ESL R1 | €500k Prize Pool at IEM Katowice for Rennsport-Based Event

randomcallsign said:

People go to esports venues to watch someone play CSGO sitting on a desk, so why not?

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I can think of a hundred reasons why not, that said, enjoy your trip and stay at Katowice, it is supposed to be lovely this time of the year.
Please also enjoy a preview, free of charge.
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From your other comments, if you don't seem to see the difference between this and attending a real race, I wish I could explain it to you, but I am afraid that it is not possible.

krzysiek_aleks said:

But for someone, that is deep in lore of certain title, who plays a lot and is a fan of competitors this might be experience of a lifetime

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Except, we are here talking about attending a lan event for a game with zero fans and no one " deep in lore" as it is not even available to play.

krzysiek_aleks said:

People are different

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I will give you that, fair point.

Cote Dazur said:

From your other comments, if you don't seem to see the difference between this and attending a real race, I wish I could explain it to you, but I am afraid that it is not possible.

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Things like this are completely personal. One person will love apples, one oranges. One will cry from happiness, because they saw GT3 car do a flyby near your stand, one will do it, when they see a competitive simracer they love.

I see this situation like this: it's way easier to convince someone interested in competitive simracing to become a fan of real racing, than the other way round.

It has less to do with age, as some might think, but with the mindset you are showing here. Real racing is the ultimate form of experiencing "it". For people like you and me watching some dudes gaming from their basements won't be as exciting as, let's say, DTM race, no matter if in person or in front of a TV. But if we can convince more people to watch those "dudes" and make them interested, then we can bring to "real" thing.

I really don't see a point to have, I'm sorry to say, such hostile takes. People, as I said, are different. Some cannot wait for the next NFL game, some love Premier Leauge, some prefer ski jumping, some have ploughing championship or hot dog eating contests circled in their calendar like if this was their birthday. Let people enjoy their hobbies.

krzysiek_aleks said:

I see this situation like this: it's way easier to convince someone interested in competitive simracing to become a fan of real racing, than the other way round.

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Highly, HIGHLY debatable.
I also wouldnt call any of this a "hostile take".

There is valid criticism to this subject in the same way that there is hype.

Experience shows that basically every simracing-related announcement is to be taken with a grain of salt, from simple things to full on disasters, from disappointments to full on vaporware.

So experience dictates what should be expected, thats natural. Without experience you might walk off a cliff one day and realise you can't fly like you hoped to, but fall.

Again, the point is not if you can make some racing game esports big. I believe you can.


The point is if that will bennefit simracing in any shape or form, as in, we get better games that are better representations of the real thing, as in, simracing genre suff as we know it now.

I believe you won't.

i make the comparison again with other genres. CS making it big didnt create a barrage of ultra realistic FPSs, quite the contrary.

Simracing is a niche akin to flightsims. or railway sims, or naval sims. Just because world of warships is popular, doesnt mean we are getting overrun by investiment money to create the next silent hunter.

Cote Dazur said:

I can think of a hundred reasons why not, that said, enjoy your trip and stay at Katowice, it is supposed to be lovely this time of the year.
Please also enjoy a preview, free of charge.
View attachment 633855.
From your other comments, if you don't seem to see the difference between this and attending a real race, I wish I could explain it to you, but I am afraid that it is not possible.

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Dude you are playing a really weird game right now. Trying to shame how and where people enjoy simracing because a LAN is not the real thing, while at the same time simracing, which is not the real thing.
I wish I could explain this to you.

PegaMixel said:

Highly, HIGHLY debatable.
I also wouldnt call any of this a "hostile take".

There is valid criticism to this subject in the same way that there is hype.

Experience shows that basically every simracing-related announcement is to be taken with a grain of salt, from simple things to full on disasters, from disappointments to full on vaporware.

So experience dictates what should be expected, thats natural. Without experience you might walk off a cliff one day and realise you can't fly like you hoped to, but fall.

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I went too far. I’m just not a fan of gatekeeping and whole „esports are dumb” energy I see in many. And you are 100% right to be sceptical. I am too. Not just because who funds it, but also because of how little do we know about Rennsport in general. Don’t ever think for one second that I’m their fanboy or whatever. It’s just the fact, that they have REALLY, REALLY BOLD idea, that might work. Who knows.

