How Popular Are Our Favourite PC Racing Sims?

Most Popular Racing Sims 01.jpg
Racing simulators tend to have more longevity than most sports games, but how many people are still playing some of the bigger titles?

Using SteamDB, we can get a reasonably accurate gauge of how many people are currently playing a particular game through Steam. Below I’ve noted the all-time peak concurrent players for some of the more popular titles here at RaceDepartment, plus the 24 hour peak as taken on November 23rd, 2021.

NOTES: SteamDB of course excludes console players and those who might be using an alternative launch method such as Epic. There is also some level of error both in the statistics gathering, and the times when the data was collected. So, please don’t treat the figures below as an absolute value of how many people are playing the title, but rather an overall barometer of how many people are enjoying it on Steam. iRacing statistics are harder to come by, but I will add a footnote if I can gather an accurate player count.

Assetto Corsa
  • All Time Peak – 11,691
  • 24 Hour Peak – 6,824
This modding monster continues to enjoy success eight years after it was first released to the public, thanks in no small part to the great community of creators that keeps AC relevant with new and classic cars and tracks, plus the latest skins of our favourite drivers and teams.

Assetto Corsa Competizione
  • All Time Peak – 6,926
  • 24 Hour Peak – 3,959
The official SRO simulator has been another success for Kunos. On the eve of the release of another major update, thousands of players are still enjoying this GT sim two and a half years after its release on Steam.

Automobilista 2
  • All Time Peak – 1,150
  • 24 Hour Peak – 372
Reiza Studios are hard at work on their biggest physics update so far for AMS2, which is set to be released to the public this month. The title has had its share of doubters, but Reiza has kept its ear to the ground in the sim community and has made major strides since the first release version and will hope to see the number of people enjoying the title continue to climb.

BeamNG.drive
  • All Time Peak – 13,572
  • 24 Hour Peak – 7,932
Known mainly to the layperson as a crash simulator, BeamNG is perhaps better summarized as a physics playground with a huge modding community. This simulator has more players than even Assetto Corsa, and likely owes much of that popularity to the huge selection of car and track mods on offer, much like AC.

F1 2021
  • All Time Peak – 24,513
  • 24 Hour Peak – 11,400
The official game of F1 has enjoyed mostly positive reviews once again this year. And unlike recent years, updates to the title have included new content. Three additional tracks have been added post-release, which seems to be having the effect of sustaining the interest of players, as over 10,000 people on Steam alone are still enjoying playing F1 at any time.

Euro Truck Simulator 2
  • All Time Peak – 61,081
  • 24 Hour Peak – 37,635
This is obviously not a racing sim, but for perspective on the other titles, check out the impressive numbers behind ETS2. Apparently the allure of a chill drive across some of the most beautiful areas on the continent of Europe holds great appeal to gamers.

Most Popular Racing Sims 03.jpg

Forza Horizon 5
  • All Time Peak – 81,096
  • 24 Hour Peak – 37,924
Forza Horizon 5 has broken every sales record for a racing game, and even ignoring the massive player base on console, the concurrent player count is staggering. FH5 continues the series’ open world, consequence free feel, and appeals to the fun-chasing side in racing game fans.

NASCAR 21: Ignition
  • All Time Peak – 323
  • 24 Hour Peak – 42
NASCAR 21’s launch was marred by bugs and bad reviews. As such, the game is off to a slow start. This is the newest title on this list, and should be enjoying its “honeymoon” sales phase, but most of the major complaints about the title have yet to be addressed. The good news? It’s now playable for me since the latest update, so my overdue review should be coming soon.

RaceRoom Racing Experience
  • All Time Peak – 2,630
  • 24 Hour Peak – 1,057
There’s a case to be made that RaceRoom is the most complete racing sim on the market. As such, its popularity has remained strong since its early 2013 release. Content releases have slowed recently, but a well-built multiplayer system keeps players coming back.

rFactor 2
  • All Time Peak – 1,652
  • 24 Hour Peak – 747
rFactor 2 has been praised since its 2015 Steam release as the pinnacle of simulator force feedback and vehicle physics. Either opinion is debatable of course, but there’s no doubt that the driving experience in rF2 can be a pure pleasure. The title is also the preferred sim of many major eSports series, which keeps it relevant and popular with both casual and professional players.

