NASCAR 21: Ignition Releases in 10 Days to High Expectations from Fans

NASCAR 21 Ignition Coming Soon 01.jpg
With just over one week to go until NASCAR 21: Ignition is released, there is optimism in the NASCAR community based on what Motorsport Games has revealed so far about the upcoming title.

A few months ago, when it seemed like Motorsport Games had a major announcement every few days, one of the biggest pieces on news surrounding the game developer and publisher was the reveal of NASCAR 21: Ignition. The concept of a racing title using the Unreal 4 engine for visuals and rFactor’s physics engine for the driving experience seems like a sim racer’s dream come true.

The title focuses on the NASCAR Cup Series, and Motorsport Games has been deliberate in distancing themselves from the NASCAR Heat game series. The Heat series had developed a reputation for underwhelming fans of NASCAR, and the hope is that Ignition represents a rebirth of the official title of one of the most popular auto racing series in the world.


Reception of the subsequent game teasers and trailers on the official Motorsport Games YouTube channel has been overwhelmingly positive, with each receiving 95% or more likes. The team has also given the public a few peaks behind the curtain as far as the development of the cars and tracks, and an introduction to some of the members of the development team.

NASCAR 21: Ignition was even playable for NASCAR event attendees recently. Motorsport Games brought the game to select races in recent months for fans to try. While some cell phone footage shot at the live demos has popped up on YouTube, it’s difficult to say whether the title will live up to its potential. Questions have been raised about the level of customization possible in Ignition, and some footage seems to hint at flaws in the AI. But, with the full game not yet shown and many post-release updates surely still to come, there is optimism in the community that NASCAR 21: Ignition will be the game fans have been waiting for.

NASCAR 21 Ignition Coming Soon 02.jpg


NASCAR 21: Ignition is scheduled for release on the 28th of October on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Be sure to check back with RaceDepartment for a full review shortly after release. Let us know what your expectations are for this title in the comments 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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T
Austin Ogonoski said:
I think ppl are giving me too much credit.

I anticipated a straight re-skin of rFactor 2, as if they merely purchased the rights to the engine, slapped in cup cars and the current roster of circuits as a modder would on the steam workshop, and call it a day.

Nobody expected this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1450620834423484421
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In their defense they played RF2 and saw how the AI work/passed off as complete and thought **** it, that will do
 
Michael Hornbuckle
Anybody that thought this game was going to be a full on simulator, much less an iracing competitor, is a bit delusional. On its best day this title was (and in the future will be) nothing more than shovelware aimed squarely at preteens.
Using rf2 as the physics base gave the team a way to make the cars get around with track in a realistic appearing manner with far less actual work involved compared to creating a physics engine/tire model from scratch. Ditto for using UE4 as the graphics engine, far less work to plug that in rather than building a graphics engine from scratch.

Buying prebuilt physics, graphics, and audio engines and then cobbling them together while using custom assets seems to be the textbook formula for creating games nowadays. Sadly it is pretty much a given fact that using this formula will result in a barely functioning product released for sale on day 1, especially when a hard end date for release is set at the very beginning of the process. Most adult gamers know all of this and still buy the product and then hold out hope that future updates eventually correct all the issues. Most children gamers simply don't care and seemingly get as much satisfaction out of shitposting a junk game their parents bought them as playing a good one. This is the working formula for 'printing money' for game studios so it isn't likely to change any time soon.

All that being said, even if this game released in a nearly flawless state, $60-$90 for a Nascar game that only features the Cup series is a rip-off.
 
RyokoMaruyama
The only thing I don't like about this game is that it gives too much ammo to iRacing fanboys. Other than that this game is way too hilarious.
 
Austin Ogonoski
"We share your passion and would like to hear from you!"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1450966977569300482

Trying to gaslight customers into paying to beta test what is a fundamentally broken product that shouldn't have been shipped. What an utter disaster. Keep in mind the game isn't even out yet but the few content creators who have gotten to test it have run into such an enormous amount of bugs that hardly any are even trying to play the game properly.

Hope people start covering this accordingly. Right up there with WWE 2K20 and NBA Elite 11.

People are making comparisons to Cyberpunk but honestly Cyberpunk just crashed a lot; when it worked it was a very average open world RPG. This is the kind of title that gets pulled from stores.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1450880819862585350
 
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JocelynTurmel
Wayne Hutchison
NASCAR 21: Ignition redefines the official video game of the world’s most popular stock car racing series.

Seems they have been successful in "redefining" the genre. Good on them. :)
 
Austin Ogonoski
Wayne Hutchison said:
NASCAR 21: Ignition redefines the official video game of the world’s most popular stock car racing series.

Seems they have been successful in "redefining" the genre. Good on them. :)
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Most of the NASCAR eSports guys grew up playing both the Heat and EA Sports line of console games. In particular NASCAR 09 had several competitive leagues on it before iRacing really took off because it wasn't the worst platform and had a lot of functionalities that custom lobby guys needed. The only reason there was a mass migration to iRacing was because the quality of the console games dropped off significantly since 2011, not because they deemed the games arcade/simcade.

