Who Was Your Sim Racing Developer of the Year?

[Deleted member 197115]

I don't think you know how many active rF2 players there are.

Steamcharts?

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

Patient beta testers department :b

 

[David Wright]

Steamcharts?

Steamcharts only tells you how many people are playing at one specific time. At 18:13 there were 584 playing rF2. Six hours earlier there were 483. Were these the same who were playing at 18:13? Very unlikely. 12 hours earlier there were 249 - again very likely completely different to those playing now or 6 hours ago. 18 hours ago there were 449 playing. 24 hours hours ago there were 849 players. Some of these might be the same as those playing now but who knows. But a sensible estimate is there were thousands playing rF2 at some point in the last 24 hours and 10s of thousands playing rF2 at some point in the last week. This is far more than have voted for Studio 397.

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

Steamcharts?

Yep.
AC win with 1958 players 30 days avg.Pcars2 2nd with 1057. Rf2 beat up wreckfest 430 vs 352. ACC 105

 

[Neils on Wheels]

I'm surprised Sector 3 did not get a bit more love ITT. Not that its my favorite sim but feel every passing month it gets a bit closer.

 

[Shovas]

In terms of sales, console releases may be a good way to go, pcars2 has done it and sms announced a new title, I assumed it went well. AC on console was maybe a bit more complicated with it's mai' feature, modding, disable. wreckfest, not z sim, but I was refering to it, made it on consoles too, that was maybe a good thing, because I'm not sure it's a great hit on PC

Not that I like this but I have to agree with the idea that it will take a console release to push some companies in the right direction. For example, SimBin appear to be going this direction with GTR3, Reiza probably needs to do something like this (or really invest in and integrate strong multiplayer infrastructure), and I've gotten the impression the new iRacing beta UI is actually the thin edge of the wedge creating a UI that would be acceptable on consoles.

For some reason, sims can get sales on consoles (PCars, AC, etc.), so to grow the industry it looks like we'll have to let publishers go in that direction.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Steamcharts?

Do you even know how steamcharts work? lol

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Do you even know how steamcharts work? lol

Can you please explain, I am always eager to learn, seriously.
To my knowledge SteamCharts, SteamDB, SteamSpy, all collect concurrent players numbers. Not really a rocket science, very basic statistics. I do a bunch of similar analysis in my every day job.
Perhaps not the most accurate (as most statistics) but gives pretty good idea on the relative title popularity.

For example AC vs rFactor2
https://steamcharts.com/cmp/244210,365960#3m

Sorry for pointing out obvious and well known fact, not sure why would that make anyone so angry and defensive.
Absolutely nothing against rFactor2, and long live to Studio397, the more good sims the merrier. Just found it amusing that number of votes almost matched the number of players on a good day.

Happy New Year!

 

[Will Mazeo]

Can you please explain, I am always eager to learn, seriously.
To my knowledge SteamCharts, SteamDB, SteamSpy, all collect concurrent players numbers. Not really a rocket science, very basic statistics. I do a bunch of similar analysis in my every day job.
Perhaps not the most accurate (as most statistics) but gives pretty good idea on the relative title popularity.

For example AC vs rFactor2
https://steamcharts.com/cmp/244210,365960#3m
View attachment 283930

Sorry for pointing out obvious and well known fact, not sure why would that make anyone so angry and defensive.
Absolutely nothing against rFactor2, and long live to Studio397, the more good sims the merrier. Just found it amusing that number of votes almost matched the number of players on a good day.

View attachment 283932

Happy New Year!

Not angry or aggressive, but thanks for confirming you definitely have no idea how it works Happy new year to you too buddy

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Not angry or aggressive, but thanks for confirming you definitely have no idea how it works Happy new year to you too buddy

Not sure where are you going with that, if you have some info please share it, don't just walk away with "you don't know'.
This is information from SteamCharts main page
https://steamcharts.com/about

This website is facilitated by a web frontend service and a data collector service that queries the Steam Web API. The collector queries the number of concurrent players on an hourly interval for every single game in the Steam catalog, and has been collecting data since July of 2012.

Isn't that what I've stated in my previous post, is there some conspiracy theory going on that the public should know.

 

[whip]

no conspiracy, just rf2 fans not willing to see the truth

 

[Oldzeb]

if S397 is in front it's because a lot of people recognize the talent and motivation of the studio and they don't necessarily play rf2 but on other sims there are not only stubborn fanboys who vote happily....
the kunos-boy can't stand the result it's so much fun!!

 

[jven]

Ha! Well, I voted for rF2 because I think they provided the most value to me in 2018.

Tbh, it's a bit close and so I'd rather give out my medals:
Gold: Studio 397 - for new cars, some new advances (shaders, etc.) and remaining open to modders
Silver: Kunos - ACC is coming along and while not quite there yet, I'm liking it more and more
Bronze: Sector 3

And I even have an honorable mention for Automobilista.
I would say that I am mostly a circuit racer, mostly offline, so dirt, NASCAR, and trucks are meaningless to me. So while I've played iRacing I don't find it anything special compared to the above while it's a whole lot more expensive.
To be fair, I haven't tried F1 2018 because it's so specialized and I have so many already, but may still try it out.
PC2 could be the best game, but I have a terrible time with the steering/FFB in that game, just doesn't seem right at all.
And GT Sport is in my opinion the worst of all, really disappointed. It's a lame game, having 12 of the same car in my garage sucks, and it's a bit too Japan-centric. It would be better if it had more of a global collection of tracks. And on the one hand I like having the Lexus GT3 in there, it's pretty disappointing to realize there's that Japanese thing again and I understand that's why no one else has it. Possibly I mis-interpret but the whole game gives that impression - why on Earth would I want my racing game flooded with 4-door junk I've never heard of? Anyway, enough of that, GT Sport gets the lowest marks from me.