Obviously there are countless other titles that could have been included in this article, so if I missed any titles that could provide interesting data, be sure to share the name and user stats below.
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

Jim Layee
Neils on Wheels said:
FH5 is not a sim though is it.
Click to expand...

None of the games mentioned here are true simulations so don't get too excited.

Controversial I know, but a simulation creates data while a game produces experiences and it's the discussion of those experiences that fill the forums . It's true that some games are more curate than others but they all remain at heart games.

If you think of it like this it renders all the inter-game snobbery absolutely hilarious and saves you a lot of time trying to make any sense of the inane ramblings of fanboys.
 
Kyuubeey
Jim Layee said:
None of the games mentioned here are true simulations so don't get too excited.

Controversial I know, but a simulation creates data while a game produces experiences and it's the discussion of those experiences that fill the forums . It's true that some games are more curate than others but they all remain at heart games.

If you think of it like this it renders all the inter-game snobbery absolutely hilarious and saves you a lot of time trying to make any sense of the inane ramblings of fanboys.
Click to expand...
I guess it's about time we broke it to all the racing professionals who use consumer simulators for their job that they're not suitable because they're games.
 
B
Jim Layee said:
None of the games mentioned here are true simulations so don't get too excited.

Controversial I know, but a simulation creates data while a game produces experiences and it's the discussion of those experiences that fill the forums . It's true that some games are more curate than others but they all remain at heart games.

If you think of it like this it renders all the inter-game snobbery absolutely hilarious and saves you a lot of time trying to make any sense of the inane ramblings of fanboys.
Click to expand...
Every now and then this kind of statement emerges.
It's a pure disinformation which says a lot about your own approach to simracing.

I never looked at commercial sims as games, they are so much more than that.
A quality sim rig with a DD wheel can stress your body just like the real deal. It can even hurt you. And that my friend, cannot be called a "game".

Here is a direct analysis of a consumer grade simulation by a professional motorsport engineer:
drracing.wordpress.com

Vehicle dynamics

Again, a very long time i don’t write here. Again, although it was already at a good point, the last project i started didn’t go to an end. I guess that’s life. During the last mo…
drracing.wordpress.com drracing.wordpress.com

I'll quote the most important part of the article:
"I can tell you, these simulations have anyway a very good level of “useful complexity” and although the modeling techniques they use are somehow different from what we normally use in “proper simulations” (see tyre Pacejka models, that are not used in rF) they still give to the “modder” the possibility to work on a huge number of parameters, allowing to simulate sometimes also very complex behaviours (like for aeromaps that include ride height, wing angle, pitch influence with also non linear trends and where you can model separately the aero contribution of body, wings and diffuser, or for tyres where, just as a basic example, you can model a non liner load sensitivity when even Pacejka Magic Formula don’t give this possibility).

The result? Amazing, in my opinion! And it’s of course funny as well! I am not a driver, or anyway not a good one both in the real or in the virtual world. But when you compare the logged data to the info you gather during a simulated test session (with the car maybe driven by proper drivers in both cases), you can be really surprised of how close the performance are. And i don’t talk only about speed or accelerations, but also about steering traces, suspension movements, loads, ride heights…"
 
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Kyuubeey
bozakn said:
Every now and then this kind of statement emerges.
It's a pure disinformation which says a lot about your own approach to simracing.

I never looked at commercial sims as games, they are so much more than that.
A quality sim rig with a DD wheel can stress your body just like the real deal. It can even hurt you. And that my friend, cannot be called a "game".

Here is a direct analysis of a consumer grade simulation by a professional motorsport engineer:
drracing.wordpress.com

Vehicle dynamics

Again, a very long time i don’t write here. Again, although it was already at a good point, the last project i started didn’t go to an end. I guess that’s life. During the last mo…
drracing.wordpress.com drracing.wordpress.com

I'll quote the most important part of the article:
"I can tell you, these simulations have anyway a very good level of “useful complexity” and although the modeling techniques they use are somehow different from what we normally use in “proper simulations” (see tyre Pacejka models, that are not used in rF) they still give to the “modder” the possibility to work on a huge number of parameters, allowing to simulate sometimes also very complex behaviours (like for aeromaps that include ride height, wing angle, pitch influence with also non linear trends and where you can model separately the aero contribution of body, wings and diffuser, or for tyres where, just as a basic example, you can model a non liner load sensitivity when even Pacejka Magic Formula don’t give this possibility).