And I raise all of the fantastic licensed content we got in recent years. Most of it is one way or the other related to competetive simracing. Would BMW put so many cars in iRacing, rF2 and ACC if it wasn’t for their events and factory-supported teams? I don’t think so. There is hope. There is a lot to be worried about, sure. But there is hope.

krzysiek_aleks said:

I went too far. I’m just not a fan of gatekeeping and whole „esports are dumb” energy I see in many. And you are 100% right to be sceptical. I am too. Not just because who funds it, but also because of how little do we know about Rennsport in general. Don’t ever think for one second that I’m their fanboy or whatever. It’s just the fact, that they have REALLY, REALLY BOLD idea, that might work. Who knows.

And I raise all of the fantastic licensed content we got in recent years. Most of it is one way or the other related to competetive simracing. Would BMW put so many cars in iRacing, rF2 and ACC if it wasn’t for their events and factory-supported teams? I don’t think so. There is hope. There is a lot to be worried about, sure. But there is hope.

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The problem is content is nothing without proper games. The games we already have are already totally barebones, and next to useless in offline racing for example. Going all in esports is not going to improve that at all.

There is a reason why the F1 games and the WRC games are way better than our now so called "sims". And thats a total dedication to replicate the real thing, and even beyond, not making just something "esports ready".

Richard Wilks said:

The problem is content is nothing without proper games. The games we already have are already totally barebones, and next to useless in offline racing for example. Going all in esports is not going to improve that at all.

There is a reason why the F1 games and the WRC games are way better than our now so called "sims". And thats a total dedication to replicate the real thing, and even beyond, not making just something "esports ready".

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Keep spitting!!!

It's very tiring that many developers are targeting such a small and elite group of gamers while the rest of us get scraps in comparison. rFactor 2 had a huge focus on their eSports investments but didn't even get to fix their massive AI issue until very late into 2022!

It feels like the gatekeeping is going the other way with sim racing devs. You can't enjoy sim racing unless you're willing to deal with going online to potentially suffer from crashes, trolls and harassment when all some people want to do is get home from work and immerse themselves into their own little reality.

Richard Wilks said:

I dont necessarily disagree with anything you said here, except with the crucial point of what you are describing is NOT simracing.

What you are describing is making a racing game something big in eports. That is different from the simracing landscape for the last 25 years. Simracing has been all about simulating the real thing.

Like i said before, sure, everybody can learn the basic mechanics of racing, even in games like mario kart. Controling a car is ultimately a matter of motor coordinationg. But this is not what simracing is all about.

The best analogy i can make is with flight sims. Do people who play them want those to be big in esports? What would that accomplish to those who want to flight an exact replica, controls and all, of an SR-71?

This is the point where you decide if you want to go indeed all sim, or "casual". You mention GT, i love the franchise to bits, and i think "simcade" is a stupid word, but the truth is, GT is not simulating a real series. So in that sense, yes, it is a racing game, yes it is a sim physics wise... But is it an hardcore simulation, setups, practice sessions and all?...no.

This is the fundamental divide in this hobby right now. Some people want the hardcore flightsim. Others want CS&GO. Ultimately, this separation will happen, but even if a racing game becomes "big"in esports, it will never be one of the hardcore sims, of that i am sure, and you reinforce this by mentioning the "gatekeeping" and the "barriers" that equipment or setup knowledge represent.

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See, your definition of simracing is very arbitrary and personal. It is also VERY limiting, and plagues simracing to forever be limited by real life motorsport issues. If you go by pure definition, "simracing" is just, well, simulating racing. Not a specific series. Not even necessarily real life physics. Just simulate the act of racing.

The thing is simulation in general is not necessarily meant to replicate what already exists - it can, both for enjoyment, training and testing purposes. But it can be, and is in some fields, used to bypass restrictions, explore new ideas and innovate.

Taking your flight sims example, I think you'll find many people actually use those to do stupid things that would put them in jail or in a coffin in real life. Also, you mention the controls of a specific plane, which doesn't compare to a game simulating the format and regulations of an existing race series, but rather to someone owning the steering wheel replica of the car they're driving in-game - or if you didn't intend on talking about hardware, having buttons mapped to replicate similar functions.

Another thing is race series evolve in real life, so your game will quickly become obsolete unless it works as a live service - OR if it dives into esports. Because making your game suitable for esports just means you're gonna need to overlay a few tools on top of an existing, functional game. And those tools will actually make the base game better (unless you're Polyphony Digital and intentionally lock them away from your players, but they're the only ones to do that in the entire industry).

Now that you clarified what your definition of simracing is, I actually understand even less why you would be against esports or think it wouldn't be good for the hobby, because it's currently exactly what it's trying to do. But if simracing esports tries to become its own thing, it's going to grow further. It will still be replicating the idea of racing, and even if it's not replicating exactly an existing series, it will bring tools that would allow anyone to try and just do that on their own.