R3E has IMO the most playable game. PC2 is the only one with a better UI and I say that because you can fully work the menus from the steering wheel. For R3E, I really like the global leaderboards, ghost cars, and multiclass is a lot of fun.

ACC is setup for a big win in 2019, we'll have to see how it turns out once they optimize for frame rate and get all the features in place.

rFactor 2 is mainly missing a UI - answer that in 2019 and maybe it's the winner. I'd also like to see global leaderboards by car and track in this game. There Christmas wishlist and Dev of the Year vote all in one.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

no conspiracy, just rf2 fans not willing to see the truth

There is different truth, popularity of the title and studio efforts to make it better.
Look at pCars, it's second to AC by the number of players, but trailing way behind everything else in the number of votes. rFactor 2 on the other hand is not the title known by its popularity but came up first in the poll.
I think same could apply to Reiza, with all the efforts and good content they are struggling to gain any meaningful player base.

 

[Yetch]

1st - Sector 3 for me. Racerooom has had some excellent updates and I have so much fun playing DTM'92's online on VTM Nordschleife that i now play Raceroom more than my other Sims (AC,ACC,AMS,RF2,DR). They also added great content (WTCR 2018, GT4) and continue to improve all aspects of the game, i just hope they update the engine at some point so we can have dynamic weather. As much as i enjoy this great game, it has its flaws, lets hope Sector 3 will address some of these in 2019.

2nd - Reiza - AMS was quite the find for me in 2018. Great fun to be had in their openwheelers (something i dont usually enjoy). Serious Sim with some new content added recently. I just hope they add the Nordschleife at some point and maybe a few European cars. I bought the season pass on sale to support these guys. Hopefully they continue to add to the game and the servers fill up a bit more, a little sparse of players...
Great game though, i hope they build upon their unusual car and track roster but also add some more familiar European cars/tracks too. I'll be keeping an eye on this team and AMS in the New Year.

3rd - S397 - rFactor 2 . The GT content was a welcome and excellent addition. Seems to be renewed vigor behind the development of this game (Most welcome and needed). Many people swear by this game as being one of the best sims. While i dont have much play time in it, i have seen flashes of the magic people speak of, but there are areas of the game that still need vast improvement. (UI, Quality of content). Momentum appears to be with this title, lets hope it will continue.

4th - Kunos - ACC This game was released close to my birthday so i treated myself to another Sim. I was very excited by what Kunos would do next after being a big fan of AC. It would be unfair to be over critical of ACC given its still EA, but i dont share in some of the enthusiasm from my initial impressions. I didnt realise how much i relied on Head Tracking/Track-IR until i fired up ACC only to be devastated to find out it isn't yet implemented, nor is it listed anywhere in the games road map. I am sure it will be added at some point and I will play the Sim again, but until then i have shelved it. The graphics really were underwhelming too, but again, its still in EA and Kunos of course have delivered the goods before with AC. Lets hope they find an extra gear in the New Year and make ACC the game it should be.

* I have yet to try iRacing. Perhaps 2019 will be the year I can overcome the paywall and justify such expenditure. If the aforementioned studios continue to develop and improve their title's, I might have to wait another year for iRacing!

Have to say all your work has saved me having to write too much, I agree with your list, right up to the ransomware at the bottom, good effort 9/10.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

Not sure where are you going with that, if you have some info please share it, don't just walk away with "you don't know'.
This is information from SteamCharts main page
https://steamcharts.com/about

Isn't that what I've stated in my previous post, is there some conspiracy theory going on that the public should know.

As you pointed out, the keyword here is "concurrent". It means Steamcharts measures the number of players playing the game at any give time. But the players who played the game at 15 GMT are not all the same who played at 18 GMT, so the cumulative unique player count is much higher than concurrent players. As a conservative estimate, based on these figures I'd say several thousands of unique players are launching rF2 regularly, but of course they are not all playing at the same time.

 

[MPortnoy]

Funny to see the rF2 haters crying over the result of a poll which only recognizes the effort they put during 2018 to improve the game and nothing else.

 

[Shovas]

Not angry or aggressive, but thanks for confirming you definitely have no idea how it works Happy new year to you too buddy

Your new year's resolution will be: Improved tact and kindness.

 

[MarkR]

Look at pCars, it's second to AC by the number of players, but trailing way behind everything else in the number of votes.

I doubt there are too many PCARS2 players on this site given the overwhelmingly negative reception PCARS2 news stories and threads get. I enjoy PCARS2 but I also remember the mess that PCARS was at launch and why people hold that resentment against SMS for broken promises.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Your new year's resolution will be: Improved tact and kindness.

I already have both, thanks.