Bram mentioned that the merger between RD and Overtake.gg stems from both sim racing enthusiast sites' common desire to serve and promote our community.
Race Department has built a userbase of 3 million because of the quality and diversity of content generated by an innovative, generous, and (mostly) courteous group of committed sim racers and motorsports fans.
RD does forums and hosts modding talent extremely well; the RD newsfeed is a side benefit and does sometimes yield interesting and even valuable debate and opinion.
Overtake.gg has a different focus with a primary focus on video and the bulk of its presence is in Discord--something I do not use yet, so I have no way to gauge the the scope, depth, or quality of Overtake content or contributors.
Judging the worth of Overtake.gg by their small FB following is only one measure of its reach and likely a flawwed one. There are hundreds of sim racing pages on Facebook, but few receive the traffic that the RD forums receive, let alone my attention (I follow a few, but most are of little value). I occasionally look at Reddit discussions of products which have not received as much attention here on RD.
My YouTube video consumption is filled with Overtake.gg ads that make me skeptical of what they are promoting for sale, but what about reaching new sim racers? Is it bad to expand the community? Each of us on RD can only do so much via word of mouth. Some among us have YouTube channels or other digitial outlets, but do content creators always point people back to RD? This platform is likely the stronger of the merged partners but it is not as visible at least to me.
If Bram says this merger will yield good things, we need to be especially supportive of this endeavor. We all have concerns and trepidation. Ask yourself, have you personally done all you can to support this site that is vital to our hobby and dear to our pursuit? How many of us are paying, premium members? An edifice this large cannot sustain itself without dedicated, compensated staff. Look at the shadowy shell that is left of a once lively ISRTV.
Thank you very much for your post, and thanks for making the effort to evaluate and understand. And I believe you are absolutely correct with what you are saying.
RaceDepartment is and has been always been a website and forum for the community to exchange information and assets, learn and discuss, and I am very proud we are all trying to contribute so it stays that way. That is why this is so important and should remain just like that. But as with all community-driven projects, there are big limitations. In RD's case, that has always been manpower and resources, to tackle existing problems properly, and to endeavour into new areas of interaction and content. Some have pointed out RaceDepartment's YouTube for example - I simply do not have the time, skills and budget to do this properly and we all know how much a good channel is needed
OverTake's goal is a slightly different one. The focus here lies on entertaining content and content formats and channels, that are attractive to newcomers and also bring new people into our simracing space - both as racers and also as fans or supporters. At OverTake, there are dedicated people working on just that, and their growth over the last years has proven them absolutely right. And I agree, the community and engagement on the page is not comparable to RD. And that is ok, as the focus lies on other channels and other types of engagement (as you rightfully pointed out).
And that is precisely why it is called a platform-merger. The two platforms have very complimentary profiles and benefits to bring into this. The ultimate goal I have always had in mind is the one home for all sim racers of all skill levels (the motto of our racing club!), where they can find everything they need. And "everything" is more than mods and a community forum, but it also includes entertainment, interaction, and news about hot and also larger important topics. Everyone can get what they are looking for. You have the option to consume classic RD content still and at the same time have the option to widen your choice and consume even more - if you want. We want to create a place for all sim racers, where everyone can consume content and features that they value most without being disturbed by others.
And I was very happy that while looking for a partner to be able to realise this, instead of a plain financial investor, I actually found an excisting platform that is offering excactly what I was looking for while searching or striving for what makes RD great.
And I am really happy, that instead of competing, we are now striving for our common goal together. As I have gotten to know the people at OverTake, I can now say that I feel really comfortable working with them on this journey to expand the sim racing scene. If I learned one thing in these past 16 years, it is that more people enjoying sim racing in one way or the other can only be for the better of all. So I am really glad that we made this step, and I really look forward to continuing this journey I have been on for the majority of my life together now. And you can be sure that I am thrilled to be around to further build this great community.
Also, thanks to everyone providing us with constructive feedback and comments. I'll do my best to answer them as well as I can. I understand there may be concerns, and that’s why we are talking about it. You are all invited to stay around, watch, and introduce helpful improvements and corrections as we go along.
I
have been sim racing since 1987 and I am not planning to hit the ESC button back to the pits