The result? Amazing, in my opinion! And it’s of course funny as well! I am not a driver, or anyway not a good one both in the real or in the virtual world. But when you compare the logged data to the info you gather during a simulated test session (with the car maybe driven by proper drivers in both cases), you can be really surprised of how close the performance are. And i don’t talk only about speed or accelerations, but also about steering traces, suspension movements, loads, ride heights…"
Click to expand...
Bear in mind that even quite decent sims like ISImotor have pretty buggy features and, at least according to my testing, pretty noticeable tire modelling (?) issues. rF/AMS has some weird transient stuff going on that I'm trying to pin down (And nobody except Niels even believes me apparently...) and vanilla AC has a bunch of just outright bad formulas and really bad default parameters. Despite that the results are quite good; but they could be noticeably better. There's still some room to go "Well, the sims are good, but-".

Cphys is taking a step forward with AC and steadily fixing all of the issues and replacing them with physically sound formulas backed up by good data so it's really a bit closer to what you'd expect from a professional sim. It's been proven to be able to out-do many ad-hoc professional models in the motorsport series it was tried in; although to be fair that's with some features that we don't have in the public version.

It's gonna be really something once the fully definable suspension system and general controllers come; it'll really not differ very much from a professional sim at that point. I don't understand how apparently nobody else is excited at all.

I suppose you can't really appreciate it unless you have enough knowledge and experience to use the features; the bar is quite high actually. It might take some time before 'the public' buys into it, if ever.
 
H
Alex72 said:
I want some good freeroam offroad. Is Beam good that way?
Click to expand...
Yes, you have both lots of rally courses and offroad trails requiring some beefy 4x4 car, it also has manually lockable differentials and low-range gears.
It also has a VERY deep vehicle customization and with the right mods you can make pretty much any car good for light or heavy offroading (changing transmission, suspensions, wheels and even the engine).
here's a video of me doing a really long rally stage on the Italy map (one of the ones that comes in the game)
. As you can see it's pretty big and you could also go around it in freeroam.
you also have a lot of nice map on the mod repository like this one https://www.beamng.com/resources/nami-offroad.20541/ (i took a random one from first maps page)
 
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V
Kyuubeey said:
Although my impression is almost all "hardcore simracers" are actually casuals with some sprinkles on top. It's not that the amount of people who are really into the sim aspect and would actually enjoy needing to be skilled in race engineering to setup the car, or needing to have very high level driving technique to keep the tires within parameters in a race is less; it's just that there are also a ton more casual simmers on top of that who truthfully don't care much at all about the 'sim' part, but a whole lot about the 'immersion' part.
Click to expand...
This is true. The reason AC is so popular is because of street car mods and "track" mods that are public roads/freeroam maps. Very few people actually RACE in AC--at this point I'd consider it a driving simulator. There is a big-ass group of people who want to drive street cars like GT or Forza but with more realistic physics and AC is the ONLY sim that even comes close to that. Every other sim is 95% stripped-down and purpose-built racecars. They're never going to compete with AC's truckload of mods.
 
Kyuubeey
Vadara said:
This is true. The reason AC is so popular is because of street car mods and "track" mods that are public roads/freeroam maps. Very few people actually RACE in AC--at this point I'd consider it a driving simulator. There is a big-ass group of people who want to drive street cars like GT or Forza but with more realistic physics and AC is the ONLY sim that even comes close to that. Every other sim is 95% stripped-down and purpose-built racecars. They're never going to compete with AC's truckload of mods.
Click to expand...
It is very much so a better driving than racing simulator. Almost all of my physics mods are high-effort roadcars developed without any kind of racing in mind. I admit it severely lacks in actual racing features; although it doesn't bother me one bit. The accurate vehicle models are enough for me.

I'd guess this is a very large part of the community; there's something nice about driving cars that are slow and compliant enough to allow all kinds of handling to be induced and are also somewhat more economically achievable and closer to the common road vehicle that most people could own; or perhaps *are* that very same road vehicle.

