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

[davoroni]

Touring cars in sims have the problems- but looking and driving the same isn't so true. the best example of driving difference and feel is still TOCA, if we get an official TOCA supertouring grid in say Iracing i bet the easy of driving them- attract people- but not mastery driving them fast this i strong competition, they can sound terrific and varied based on engine type.
Iracing should have a TCR or BTCC class i totally agree.
the Kia is dreadful to drive, i have had good drive with it, and horrible understeering experiences, it is just a terrible car, i cna't believe it is real.

VW Jetta diesel thing is a fantastic racer, it understeers a bit, but can seriously create intense close battles on the less then top tier levels racers, a huge range of skill can use this well, the masters pull away by a second, but this is a great car that should be free and promoted for racecraft/ driving line learning and conservation of momentum, you can over cook, oversteer this thing and understeer into disaster it really deserve a good look. around mosport and limerock this thing can keep up with all but the best mustangs. it is also a draft master.

thing is it is slow, sounds slow and terrible. now BTCC would be welcome.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Current TCR competition have at least 11 different manufacturers represented, which is more than current GT3 cars. It's not about numbers, it's about popularity.

I think there is like 14 current gen GT3 homologated for international competitions nowadays and some others that can run in national ones like Radical, RS01, etc

 

[muzikant]

Take a look on Srmz the grandprix legends community... there is a lot of people like the old days cars tracks...after 20 years this forum is still alive!! And that says everything!!!! Gtr2 have the power and glory mod.. real good stuff!! I am sure about my opinion. How are gamedevelopers so sure that it will not work?

A lot of people like to driving the brabham in rfactor2 on the old spa track from the 60’s

 

[Ryno917]

Take a look on Srmz the grandprix legends community... there is a lot of people like the old days cars tracks...after 20 years this forum is still alive!! And that says everything!!!! Gtr2 have the power and glory mod.. real good stuff!! I am sure about my opinion. How are gamedevelopers so sure that it will not work?

SRMZ is an echo chamber. Of course everyone in there loves historic content, that's why they're there. Doesn't change the fact that it's one small community - and by game sales standards, it's not even a blip on the radar.

Don't get me wrong, I love historic content, too, but I'm under no illusion that it would make for a commercially viable sim. Developing games is massively expensive. You need big sales to turn a profit, and a historic sim just simply isn't going to do that.

 

[anthony monteil]

Ryno 917 said it all. The publisher is the decider here, developers can suggest but they mostly execute.
I have a lot of historic game concepts in my mind, and maybe some of them could achieve some respectable sales on a simulation software scale, but we need to face the truth: this is way insufficient to make it a commercial success.
This is pretty much what motivated the modding scene until now, filling the content that the developers couldn't add themselve

 

[ChaosZeroJK]

I think there is like 14 current gen GT3 homologated for international competitions nowadays and some others that can run in national ones like Radical, RS01, etc

https://www.blancpain-gt-series.com...st-with-50-cars-representing-11-manufacturers

 

[Will Mazeo]

https://www.blancpain-gt-series.com...st-with-50-cars-representing-11-manufacturers

This is the entry list for one event, does not represent the current gen of cars available to race.

Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3
Aston Martin Vantage
Chevrolet Camaro GT3
Bentley Continental GT3
McLaren 650S GT3
Audi R8 LMS
Lamborghini Huracán GT3
Porsche 911 GT3 R
Mercedes AMG GT3
BMW M6 GT3
Ferrari 488 GT3
Corvette Callaway C7 GT3-R
Toyota Lexus RC F GT3
Honda Acura NSX GT3

That only is the global cars. And some older specs are still homologated

 

[Shaun Clarke]

@Ghoults ok granted might not be your cup of tea, but don't sound great?? Come on

This was 2015, but I was there this year as well, but video struggling to upload to YT

 

[muzikant]

SRMZ is an echo chamber. Of course everyone in there loves historic content, that's why they're there. Doesn't change the fact that it's one small community - and by game sales standards, it's not even a blip on the radar.

Don't get me wrong, I love historic content, too, but I'm under no illusion that it would make for a commercially viable sim. Developing games is massively expensive. You need big sales to turn a profit, and a historic sim just simply isn't going to do that.

Hmmmm and why love everybody Senna..??
Formule 1 in the 80`s

They never.. never try it... so you can say that it does not work

 

[David Wright]

Don't get me wrong, I love historic content, too, but I'm under no illusion that it would make for a commercially viable sim. Developing games is massively expensive. You need big sales to turn a profit, and a historic sim just simply isn't going to do that.

I think if you cut your cloth to suit your budget, then it could be viable. You would have to choose your historic racing series carefully. Historic GT and Touring cars would seem to be more popular than historic F1. While GT Legends did not sell as well as GTR2, sales were nevertheless very respectable. I would guess the licensing costs were low (who had heard of the FIA Historic Championship prior to GTL?) and by modelling specific individual cars it seems they got around issues with Ferrari and Porsche (though licensing may have tightened up since then). GTL also saved costs by using many tracks that would be needed for GTR2 and so only required four GTL-exclusive tracks.

