It also said:
- Initial release planned for Q4 2016;
Just like many others I pre-ordered my copy when reiza had their sim bonanza at indiegogo (it is a pre-order if you pay for something in advance) but reiza are surely taking their time. Not telling why it is 1.5 years late already. I hope this is not one of those kickstarter disasters. But maybe that money does last forever...
As for using rf2 I surely hope not. I think studio 397 would have been much better off killing rf2 and taking couple of years off to develop it into a working product called rf3 or studio397sim. The massive delays in rf2 development (dx11 took very long time and still not that good, ui is taking forever) plus the massively flawed product rf2 is in so many ways really just highlights what kind of bunch of rotting of noodles that sim is. S397 needs to do well just to survive with that mess of garbled code they have bought. During their time isi made sure to make every decision wrong. I just don't see how you can save something that like. Maybe s397 can.
That being said it is not like reiza has many options. In reality they have just three. Keep using and improving on what they have (rf1). License rf2 engine. Or develop their own engine. I don't think rf1 has any future left. Regardless of how good it gets it is still rfactor 1 engine which is old old old old. You can patch it up, dress t up but it is still old rf1.
Developing their own engine would be a massive undertaking. Lots and lots of programming and content creation. Sure you can get unreal 4 for free (you pay royalties if you make profit above x amount) and you can get the source code. But even if you take your rf1 physics code (assuming they have the license to do it, probably they don't) you still need to create massive amounts of code to make unreal 4 racing sim out of it. Kunos can do it because they have $$$ and coders. Reiza doesn't.
That leaves rf2 option. I think the interesting thing is that reiza can possibly go many ways about this. They could just license the rf2 engine as it is now, do some own development and drop their own content into it and release it. They are familiar with rf1 and rf2 works very much the same. Except tires. Problem here is not just that reiza would compete against rf2 but they'd be stuck with rf2 issues as well. How well can you build on top of it is a challenging question.
Other rf2 option is to buy the code and simply do what s397 should have done. Go away for couple years, fix all the horrible things rf2 is filled with and then release it as automobilista 2: senna edition. Pro here is that you are in full control of the project and can do whatever you want. Bad thing is that you need to do everything you want yourself. You are not just competing against rf2 in sales and content but also in how fast you can develop that codebase.
Reiza could also just buy rf2 engine and make their own game for it without any additional code added. Easiest solution for a small team but at the same time they are at full mercy of s397 and need to compete against them as well. Maybe it could work. Maybe not.
Last rf2 option is the kartsim route. Release your game on rf2 as dlc. While there sure is lots of meme-potential in buying a racing sim to be able to buy a racing sim (simception, too soon?) I can't imagine it being a working business model. Not only would reiza's game be tied to the userbase figures of rf2 (read: small numbers) but you'd essentially need to expect people to buy two games to be able to play your one game. I don't see anything sane about this option.
And all that is assuming s397 owns the full rights to rf2 code. I don't know what exactly did s397 buy from isi? Was it the full code and full rights to do whatever they want with it including license and sell it for/to others? Or was it just the code for rf2 but you'd still need to go to isi if you want to buy rf2 source code. But it gets massively complicated if isi is still in some way involved. Rf2 codebase is worthless without s397's additional work and reiza can't code such a complicated product on their own.
