Oh, come on! ISI need to stop flogging what is essentially a "dead horse" now. Even though they might outsource the work to another party, ISI is shooting itself in the foot a little. They should be trying to push and promote their new / current work, not "outdated" technology. If they really want to do this then why not attempt to Greenlight rFactor 2? Surely that would be a sensible way to go in order to make their current platform more accessible and ultimately more popular.
As Bram has said, what has all of a sudden made them decide to do this now? rFactor 1 is not really much competition for the other (ISI affiliated) racing sims that already are or will soon be available on Steam. Given its age how many sales will it actually make - I would guess not many. How many people who already own the game will buy it again on Steam - once again, I imagine not many. And finally, with all of the choice now available for people wanting to get into sim racing, how many new customers will rFactor 1 find (especially since its graphics are now dated, and people often tend to judge books by their covers and go for whatever looks the pettiest) - for the third time, not many in my opinion.
I've got nothing against rFactor 1 - it's a great game, in which I learned how to sim-race, and there's still some decent content for it, such as the HistorX mod and a few others. But on the whole the game is past its time, with only a core group of dedicated followers as far as I can tell. And this doesn't really warrant Greenlighting in my eyes. I can't imagine many of these guys will buy the game again on Steam, unless ISI turns around and gives them no option by "turning off" the MatchMaker service for standalone installs - just a thought.
One thing for certain is that this will the topic of hot debate amongst sim-racers. I personally and ultimately fall on the side of considering this to be a poor move by ISI. If they had opted to go for rFactor 2 straight from the off this would be a completely different story.
- Brought to you by what would otherwise have been a very boring morning commute to work.