There is literally nothing to lose at a consumer level from having a good and developped esports scene in the genre. Nothing to lose from having an easier access point that can lead people into optional complexity if they find themselves interested in that side of things with enough time to dedicate. If ACC added fictional race cars with fixed setups and decided to launch an esport series running on fictional tracks, it would do nothing bad to you. You'd still have access to all the SRO things. But the game overall could end up being improved for everyone as the esports scene could push the devs to improve spectating or datalogging tools for instance. And the potential of simracing esports goes even beyong that, because synergies with motorsports could even help improve real life racing series in many passive or active ways.

so, what I'm getting from all this is Sony should release GT7 for PC?

Now that's sorted, what's the next hot topic?

GT-Alex said:

See, your definition of simracing is very arbitrary and personal. It is also VERY limiting, and plagues simracing to forever be limited by real life motorsport issues. If you go by pure definition, "simracing" is just, well, simulating racing. Not a specific series. Not even necessarily real life physics. Just simulate the act of racing.

The thing is simulation in general is not necessarily meant to replicate what already exists - it can, both for enjoyment, training and testing purposes. But it can be, and is in some fields, used to bypass restrictions, explore new ideas and innovate.

Taking your flight sims example, I think you'll find many people actually use those to do stupid things that would put them in jail or in a coffin in real life. Also, you mention the controls of a specific plane, which doesn't compare to a game simulating the format and regulations of an existing race series, but rather to someone owning the steering wheel replica of the car they're driving in-game - or if you didn't intend on talking about hardware, having buttons mapped to replicate similar functions.

Another thing is race series evolve in real life, so your game will quickly become obsolete unless it works as a live service - OR if it dives into esports. Because making your game suitable for esports just means you're gonna need to overlay a few tools on top of an existing, functional game. And those tools will actually make the base game better (unless you're Polyphony Digital and intentionally lock them away from your players, but they're the only ones to do that in the entire industry).

Now that you clarified what your definition of simracing is, I actually understand even less why you would be against esports or think it wouldn't be good for the hobby, because it's currently exactly what it's trying to do. But if simracing esports tries to become its own thing, it's going to grow further. It will still be replicating the idea of racing, and even if it's not replicating exactly an existing series, it will bring tools that would allow anyone to try and just do that on their own.

There is literally nothing to lose at a consumer level from having a good and developped esports scene in the genre. Nothing to lose from having an easier access point that can lead people into optional complexity if they find themselves interested in that side of things with enough time to dedicate. If ACC added fictional race cars with fixed setups and decided to launch an esport series running on fictional tracks, it would do nothing bad to you. You'd still have access to all the SRO things. But the game overall could end up being improved for everyone as the esports scene could push the devs to improve spectating or datalogging tools for instance. And the potential of simracing esports goes even beyong that, because synergies with motorsports could even help improve real life racing series in many passive or active ways.

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My definition has nothing of arbitrary or personal. This whole genre is predicated in simulating racing. As in REAL racing. There are all types of racing games, and always were. They existed before simracing. But they are NOT simracing. You search any article, any video about simracing history, and the same hardcore games that somewhat portray either a real racing series, or real cars are named.

If you are doing something with software that is NOT mimmicking reality, you are not simulating nothing. You are playing with a computer sandbox to your own amusement, hence, nobody even dares to say Counter strike is a proper firearms warfare simulator. It somewhat portrays a gamified version of the real thing.

Yes, i am all for having the buttons mapped, why not? We do have ignition, starter, all sorts of traction control and whatnot, anti roll bars, boosts, etc mapped. Yes this is akin to flight sims. People do silly things in assetto corsa too, that doesnt mean many people out there are not treating it seriously. You can crash the field in indycar racing 2 if you wish, but the focus of the developer wasnt in creating the next burnout, but in creating a realistic depiction of indycar racing. Thats the difference.

Care to elaborate what "features" are those that would make depicting for example F1 better? You mention spectator tools and datalogging. Those exist for a long time already in many games, and i don't see how those would make a simulator more immersive or more real, except in very very fringe cases.

F1 2022 works fine as an F1 simulator. It works vastly better than if it was an esports game, because the developers created a career mode, and actually bothered with all the necessary bells and whistles that help immersion and game replayability. You say the game becomes obsolete, but you are wrong, it's replayability is intact, something that doesnt exist in esports stuff, unless you want to play online all the time, which if you don't, makes the game completely useless.

