I guess, when some content comes from Steam and some has to be somehow manually added like today. Additionally some leauges have pretty specific requirements how your rF2 has to be setup, so you might want to have a seperate installation for that and I don't know if it is working on Steam.

I would 100% prefer a full managed system like steam, but with the state of rF2 like it is today and with all what happened over the years I think Steam would cause a hole lot of problems for a lot of users. I can see why ISI has taken the 1998 route just to be save in terms of copyright and give more freedom to all the users, which you pay off with usability...

To be honest rF2 has the capability, that you just click on a server even if you have none of the content and it will download everything for you, but most modders and admins haven't setup that system properly.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

@Frederic Schornstein:

Good points. There are of course legal risks to consider. However any game allowing mods (like AC for instance) will face them, and does today... I am unfamiliar with the Workshop terms on Steam but i wonder if the publisher can really be held liable, it should be the user submitting the content.

Your last point on the potential being there for auto-download etc. just highlights the problematic situation further... rF2 is best experienced online, but if you want to race online you are more or less expected to do so in leagues or private clubs, that you not only have to find, you also have to fulfill their arbitrary standards just to participate (like you said, even to the point of reinstalling again with specific content just for that league you want to join). Then you are expected to follow different rules in different leagues/clubs, and maintain a lot of different things just to be able to participate. And when you do get to participate, the communities are elitist and excluding in many cases. So a beginner does not want to join in anyway because getting abused for not understanding everything from day one is not fun (i stress that this is not true for ALL leagues/clubs, certainly not here).

This is how we simraced in 1998, due to necessity... It feels a bit old today.

This will not attract fresh blood. Something i hope we all can agree upon, would be a good thing.

To draw a parallel to a similiar situation... As you may know by now i am a regular ARMA-series user, being in a few milsim groups simulating realistic military scenarios and the like. We are selective and small groups, using strange mods and an infrastructure that's a pain to use (with a simulation engine that takes a masters degree to set up properly on your computer). Naturally we have not had much new blood in our ranks.

But ARMA3 went Steam, and introduced Workshop support. Now, we get applications (through Steam) everyday. There was a STRONG reluctancy towards these things in our communities when it first appeared. Just like in the simracing community, we where used to our way.

But as it turned out, amongst the newcomers we found a lot of serious and great people to run with, and they would not have known about us or ARMA without the increased PR. Now they can get our mods through the Workshop and join in, withour hassle, and we can create groups and events for them by using only the Steam UI...

And us oldtimers have realised many of the benefits of this integrated way of running our sessions, finally. It brings many benefits to us as well..

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

Something on my wish list for rF2:

I wish there was a rF2 big installer: all ISI content included.

and... all ISI content could be update/added with a new build update. Like you've probably done today.

That would make it a lot easier for somebody who just bought rF2.

So only 3rd party mods or league updated of ISI content have to be managed in the mod manager.

 

[Terry Rock]

I think the #1 biggest obstacle to RF2 right now is some...not all, of the multiplayer aspects. It can get a bit discouraging.
I know from my personal experiences those negatives are the one thing I do not enjoy.
You click to join a server...it says you don't have all the content...you agree to allow the download...it starts and you wait for a long time...it comes back and says not all components were installed. That can be extremely frustrating and can happen two or three times before you find a server with the content to allow joining. By the second time most have stopped trying and moved to single player.

 

[Maciej Cieslak]

I would like to add something simple to this very interesting conversation.
for me rF2 is best SIM ever, there is no thing to complain about this work and afford which is put in to this game. this "beta" version satisfy me 100% and I don't need any better shadows and better graphics. Few things... new mode for F1 and I am gonna buy life license. Trust me AC and project Cars are for people who likes graphics.
no one will beat ISI with physics and FF on the wheel.
enjoy rF2

maybe some day some of the F1 drivers will invest his money for this SIM in stead of putting money in to a cycling team