In fact there were a number of iRacers competing in the NASCAR Heat Pro series. Brian Tedeschi and Justin Brooks both come to mind. iRacing can get really toxic really fast and there's always been a desire to have a more mass-market NASCAR game that people can immerse themselves in to blow off steam or grind through a career mode of some sorts.
 
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Wayne Hutchison
Austin Ogonoski said:
Most of the NASCAR eSports guys grew up playing both the Heat and EA Sports line of console games. In particular NASCAR 09 had several competitive leagues on it before iRacing really took off because it wasn't the worst platform and had a lot of functionalities that custom lobby guys needed. The only reason there was a mass migration to iRacing was because the quality of the console games dropped off significantly since 2011, not because they deemed the games arcade/simcade.

In fact there were a number of iRacers competing in the NASCAR Heat Pro series. Brian Tedeschi and Justin Brooks both come to mind. iRacing can get really toxic really fast and there's always been a desire to have a more mass-market NASCAR game that people can immerse themselves in to blow off steam or grind through a career mode of some sorts.
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I hear this comment about iR "toxicity" all the time on forums outside of iR but have never actually experienced it in 8 years on the sim. I'm sure it must be there somewhere but I suspect it's way overblown. Neither here nor there though, in respect to Ignition 21 - in this case it appears to be the sim itself that is "toxic" :)
 
Austin Ogonoski
Wayne Hutchison said:
I hear this comment about iR "toxicity" all the time on forums outside of iR but have never actually experienced it in 8 years on the sim. I'm sure it must be there somewhere but I suspect it's way overblown. Neither here nor there though, in respect to Ignition 21 - in this case it appears to be the sim itself that is "toxic" :)
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Any sort of oval race with an SOF above 3000 results in people just arguing about who wrecked who for the entire race.

Road racing is generally fine.
 
P
Thanks @Austin Ogonoski for the links to the tweets - I've never used twitter so it's nice to see these comments ;)

One thing that interested me during reading those tweets was, the user 'GOWEN' i believe uploaded a clip of the car driving into the garage area...
Now, whether that is an actual feature is unknown; but the amount of people stating they were going to purchase the game just because of that staggered me!.

Again, the key issue is, nobody (not even the developers) have confirmed this IS a feature, so it's more likely a bug...yet people are going to purchase the game without knowing the details!....Why??? Are people really that gullible?

Additionally, i have been reading statements about iRacing etc...
iRacing is (at this moment in time anyway) the best Nascar 'simulation' available and to be quite honest, i think it's going to stay that way for many years to come.

I'd love to get back on iRacing i really would but, i just don't agree with paying a monthly/yearly fee over and over again just for the pleasure; not that i can't afford it, i just refuse to do so on principle, and until the userbase reduces to a substantial amount, they're not going to change their policies.

For instance, i was going to re-subscribe due to the addition of the A.I. single player element - Thing is, then why should one have to pay over and over again for that feature? I think they should have a separate system.

Anyway...i digress

Whether this new Nascar game succeeds is anyone's guess at this moment. What is going to be interesting is what Motorsport Games does in the next month to sort out this monumental failure.
 
Bram Hengeveld
Staff
Premium
PAWANH said:
I'd love to get back on iRacing i really would but, i just don't agree with paying a monthly/yearly fee over and over again just for the pleasure; not that i can't afford it, i just refuse to do so on principle, and until the userbase reduces to a substantial amount, they're not going to change their policies.
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I assume you pay a monthly fee for Nexflix, your ISP, your energy provider, landlord or any other real life service? What they all do is offering you a product each month and next to that you pay for the service that comes with it.

You can debate the amount of the monthly iracing fee of course but you can't expect a company to work for free because you refuse to pay for their online infrastructure service out of principle. Sorry but that makes absolutely no sense at all.

By now it should be clear to everybody that you are not paying only for the cars and tracks, you are paying for the amazing online platfrom they have built for their sim and after building our own simracing.gp multi-game platform I am completely aware of the costs that come with it.

Servers don't run for free, developers don't work for free, communities don't run for free, download bandwith like the 230 Terabyte we put out here on RD every month isn't for free.

The argument that I often hear as well: yeah, but we dont have to pay for the online races in other games either so why should i pay for iracing. Is that true now? Who pays for those 1000s of servers in online lobbies? Communities do! Real people, with real costs. Add all those costs per month to a grand total and you will be shocked what a massive amount of money some people in this community burn to facilitate the beloved online racing hobby for others every day of the year.

When it comes to supporting online platforms and communities: be generous, it really helps.
 
M
Bram Hengeveld said:
I assume you pay a monthly fee for Nexflix, your ISP, your energy provider, landlord or any other real life service? What they all do is offering you a product each month and next to that you pay for the service that comes with it.

You can debate the amount of the monthly iracing fee of course but you can't expect a company to work for free because you refuse to pay for their online infrastructure service out of principle. Sorry but that makes absolutely no sense at all.