I already explained why an esports scene would do nothing for the simracing genre. The games are already barebones now, they make no effort to appeal to the single player experience. That will get even worse with esports. Its not a matter of being "against it", its a matter of that has absolutly no interest to me and most simracers, either you like it or not.

Esports would also do absolutely nothing for real racing, because by your own ideas, esports should be its "own thing".

So no, me and many others don't care at all about "racing esports". History proves that they are totally alien to the sim genre as a whole, either be racing or other things. It might bring money to the players and those who make tools for it sure, but until you explain to me with actual examples, and not speculation how this is going to happen, you are not going to convince me, or anyone.

I think you need to check back what the verb "simulating" means and stop trying to impose your very personal and biased definition. In fact, simulators in general, not just racing simulators, have been created to simulate things that don't / didn't exist yet, to see how things would work if you happened to make them real. That's literally how F1 teams develop their new cars every year. Are you going to say F1 teams simulators are computer sandboxes for their own amusement ? Well, to be honest, the sandbox part is kind of accurate, because that's the whole original point of simulating stuff: creating.

Also, F1 22 is literally the most esports focused racing game currently on the market, the core of the game is literally built around F1 Esports, I know someone who worked on the freaking game. It's 100% an esports title. Career mode is basically just a copy paste job. And it does a lot of things that are not mimicking reality, like allowing you to use assists that don't exist in these cars, have all the cars run equalized specs and performances, and many other things you can twist away from reality.

As for the tools I mentionned, those are just examples, and them existing in some form doesn't mean they can't be improved upon. There are many ways in which esports driven innovation can improve the overall game's experience - and also the hardware side of things. To be fair, a lot of innovations don't need the competitive side to see the light, but it helps push those innovations, just like real life motorsports brought many safety features that are now so common on road cars they feel like they always existed.

Regarding esports, the critical thing is your echo chamber of a few thousands "hardcore" simracers don't matter. In addition to being a pretty neglectible number in the grand scheme of things, they're also existing customers who don't need to be convinced to join the hobby. The whole idea is to convince new people to join in and throw cash at it. It's a marketing tool first and foremost, that can be a drive for innovation as well. And there is a demand for that, vierwership of millions on some events proved it.

You or other people not caring about the esports side of things is completely fine. If all you do is solo, it's understandable why you'd think there's nothing it can bring to you. But racing AI will never bring you the thrill race car drivers feel when they compete. Online racing even in semi serious events will bring you that, make your heart beat to 130+ BPM, have your mind obsessed over strategies... Talk with any real life race car driver who also does online simracing / esports. They'll all tell you the inner feeling is the same. I've hosted events with real life drivers, including Esteban Ocon. I've teamed up with David Perel in an online race. Had a friend win GT Academy and race Le Mans.

Trust me, if you want to simulate the experience of what racing is, esports or community ran online series will be the closest thing you can ever have besides doing the actual thing. The F1 career mode you cite as an example is merely roleplay compared to that. And if that's what you want, it's fine. But you can't just call something "simracing" because it follows a calendar and throws some names at you. Those things are not needed, nor give you an accurate experience of racing.

I do agree that single player experience being neglected more and more is a shame, but that's just the general nature of the gaming industry nowadays, and simulation definitely isn't tied to single player experience. GT7 is a great example: it is absolutely not esport focused, as it lost many extremely useful features from GT Sport, but it doesn't prevent the career mode to be very poor. It is not a problem created by esports, and it has less to do with online getting more and more prominent than you'd think, and more with games just requiring much more time, workforce and talent than before to make (and regarding racing games, licensing).

For your own sanity, I'd suggest you to try finding a group of like minded people and have a go at online racing with a community, because esports or not, the single player aspect of racing games is probably not getting any better in the foreseeable future. With livery editors, and mods if you're on PC, you have all the tools to replicate real life racing series. Downside is it's not just plug and play and requires some planning, which you might not have time for.

Tostiman said:

Uhhhh, maybe finish the game first?

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Why can't it already be more complete than r......2

How do I have triple their subscriber count on YouTube?

Austin Ogonoski said:

How do I have triple their subscriber count on YouTube?

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Charming disposition?

There is something seriously odd about the synthetic, aggressive sim racing eSports push.

I had something written out, but this comparison is more apt even if the timeframe is wonky.

