Open Letter to Sim Developers - Why the Lack of Touring Cars in Sim Racing?

[Paul Jeffrey]

GT3 Endurance racing seems to be all the rage in sim racing at the moment, but I’d like to know why touring cars constantly get overlooked in our wonderful hobby.

FIA WTCR, British Touring Cars, V8 Supercars, TCR Europe... the list is practically endless when thinking about a high quality, diverse and entertaining touring car series currently active (or even historic - think Super Touring Cars of the mid 1990's) in real world Motorsport. Usually containing a nice mix of brands, different drivetrain configurations and almost always close racing, I’ve often thought that touring cars are a perfect candidate for sim racing developers to create accessible and entertaining content that produces close and hard racing for fans of all different experience levels. The question is, why is this category of racing so often overlooked when content releases and new sim racing games are developed?

Sector3 Studios and their RaceRoom Racing Experience title have done a commendable job of keeping some touring car content in the mainstream, with the various WTCC car packs, DTM and of course the new and upcoming WTCR collection for the simulation, but no one has yet gone the whole hog in the modern era and produced the cars, tracks and regulations of a full series - despite the obvious advantages this could bring to a sim racing environment.

Think back to the epic races here at RD in the old Race07 series, a game that despite being over a decade old is still actively used by sim racing communities the world over and receives a steady stream of new mods on a semi regular basis... which goes to show that an appetite for tin top tourers remains as strong as ever.

So with that said, why no serious efforts to fully replicate a modern tin top series in sim racing? Go on, you know you want to....


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Would you like to see more touring car content in sim racing? Are you ready for a new, dedicated touring car simulation? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Andreas Knöpke]

EASY: before TCR the touring car world was virtually dead for a decade. Nobody watched WTTC etc.

Honestly, this thread is weird and makes no sense.

 

[Sigmar Bomar]

If I remember correctly then iRacing tried to approach some teams but they did not want to share any data. Edit - this was regarding BTCC I think.

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

EASY: before TCR the touring car world was virtually dead for a decade. Nobody watched WTTC etc.

Honestly, this thread is weird and makes no sense.

​

Touring cars dead?

BTCC? DTM? V8 Supercars?

Or classics like:

Super Touring Cars, old school DTM etc?

Touring cars are king! Long live touring cars!

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

Oh boy, I remember the previous open letter.

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Hahaha this one is a little more friendly Mr. F, so worry not

 

[Will Mazeo]

Because in a business many times you need to go for what sells more, and if not F1 it will be GT3.
And I also heard some of these touring car licenses are ridiculous expensive

 

[Anindo]

DTM-cars are pure prototypes with no resemblance of any real cars under the hood. In pCars 2 there are enough touring-car classes with a decent field like Group 5, GT1, GT4, GTO, TC, Super Trofeo plus the vintage-classes.

 

[Lorenzo Bonder]

Oh boy, I remember the previous open letter.

Twas firah.

Anyway, why?

Simple.
Cost to benefit is just not there to the mainstream media.

WTCR? Nah.
DTM? Nah.
BTCC? Nah

SuperGT? ABSOLUTELY YES, WHY ANY DEVELOPER STILL HAVEN'T INVESTED FULLY IN THIS IN THIS IDKW.
Just kidding. Nah.

Make sure WTCR hits popular mainstream media and maybe you captalize on something. Or wait for the SGT + DTM merge in 2020/2021 for maybe the game we all been waiting for.

 

[ChaosZeroJK]

Modders have, you've just been living under a rock all this time.

 

[Brownninja97]

Because to the masses they arent major selling points, at least pre TCR. You never see a civic on a front cover, you see porsches, ferraris, lambos.......lada?

Licenses arent cheap, games are damn expensive so they need a good return on investment, supercars is the easiest way to do that, hatch backs are things most people can afford so it doesnt have that euphoria factor of experiencing a car you may never be able to experience in reality.

