OverTake <> RaceDepartment | General Discussion

robert1985 · Feb 17, 2023

always happens some faceless corporate entity ALWAYS sweeps in buys out and in the process guts the life and soul out of it and slowly turns it into something that benefits "them" and the not the actual people who use it. i guess the money was more important.

Shovas · Feb 17, 2023

Let us know when you have the perspective of having built something from nothing into a service supporting millions of members and find yourself needing to take the next step either here without sufficient resources or in your personal life

We'll see

robert1985 · Feb 17, 2023

Shovas said:
Let us know when you have the perspective of having built something from nothing into a service supporting millions of members and find yourself needing to take the next step either here without sufficient resource

robert1985 · Feb 17, 2023

the simple fact still remains. its been sold out to corporatism and that never ever benefits the people using the platform. sad day for the user's of RD. the owner had a choice and he chose to kill the platform. give it time

jgf · Feb 17, 2023

I've never heard of Overtake, so no idea what to expect from them.

Best case scenario - Overtake and RD co-exist as completely separate entities (as they are currently) under common ownership.

Worst case scenario - remember when AOL bought CompuServe, promising each would remain separate. CompuServe was gone in a year (it still exists, apparently as just a consulting firm).

Shovas · Feb 17, 2023

I've seen them on YouTube for a while. Couple of their personalities are interesting enough for simracing content.

They're funded by Porsche so at least they can't be too sketchy, I would hope.

Metla · Feb 17, 2023

I've been subscribed to them for awhile on youtube, There content isn't in my opinion anything great, sometimes I'd even say not very good.

orange400 · Feb 17, 2023

I can't think of a single mega-corp owned property which allows mod hosting. Most of the existing mod sites left have survived due to their independent ownership. It's either that or Discord. There is no place for modding on the modern web. May as well lump it in with torrenting and pirate streaming now.

Caption4Fun · Feb 17, 2023

orange400 said:
I can't think of a single mega-corp owned property which allows mod hosting. Most of the existing mod sites left have survived due to their independent ownership. It's either that or Discord. There is no place for modding on the modern web. May as well lump it in with torrenting and pirate streaming now.

Exactly. Discord just refuses to let them be bought out. I would still reconsider my options if i was RD. Because this is gonna end in tears. If money was all they were after, well congratulations you ruined millions of users.

HorneyMINI · Feb 17, 2023

To me, the mod hosting and forums are the reasons why OverTake and RD merged, the two cover differing areas of the sim racing spectrum, combining the YouTube reach of OverTake with the community and mod hosting of RD allows the best of both worlds no?

If you hop on the OverTake Discord you'll find it's a chilled out place with no clamp downs on non official game content. They just published a video about why AC is still so good and it's thanks to the modding community.

Trebor901 · Feb 17, 2023

Not in favour of this either. Used RD since the beginning was kind of the replacement of Racesimcentral when that disappeared and its always felt properly community driven. This now won't have anywhere near as much community involvement in terms of how the forums etc are run especially when overtake is owned by porsche.

Bram Hengeveld · Feb 17, 2023

Trebor901 said:
This now won't have anywhere near as much community involvement in terms of how the forums etc are run especially when overtake is owned by porsche.

I am genuinely interested here, why do you think that will change? What do you think will change?

Jim Layee · Feb 17, 2023

Bram Hengeveld said:
I am genuinely interested here, why do you think that will change? What do you think will change?

Everything , a step at a time, until its yet another corporate shell. That's what selling it to corporate ownership always means. You can't honestly think it will carry on same ?

Bram Hengeveld · Feb 17, 2023

Jim Layee said:
Everything , a step at a time, until its yet another corporate shell. That's what selling it to corporate ownership always means. You can't honestly think it will carry on same ?

I actually hope it will not carry on being the same, as outlined before, we do not have the manpower and resources to nurture the community forums as we actually should.

The goal is to improve and make it a better experience for everybody. As you clearly can't be convinced give it some time, revisit this thread in a few months and tell me I was wrong.

Jim Layee · Feb 17, 2023

Bram Hengeveld said:
I actually hope it will not carry on being the same, as outlined before, we do not have the manpower and resources to nurture the community forums as we actually should.

The goal is to improve and make it a better experience for everybody. As you clearly can't be convinced give it some time, revisit this thread in a few months and tell me I was wrong.

I have no issue with you selling on , you and the others involved really deserve the reward. But pretending it's for our benefit is bad form.
You're not the first to believe corporate money will make things better and you won't be the first to see your baby stripped away and rebranded either.

I give it 18 months before you resign.

Fat-Alfie · Feb 17, 2023

I find it quite amusing to see that most of the people bleating on about "selling out" are not actually Premium members; they don't even make the smallest financial contribution to the running of RD.

Just another example of this cancerous attitude that everything in life should be free; that it's everyone else's responsibility to ensure things run smoothly.

Metla · Feb 17, 2023

Just remember, change is bad, even when its good, its still bad.

Also, everyone is an expert, apart from those with actual expertise, they can't be trusted. They are the problem.

trichens · Feb 17, 2023

I see that the Community Forums link on Overtake brings us to RD so they are going to be benefiting from all the hard work that Bram, Kenny and nameless others have put in over the years building the RD Community.

There's obviously a concern that as things progress they won't always be changes for the better, but the two have different "offerings" so I don't see that there should be any immediate issues that RD members need to be worried about.
Just as long as we don't lose what makes RD what it is... and that is as much to do with us as members as who ultimately "owns" RD

HorneyMINI · Feb 17, 2023

I've been hanging out on the OverTake platforms for a couple of years and they, like RD, are very community focused. There's always competitions and the occasional quiz night, the discord is a very chill one. I don't think anyone should be worried about changes that are a detriment to nurturing the communities that already exist.

The reason I signed up to RD recently was because OverTake has got me interested in AC and AC mods (I'm a pretty dedicated iRacer and GT7 driver).

Turk · Feb 17, 2023

robert1985 said:
the simple fact still remains. its been sold out to corporatism and that never ever benefits the people using the platform.

That's not really an opinion that works in the real world. Corporations buy into businesses because that business is profitable, they want to increase those profits so they make more money. They do that by giving the business they bought more funds to continue expanding their popularity.

I'm no fan of the modern corporate world but it's just not rue that they buy companies just to ruin them, that doesn't make any financial sense.