• Coca-Cola used to sponsor NHRA Drag Racing.
• NHRA Championship Drag racing is a real, live racing event.
• You can sell soda there, and literally everyone will buy at least 5 bottles because it's hot outside and sugar water is mildly nice to drink when it's hot out.
• In 2022, ~1,600,000 people watched Sunday Eliminations from Maple Grove on Fox.
• For drag racing to have 1.6 mil TV viewers, is pretty excellent.
• The event was also sold out. The sport is healthy!
• Gotcha! Coca-Cola decided successful live events and TV viewers measured in the millions, is actually not acceptable, and cancelled their NHRA sponsorship mid-season a few years back.
• Coca-Cola also sponsors iRacing NASCAR eSports.
• The 2022 NASCAR eSports season finale, has just 20,000 views on YouTube.
• This is apparently not a problem.

So real racing with a healthy audience of 1.6 million people on national television, plus a serious amount of people going to live events out in the hot sun and consuming their product by the truckloads, which you can visibly see filling the grandstands, is not worth their time or money.

Sim racing event with 20k views, many of which are bots, sign the multi-year, seven-figure deal right away!

Austin Ogonoski said:

• Coca-Cola also sponsors iRacing NASCAR eSports.

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You missed one, very important part. Coca-Cola is also one of the NASCAR's "premier partners". NASCAR as a whole.

(For those that don't know - from 2019 NASCAR doesn't have title sponsor for Cup Series, but instead deals with multiple companies that are "premier partners" and have prominent spots on track, in broadcasts etc.)

I know that doesn't sound as flashy and "interesting", but I would imagine, that during these talks NASCAR said to Coke, that they want to promote their esports division and are looking for someone to pay more than PEAK (their contract ended, surprise surprise, in 2019). Coke probably said "yes" and simply put some money they would put directly into NASCAR pockets into their eNASCAR championship.

Also, I don't know if this is just me or was it intentional, but you omitted one VERY, VEEEERY IMPORTANT PART of the NHRA thing. It's in the link you posted even!

Coke stopped sponsoring NHRA citing pandemic. If you look into more articles (like this one), you will see, that "Coca-Cola had already signalled in 2019 that it wanted out of the deal".

So, the timeline of the events.
2019 - Coke signed a deal to become one of the "premium partners" of NASCAR, then tries to get out of the NHRA deal
2020 - Coke becomes title sponsor of eNASCAR and when pandemic hits, economy has "problems", they use this as "get out of the jail" card with NHRA.

I'm sorry, but this just screams to me as trying to find conspiracy out of thin air.

GT-Alex said:

I think you need to check back what the verb "simulating" means and stop trying to impose your very personal and biased definition. In fact, simulators in general, not just racing simulators, have been created to simulate things that don't / didn't exist yet, to see how things would work if you happened to make them real. That's literally how F1 teams develop their new cars every year. Are you going to say F1 teams simulators are computer sandboxes for their own amusement ? Well, to be honest, the sandbox part is kind of accurate, because that's the whole original point of simulating stuff: creating.

Also, F1 22 is literally the most esports focused racing game currently on the market, the core of the game is literally built around F1 Esports, I know someone who worked on the freaking game. It's 100% an esports title. Career mode is basically just a copy paste job. And it does a lot of things that are not mimicking reality, like allowing you to use assists that don't exist in these cars, have all the cars run equalized specs and performances, and many other things you can twist away from reality.

As for the tools I mentionned, those are just examples, and them existing in some form doesn't mean they can't be improved upon. There are many ways in which esports driven innovation can improve the overall game's experience - and also the hardware side of things. To be fair, a lot of innovations don't need the competitive side to see the light, but it helps push those innovations, just like real life motorsports brought many safety features that are now so common on road cars they feel like they always existed.

Regarding esports, the critical thing is your echo chamber of a few thousands "hardcore" simracers don't matter. In addition to being a pretty neglectible number in the grand scheme of things, they're also existing customers who don't need to be convinced to join the hobby. The whole idea is to convince new people to join in and throw cash at it. It's a marketing tool first and foremost, that can be a drive for innovation as well. And there is a demand for that, vierwership of millions on some events proved it.

You or other people not caring about the esports side of things is completely fine. If all you do is solo, it's understandable why you'd think there's nothing it can bring to you. But racing AI will never bring you the thrill race car drivers feel when they compete. Online racing even in semi serious events will bring you that, make your heart beat to 130+ BPM, have your mind obsessed over strategies... Talk with any real life race car driver who also does online simracing / esports. They'll all tell you the inner feeling is the same. I've hosted events with real life drivers, including Esteban Ocon. I've teamed up with David Perel in an online race. Had a friend win GT Academy and race Le Mans.