Put it this way, throw 100 average people in a room and give them the choice to drive a 2018 Honda NSX GT500 or a Honda Civic TCR. They will gravitate to the more expensive one, the more insane looking one and the one they are least likely to own.

They might be fun but they dont attract the masses and ultimately there is a lot of money to be gained from the masses.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Modding will rarely have the same quality as default content, even in cars that it's easier to get data like GT3.

 

[Epistolarius]

Doesn't RaceRoom pretty much have exclusive licences or at least partnerships in that regard (WTCC, modern DTM and soon WTCR)? If they don't want to reproduce the full series then tough luck.

Also, same old: V8 Supercars, DTM, stock car series are now racing silhouettes, prototypes, not production-based touring cars. I don't call them touring car racing.

 

[NDG]

AFAIR, Atleast there were attempts from modders to make many of these cars, AC, and RF2. I tried to race them but IDK what's missing, I find them hard to enjoy. Noisy engines (pipes?) but slow cars. Very little participation compared to GT3, or similar cars and other open wheelers. I see you, the one saying living under a rock... But that maybe the case for most people globally, if what they offer on cable TV are Moto GP, F1, GT3 and Rally racing. BTCC, V8SC and other similar series are local delicacies IMO. Very hard to enjoy in a SIM/GAME with a racer half a world away who don't know what thay are driving.

 

[Raikku]

Touring cars would be needed badly. Of course we have RRE which has WTCC's and soon WTCR's but still official BTCC, V8's etc are missing. Really can't understand what ie. BTCC dudes hope to achieve when they overprice possibility to scan/bringing these cars to some racing sims.

Of course stupid common ppl know only F1 and rally, but why it should hinder racing sim makers. Let stupid ppl be stupid, you can't do anything to it.

 

[Patrick van der Meulen]

GT3 is a recognizable class of cars. More or less the same rules through various series. But when it comes to (national) touringcar classes regulations are all over the place. TCR brought some standardization, but there are still (very) many differences between different touringcar classes.

Something like TOCA back in the days, based on the BTCC, is nowadays too much of a niche when focused on a single series. Except GT3 class and above. Back then it was unique and didn’t had that much competition in tin top racing.

I think a single game solely based on one touringcar championship is way too big of a financial risk for developers. As a part of a game it’s more sustainable. Though I personally would welcome it. A good and proper simulation of a touringcar class with full regulation and all up to current standards in physics and graphics.

But other than DLC’s and MOD’s for current games, I don’t see that happening. On one hand unfortunately, on the other hand from economical standpoint logical. That what’s popular will always be the thing which gets most of the attention from developers. In the end they want to earn a reasonable decent living.

 

[snyperal]

Because it's not electric.

 

[Ryno917]

...but no one has yet gone the whole hog in the modern era and produced the cars, tracks and regulations of a full series

... That's true of literally every form of racing except F1. There is not one single modern racing sim that represents any other form of professional 4-wheeled motorsport accurately in anything other than the cars themselves. If there were such a touring car game in the modern era it wouldn't be putting them on par, it would be elevating them above every other racing category in that regard.

ACC will be changing that, with the full Blancpain GT series, but that isn't out yet and it's the first sim in over a decade to do so for anything other than F1.

Of course, Touring Cars are under-represented in sims in general, still, but I felt it prudent to point this out anyways

 

[Isaac Chavira]

Twas firah.
SuperGT? ABSOLUTELY YES, WHY ANY DEVELOPER STILL HAVEN'T INVESTED FULLY IN THIS IN THIS IDKW.

I can't fathom it either. I would love to see the GT300 and GT500 classes in Raceroom. And it looks like RRE3 is going for TCR in December. Remember the Audi A3 TCR? Maybe if we all actually e-mail Sector 3 Studios and expressing our love for the Super GT they may actually consider it.

I just wish they'd actually ask the community the question as a poll or something. I'd love to bang around Sazuka in my Raybrig NSX again. And include classic content from like '98 or '99 or something.

 

[Tim Ling]

IIRC, the BTCC license is still owned by the Codies, good luck getting to do anything except F1