By now it should be clear to everybody that you are not paying only for the cars and tracks, you are paying for the amazing online platfrom they have built for their sim and after building our own simracing.gp multi-game platform I am completely aware of the costs that come with it.

Servers don't run for free, developers don't work for free, communities don't run for free, download bandwith like the 230 Terabyte we put out here on RD every month isn't for free.

The argument that I often hear as well: yeah, but we dont have to pay for the online races in other games either so why should i pay for iracing. Is that true now? Who pays for those 1000s of servers in online lobbies? Communities do! Real people, with real costs. Add all those costs per month to a grand total and you will be shocked what a massive amount of money some people in this community burn to facilitate the beloved online racing hobby for others every day of the year.

When it comes to supporting online platforms and communities: be generous, it really helps.
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I think you are making a very much correct general point, however (and I am an iracing subscriber) what make s the iracing approach a rip off is the fact that without subscription (which is usually expensive) you can't play even single player out of their servers. You lose access to all the things that you have already paid for.
And plus, the cost of the single car and track is really outrageous for the quality they deliver compared to other sims with much less footprint: the cost of licensing a car or a track according to developers is of the same magnitude than the work necessary to implement them. So how comes a DLC with three tracks and three cars in AMS2 costs just as much as a single car in iracing which often has even worse sound and a single track (often with no historic versions or alternate layout available). If anything the quality of tracks and cars in ACC, AMS2 are miles better than iracing. What drives those costs off the roof when they license the same car or track? Iracing sells many more copies of those than ACC or AMS2 for instance, so the fixed cost of license should make the unit price go down, yet it doesn't happen that way.
Should we discuss the often submerged policy of iracing to nerf or push cars based on their selling market? They launch a car and they make it op. Everyone buys it and then next season the make the old Ford GT that no one bought in the past two years suddenly op. Everyone buys that and then they keep going.
I think these "marketing" choices are what make the people annoyed with iracing costs.
 
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Bram Hengeveld
Staff
Premium
MadDriver11 said:
I think you are making a very much correct general point, however (and I am an iracing subscriber) what make s the iracing approach a rip off is the fact that without subscription (which is usually expensive) you can't play even single player out of their servers. You lose access to all the things that you have already paid for.
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That's the part I totally agree with. In an ideal world you would just pay a monthly fee like you do on Netflix and you can use all the available content for the duration of your subscription. But I am sure somebody has done the math that if you apply the Netflix model to a really tiny niche such as simracing you can't make any profit.
 
Bram Hengeveld
Staff
Premium
MadDriver11 said:
So how comes a DLC with three tracks and three cars in AMS2 costs just as much as a single car in iracing
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Shooting from the hip here as I don't know the team size of both companies but I can imagine an American based company like iRacing have alot more folks employed than a compact development team like Reiza who's members work mostly remote or from Brazil. Again, no facts here, just taking a guess.
 
AngryWolfCorey
Bram Hengeveld said:
That's the part I totally agree with. In an ideal world you would just pay a monthly fee like you do on Netflix and you can use all the available content for the duration of your subscription. But I am sure somebody has done the math that if you apply the Netflix model to a really tiny niche such as simracing you can't make any profit.
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Especially when the Netflix model rarely turns an actual profit w/o the corporate account reporting games, took years to make any profit & still relies heavily on politically connected investor money (the Obamas & George Soros bought major stakes in it around 2018ish, e.g.).

That's part of the reason companies "don't listen to users" anymore. Tech is usually about new money, b/c humans have this dumb trait of thinking new automatically means better, especially in tech. But to the point, digital tech usually chases "new money." We see this in the LiDAR world. New tech & new problems usually gets money easier than existing tech or existing problems.
 
AngryWolfCorey
The biggest issue with programming a NASCAR game is their points system amirite... Have to hire an accountant or actuary to figure out race points sometimes wocka wocka
 
T
It's very wierd to see people who expected this to be a Nascar sim or people who expected a perfect product. It's a game aimed at the Codies F1 series crowd. And for the people who think that we elitist simers are at the better end, I think those people are bit delusional and to some extend naive. From the current selection of actively developed sims there are two - yes you read that right - that have somewhat implemented some form of oval racing. The rest is like trying some pretend oval racing but in fact it's not really the same thing. People having a lough about underdeveloped games where AI cars are flying through the air should maybe take off their rose tinted glasses and check out the fantastic AI in "proper" sims like iRacing, AC, rF2, AMS2, PC1/2 our our beloved GTR2. I would be lying if I said that I haven't seen cars flying through the air in all those games. And we still consider them as great.

And then we have a very trustable person in this threat writing walls of texts and forming opinions about other people based on their CV, a person who worked for a sim company that managed to create underdeveloped products with issues that a Brazilian developer is trying to fix right now. Get off your high horses guys and relax. It's just a game and I think it'll end up as any other racing game once a few patches are applied. Maybe just search for F1 2021 glitches on YT and you will realize that this Nascar game isn't any different to what the gaming industry is producing since years, while quite a few people are willed to spend their money despite knowing it better.
 
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