It's just a bit unfortunate that most users don't *actually* care if the car drives right or not; be it roadcar or racecar users. I guess because they can't really even tell.
 
N
Jim Layee said:
None of the games mentioned here are true simulations so don't get too excited.

Controversial I know, but a simulation creates data while a game produces experiences and it's the discussion of those experiences that fill the forums . It's true that some games are more curate than others but they all remain at heart games.

If you think of it like this it renders all the inter-game snobbery absolutely hilarious and saves you a lot of time trying to make any sense of the inane ramblings of fanboys.
Click to expand...
Honestly a lot of waffle saying absolutely nothing at all.

Sim (simulated) racing or racing simulation are the collective terms for racing game software that attempts to accurately simulate auto racing, complete with real-world variables such as fuel usage, damage, tire wear and grip, and suspension settings.

Forza horizon is a casual arcade racing game design for a game pad aimed at the masses & doesn't fit into the category of sim at all.
 
Kyuubeey
It just comes down to the "bro its not realistic if you don't simulate every atom" argument that people with 0 hours of simulation development experience like to use. Fundamentally misunderstanding what "model" means to begin with isn't a great look when discussing simulation models.
 
M
Given the cost of PC Sim Racing V other types of gaming, my modest rig/pc is has around 5K sunk into it and even an entry level wheel and cockpit is going to set you back £500 + a PC....I'm amazed we have the numbers playing that we do!
 
N
Kyuubeey said:
It just comes down to the "bro its not realistic if you don't simulate every atom" argument that people with 0 hours of simulation development experience like to use. Fundamentally misunderstanding what "model" means to begin with isn't a great look when discussing simulation models.
Click to expand...
No it doesn't come down to that. You are just creating a straw man argument.
One has a goal to try & get as close to driving as it can, the other is not trying to.
You may as well chuck Mario cart on that list & call it a simulator.
 
Kyuubeey
Neils on Wheels said:
No it doesn't come down to that. You are just creating a straw man argument.
One has a goal to try & get as close to driving as it can, the other is not trying to.
You may as well chuck Mario cart on that list & call it a simulator.
Click to expand...
Check who you're even replying to before you post. I don't think I am who you think I am.

I'm referring to the post you replied to initially.
 
D
-F1 2020/21
-Dirt Rally 2.0
-WRC 10
-ETS 2
-ATS
-SnowRunner
-Spintires MudRunner
-Train Sim World 2

Sorry xD
 
Wayne Hutchison
eSEA One said:
It is intresting to see a bit of a shift in the Iracing trace as to when peeple are on it most, that makes me think it is the USA that is causing this double bump and shift.
Click to expand...
Yes, there's definitely an several hour offset between the iRacing trace and the rest - and I'm sure you're correct that it's due to the high number of North American members.
 
Damage Inc
Jim Layee said:
None of the games mentioned here are true simulations so don't get too excited.

Controversial I know, but a simulation creates data while a game produces experiences and it's the discussion of those experiences that fill the forums . It's true that some games are more curate than others but they all remain at heart games.

If you think of it like this it renders all the inter-game snobbery absolutely hilarious and saves you a lot of time trying to make any sense of the inane ramblings of fanboys.
Click to expand...
I've been saying similar thing, NO racing game simulates reality (as in it's entirity), even the best "sims" leave out huge chunks of reality that can seriously affect how a vehicle operates. So all this dick wanging people do over sims always cracks me up.
 
Last edited:
Kyuubeey
Damage Inc said:
I've been saying similar thing, NO racing game simulates reality (as in it's entirity), even the best "sims" leave out huge chunks of reality that can seriously affect how a vehicle operates. So all this dick wanging people do over sims always cracks me up.
Click to expand...
That's all fine and good to say if you don't actually know what the delta is from expected outputs. It's largely car specific too.

For years people have been saying stuff like elastokinematics are the end all be all or that simulating every tire flex properly is the end all be all; then I talked to people who did those and it's really not what it's made out to be. So don't make big claims if you're not sure.

Probably the most influential out of all the 'huge chunks' is having a chassis flex model and that only in some cars. Majority of users would not tell any difference when driving a roadcar with one and without one.

Simulating reality in its entirety isn't the point of a model either. Think about what the word means.
 

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