Its difficult to know for sure. The market has largely moved on from the focused single championship racing sim. You can see by the reaction to ACC how many newer racing sim fans can't comprehend the concept. But if ACC proves to be a sales success then maybe there is the possibility of a GTL2 one day.

 

[muzikant]

And about srmz maybe now is a echo chamber.... but finaly the 15 years after papyrus game it was not. now the time with VR agree.. GPL is still to old now.

Maybe we can do a poll... Paul Jefrey here on Racedepartment if there is realy no interest??

 

[Ryan Soucy]

I don't think that the TCR boom is going to result in a bigger investment in touring cars by devs. These cars might be cheap for teams but they absolutely got no soul compared to other touring car classes. The WTCC should never have changed to TC1 regulations...

I like watching the BTCC here in the states, but when I saw them re-running the WTCR race from Zandvoort I watched. OMG are those cars slow. They are visibly so feeble. I can look past that if there's a decent fight at the front, but the races were kind of boring. At least with the BTCC, those are some fast tourers, when they have an incident, they're usually huge. But the cars are pretty strong, too.

 

[Mickdrs]

Would love a new version Toca2. Well maybe it will be posible with the moders out there, at least at the moment we have a great Nissan Primera by Patrik Marek for AC , thats a start

 

[Vanaja]

I love old GTL class -60 -70 cars, and Touring car legends -80.

 

[Jugulador]

I believe that, for gameplay sake, GT cars are more interesting and popular. Gamers tend to have preference for more high-end performance cars, and the actual GT are accessible enough. It's not like 10 years ago, like when GTR was launched, that the GT cars are not so easy to drive like the ones in Assetto Corsa. Because of that RACE07 became so popular with online players... the WTCC had much more easy to drive (and to master) cars.

What amazes me is the lack of focus on open-wheel cars. I'm not talking about F1 and high end categories, but the entry and mid-level ones. OWs are, by far, much more suitable for race (and fun, but it's personal).

PS: Not all touring race cars are accessible... one thing is WTCC (that is my personal reference) and another is Aus V8 or even Brazilian Stock Car.

 

[Isaac Chavira]

These are the remaining cars I'd love to see in the GT3. Taken from a few posts up.

• '18 Aston Martin Vantage
• '18 Lamborghini Huracán GT3
• '18 Ferrari 488 GT3
• '18 Toyota Lexus RC F GT3
• '18 Honda Acura NSX GT3

I bet the licensing for each on is $10M each though. Which is why we may never see them in R3E.

But I digress.....

I am totally on board with the TCR in R3E. I wish they would let us be able to change our race numbers though.

 

[Ghoults]

@Ghoults ok granted might not be your cup of tea, but don't sound great?? Come on

This was 2015, but I was there this year as well, but video struggling to upload to YT

I don't want to argue but I really meant the car sound in the cockpit. Also a great sound is something like a mazda 787b, v12 ferraris, v8 nascars, the brm H16, the flatsix porsches, the drift cars that shoot flames with their 2jzs, 13Bs and lses with great sound track. Those are great. Turbo civic touring car are not great.

I mean it is matter of taste. I have my own opinion, you have yours. Like I said in my post the best part of the fwd touring cars is the racing. I even did some online races in the japanese k cars (600kg, 60hp, fwd) in gran turismos and it was great fun. The cars are totally boring on their own but in a race it is almost impossible to have a bad race.

 

[larre90]

... And I still do not like touring cars, because I am one of these very minority-guys, who are always hoping for a real official lower-class-open-wheel-license like the F3 and/or F2 ...

You guys are praying for your favourited classes for years now?
Well, we are praying for decades, now...
And now, look, whos been favoured by developers and modders as well...

 

[Tim Meuris]

Awesome topic imo.
I was so glad kunos was gonna do a full series. Sad it had to be GT3 cars (but understandable). I would give my leftnut if they would make a tcr europe series for example. Man, I would drive nothing else but that civic and would forget GT3 even existed. The only developper with really interesting licenses is RRE nowadays. I remember the race07 days. Full grids and close but accessible racing.
Nowadays everyone is craving for those Gt3 cars for some reason. But many can't complete a single lap without crashing these cars. I did an awesome porschecup league in ac: however the latter half of the field was constantly spinning out and crashing. For the majority of the simracers the accessability of touring cars suits better with their skillevel of racing. I also liked those 'exotic' GT3cars, when I was twelve. Today I get more a kick out of driving the racespec of the car standing on my driveway.
Touring car racing FTW!!

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Group 5, GT1 and GTO were mostly prototypes with no resemblance of any real cars under the hood. Just have a look at Zakspeed building the Group 5 Capri and you'll see that they only kept the roof, windshield and windows from the original car. And with 600 bhp or more, no question of calling them touring cars.

Interestingly Capris & CSLs competed in 70s touring car events too - but nowhere near the spec of the Group 5 monsters. Literally all the other classes he mentioned except "TC" - whatever that is - aren't touring cars though. I'd be a bit careful about power, some of the Group A Sierra Cosworth RS500s were running ~540bhp.