Motorsport Games Answers NASCAR 21 Questions in Open Q+A


Motorsport Games polled their player base for questions relating to NASCAR 21: Ignition and answered them in a video posted to YouTube.

The launch of NASCAR 21: Ignition was a disappointment on many fronts. Developer Motorsport Games had hoped that their first big release after acquiring many significant auto racing licenses would be successful and well received. NASCAR fans hoped that the Cup series would get that game it deserved after numerous underwhelming Heat titles. N21 was a letdown by either measure.

On paper, a NASCAR title using the Unreal Engine and backed by rFactor’s physics engine should be a smash. The result was unfortunately a letdown. Players complained early and often about the limited wheel support, lack of rearview mirrors, repetitive cutscenes, no custom setups, and limited online features.

Motorsport Games remained mostly quiet about the bugs in the game, and post-release improvements and additions have been sparse.

But this trend was upset recently, when Motorsport Games took to their YouTube channel to share answers to questions fans had asked about the current state of the title, and the future of N21.

While many of the answers will still leave players feeling let down by NASCAR 21, credit is due for the development team facing the questions and acknowledging the faults of their title in a public forum.

The key takeaway for those hoping for more from their purchase is that the development is not yet concluded. At some point the focus of the Motorsport team will shift to the next instalment in the NASCAR series, but thankfully that time is not yet here.

What are your thoughts on Motorsport Games taking on their criticisms in a public forum? Was this reassuring to hear, or just clever public relations? Let us know in the comments below.
About author
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

Comments

It was tough to sit through.

In some aspects I feel quite bad for the devs. It was clearly a project way over their heads and they are now faced with running damage control, trying to justify why seemingly basic features like a rear-view mirror or car setups are missing to rabid NASCAR fans who have been fed-up with sub-par licensed products.

At the same time, watching this company manifest out of thin air, enter the stock market at $30/share, and plummet to $3.80 while just 19 people have played their game concurrently in the past 24 hours has been... exceptionally weird.

I will leave you with a comment some guy left on a YouTube video of mine about the game. There is probably a story here, but it'll take a while to unfold.
msg.JPG
 
Good lord. Imagine if Aris came out saying "we want to make AC2 accessible to 3-year-olds". Every MSG game is going to be an utter garbage fire. The company is rotten at the core.
 
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Motorsport Games NASCAR has a player base?
Whoever these desperados are, they weren't so much 'polled' but shafted (again) by this game.
And polling after the game has been released sums them up. No idea.
 
The company owners are not in it for the passion, but the cash. In the end, this never works.
It works... for the owners. They filled their pockets selling over priced stocks and aquired some important IP like isimotor.
If Luminis was paid in cash (hopefully they were smart on this one) it worked for them as well.
 
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Anybody still have high hopes for the IndyCar, BTCC or Le Mans games? Hope those licensing deals weren't exclusive...
 
To roll out a developer that was probably telling the Board the game was not ready all along to take the heat seems a bit cowardice to me but take a look at the Board of Directors and it may provide some insight as to the future of this endeavor. One person with extensive gaming experience that is not the CEO or President, a lawyer, an investment banker, and a streaming guy. Sounds more like a lead in for a bar joke than a confidence builder. I think they have a great idea but not a clue as to how to make it happen, and no offense to S397 but they have hardly proved they can make a reliable fully developed product either.
 
"At some point the focus of the Motorsport team will shift to the next instalment in the NASCAR series". Seriously? Oh, not right now...at some point.

Are they reliant on a stupid playerbase? Oh, ya got me! Dammit, you got me again!
If they actually do make another game before correcting the too many problems, I'd consider that as a criminal act. There are laws to protect us from unethical companies!
 
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Premium
Not surprised, just another unpolished game released to the public for quick cash grab. seems to be the norm nowadays.

If console numbers are the same, relative to PC. Then it's not much of a cash grab either.

I will leave you with a comment some guy left on a YouTube video of mine about the game. There is probably a story here, but it'll take a while to unfold.

Not often I agree with you. I am pretty sure there is a story there. Somewhere.
I've seen some theories. I also have my own.