Trust me, if you want to simulate the experience of what racing is, esports or community ran online series will be the closest thing you can ever have besides doing the actual thing. The F1 career mode you cite as an example is merely roleplay compared to that. And if that's what you want, it's fine. But you can't just call something "simracing" because it follows a calendar and throws some names at you. Those things are not needed, nor give you an accurate experience of racing.

I do agree that single player experience being neglected more and more is a shame, but that's just the general nature of the gaming industry nowadays, and simulation definitely isn't tied to single player experience. GT7 is a great example: it is absolutely not esport focused, as it lost many extremely useful features from GT Sport, but it doesn't prevent the career mode to be very poor. It is not a problem created by esports, and it has less to do with online getting more and more prominent than you'd think, and more with games just requiring much more time, workforce and talent than before to make (and regarding racing games, licensing).

For your own sanity, I'd suggest you to try finding a group of like minded people and have a go at online racing with a community, because esports or not, the single player aspect of racing games is probably not getting any better in the foreseeable future. With livery editors, and mods if you're on PC, you have all the tools to replicate real life racing series. Downside is it's not just plug and play and requires some planning, which you might not have time for.

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Your whole wall of text reeks of condescending and desperation.


Stop telling me what i should do or what my words actually mean, you don't know me at all.

I am starting to think you are either affiliated with this event, or with rennsport in some capacity. Either that, or you are an early fanboy, because nobody in their right minds would be so agressive defending a strategy or a game that doesnt even happened it.

I think is YOU who are on the wrong place. RaceDepartment is full of "like minded" people such as myself, who enjoy our simulations in the true sense of the word, thank you very much.

I already wasted way too much time replying to you, if you have any doubts, read what i said again, and please, don't give me crap like "f1 22 is the most esports ready game out there", i am really not in the mood for gaslighting today.

Oh and their strategy is going so well, and attracting so much interest, that most of this thread is just a handfull of people debating the merits of esports...

And by the way, you do know that private leagues are a thing since over 20 years, in case i feel like racing against real people right? I don't need esports for that.

Richard Wilks said:

Your whole wall of text reeks of condescending and desperation.


Stop telling me what i should do or what my words actually mean, you don't know me at all.

I am starting to think you are either affiliated with this event, or with rennsport in some capacity. Either that, or you are an early fanboy, because nobody in their right minds would be so agressive defending a strategy or a game that doesnt even happened it.

I think is YOU who are on the wrong place. RaceDepartment is full of "like minded" people such as myself, who enjoy our simulations in the true sense of the word, thank you very much.

I already wasted way too much time replying to you, if you have any doubts, read what i said again, and please, don't give me crap like "f1 22 is the most esports ready game out there", i am really not in the mood for gaslighting today.

Oh and their strategy is going so well, and attracting so much interest, that most of this thread is just a handfull of people debating the merits of esports...

And by the way, you do know that private leagues are a thing since over 20 years, in case i feel like racing against real people right? I don't need esports for that.

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Each article gets thousands of views here, and racedepartment has nearly 3 millions users. A dozen of people commenting is hardly any representation of the global community. Truth is the majority are here for mods.

By the way, I am not affiliated with these companies, I do run pro events though (with proper stewarding before you mention the last thing I published) and I know people working in the industry, be it simracing or gaming in general. I am kinda defending my "product" here I guess, but that's because I think there's a genuine potential for all parties involved. Esports as a whole (esports is NOT just simracing) is several events reaching over a million PEAK viewers in 2022, more than half a billion viewers gross reach over the year, and it's a billions $ industry. Just an example that is directly related to this thread: FaZe Clan is valued at approximately 400 million $ right now. You don't reach that kind of value in a field nobody is interested in. Just as much as you don't generate that much value by catering to a niche market.

The only reason simracing is not getting a decent share is because current efforts from companies with the means to bring it up are half assed, and competent people are not getting proper funds and channels yet. ESL R1 could change that - I'm not saying it will, I'm not saying it's perfect, but at least it's a step in the right direction. And again, simracing NEEDS that step, or it will DIE, because the investments into racing games in general are decreasing. EA has gave up on licenses it just bought. Sony are very unhappy with how GT7 performed. MSG are just Houdiniying cash at this point to try justifying their existence on the market. Ian Bell has burned so many bridges I will be actually surprized if anything good comes from him anymore (I wish to be pleasantly surprized though).


It is evident that you'll probably keep your head dug in your echo chamber so I'm just gonna wish you good luck for the future.