Let's just say I enjoy the duke archives and other positives for now. I hope S397 do get some cash injections to speed up work, other than that. I just wait for the crash to happen.
 
Staff
Premium
Anybody still have high hopes for the IndyCar, BTCC or Le Mans games? Hope those licensing deals weren't exclusive...

There's just exclusive deals these days. That's a thing that irritates me a lot, almost more than microtransactions (almost!!).

I don’t think these games will ever be made. And if they actually happen, I will wait for the reviews from real gamers.

Three titles to be developed at once by a studio that can’t make one? What a joke.

I would think they put different development-teams on the different games. Not at least because, even with the awful NASCAR-game released, they are supposed to have more NASCAR-games.
 
Premium
In the end, it seems from the outside perspective, N21 is an example of a poorly designed game with inadequate or poorly managed resources to deliver a polished game in a timely fashion.

I watched the first half of the video. In the spirit of being transparent, I would have preferred a discussion of how the game was released in such a poor condition and how they are going to prevent this from happening again. Are they going to hire more developers, better developers, change the design philosophy, better planning, etc..
 
9gb patch this morning. Downloaded it and took it for a quick spin before work.
They did fix a few game breaking bugs from my POV.
Went from an unplayable pile of garbage to "NEARLY tolerable".
Probably the best review they're going to get :p
 
A fair few people formerly from Codemasters team exist within Motorsport Games. Personally I have an opinion, and it's not good. Codemasters by and large have held back the racing genre for many years. It's a lucrative financially viable business for them to under-perform every year, and make themselves appear better by fixing things that should never have been broken in the first place, when they make a new version.

Kunos have done way more in a shorter period of time for Racing/Simulation than Codemasters. BTCC licence, what a joke too. We've already heard from Stephen Hood of Motorsports Games (the guy who was inside the Codeies F1 franchise) that essentially the BTCC game will be a simcade. Not Sim, not arcade, but a skillful mix of the two to keep it accessible for new players, yawn.

People have complained about F1 and the DiRT franchise for years, now we have the same people challenged with forging new Motorsport titles. Well, I might be educated-guessing here, but I know how this whole SH1T-SH0W is gonna play out lol. We see it already in N21 Ignition. They'll take your money and run, half-assed effort, full priced games. No thanks, they won't rip me off, as they won't get my money. I have higher standards. They have the same low moral problems as Codemasters, release what they want, complain all you like - but to see features you want then you'll have to be "INSERT YOUR TITLE Version + 1"... no thanks.

Oh look, Gary Cole talking about why a product is shite yet again... yawn. I feel sorry for the fans of the franchise. I hope you bought your software via platforms where you can get refunds. I've seen the painful players videos online. Seriously, they deserve to go bankrupt and never work in the industry again. I watched part of the video, I don't own the game, but I've seen it all before. Same crap, different decade. Vote with your feet.

More developers like this, is a situation sim-racer's like me can and will live without. Codemasters is about to take on the WRC license, they'll royally screw that up as well. It's all about the bottom line, very few devs are in it for passion sadly. I do not agree that a video insulting fans is hope for the future. I've seen it all before, so I'm sorry Mike, I don't agree with your analogy on this. No offence meant. That video is a pi55 take personally...
 
At the same time, watching this company manifest out of thin air, enter the stock market at $30/share, and plummet to $3.80 while just 19 people have played their game concurrently in the past 24 hours has been... exceptionally weird.
That yt comment makes sense. Sometimes the company was the product all along.
Attract investors, acquire licenses, sell to a big publisher that likes to throw money around.
Looking at their history, it seems they want to sell themselves as up-and-coming major esports org, like iracing for consoles.

So with that in mind, I would venture to guess that putting out an awful game cratered the stock price not just due to being bad, but also because it no longer became possible to speculate on their esports strategy as the next big thing.
 
I would think they put different development-teams on the different games. Not at least because, even with the awful NASCAR-game released, they are supposed to have more NASCAR-games.
MSG may put different art workers and modelers on different games but the core coding team is always S397. So there is no way they can follow 4 different titles at the same time every year. The reality is that MSG always planned to design one game and sell it 4 times with different aesthetics and different licenses/names. Let's be realistic.
 
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