Who Was Your Sim Racing Developer of the Year?

[sebduloiret]

Reiza Team without any doubt :

high quality of work,
grateful to their customers
efficient after-sales service

 

[Terry Rock]

I still have to give this one to Kunos Simulazioni.
Marcel and company are in a very tight second...having breathed new life into RF2.
Having just bought the Winter pack six days ago, I am having one heck of a time prying myself away from that Oreca 07 on Sebring at night. It is one demanding, heart-pounding drive...trying to spot the correct lines in the dark.
Seriously though!...I've now run Rfactor2 more in the last few days, than in the past three years combined.
I can honestly see what everybody was 'raving' about on that track and car pack release.
Reiza always has a place on my computer and is not far away either.
I like their dedication and willingness to 'thank' the community with 'gifts' here-and-there.
That's much appreciated and keeps me continuing to support their cause.
I love the handling of their cars.

 

[Brian Himmelman]

Forza 7 … full support for rigs … motion and feedback with PC finally … thank you

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Loved AC, not really liking ACC, don't like rF2's and iRacing's pricing. Love AMS, but not all that much content from them this year.
I'm gonna do something weird and vote for Turn 10, because they made some good decisions over the last 14 months. Adding support for almost all peripherals on PC, getting FH4's engine to run absolutely amazing on PC, supporting FM7 a year longer, giving the FFB two big overhauls, thinking about fairness in online modes (also online is free on PC, which is a weird but good decision from MS). And: Great free cars every month. And yes, I know it's not really a sim and I know the FFB is still really bad, but by now I do believe that they are trying.

 

[Oldzeb]

It's not about the money. Iracing constantly improve their simulator, but studio 397 do not. They only promise something new and make only new cars. No progress. It's funny.

I vote for the biggest troll 2018 you won by a wide margin!!! Well done!!!

 

[Luca Antinori]

Why is AC there they never developed anything in 2018 from my knowledge so its adding to the vote ?
ACC yes.

Not tried, but sure there is a Rome mod on the steam workshop

I agree with you here; however there have been sneak previews of the Fe version 2

I have that, and few more and I appreciated the effort from the people who made those tracks but I expected much more from Studio 397
I am looking forward Fe 2019, then, and I hope with some new circuit as well to accompany those cars...

 

[roadyroad]

As others I'm surprised Bugbear (wreckfest) is not mentionned in the list. After months of doubts and critics, Bugbear has surprised all the racing fans, and its early access customers, with a great title, unique (believable physics and great damage model), fun and fully moddable.

It is the only developper that did not disappointed me in any way in 2018. They all have done nice achievements, generally focusing on updates (raceroom, rfactor2) and on new content (pcars2's dlcs were the best ones of 2018), but they have slowed down the development of interesting features (raceroom, rfactor2) or made irrespectful decisions (pcars2). Reiza has always been the good developper imo, but it just didn't bring anything amazing this year, I'm still waiting their rfactor2 DLC.

Codemasters made a good F1 2018 title, with great classic content and more accurate current F1, it is a nice surprise and evolution. But after years of development, I can't consider the effort groundbreaking.

Kartkraft is a good effort, I still need to know where the game is going before stating the developpers are the best ones in 2018 (maybe 2019). The same for ACC, and as stated before, it would have been nice from Kunos to go further with AC by adding new features (weather...), even as paid DLC (I jnderstand they wanted to launch another project and hope it will be a base for more in the future).


Dakar18 could have been the huge suprise in 2018, but it seems it lacks something in some areas (the physics unfortunately) so no. But maybe in 2019.

Nascar Heat 3 is a bit of a lost cause, it may be enjoyable right now, I don't own it, but updates came too late for the racing fan audience. That's unfortunate, the content was interesting (various series including Dirt racing). Maybe next year...

Definitely, Bugbear in my opinion has made a groundbreaking title and achievement in comparison to all the other developpers. And Wreckfest is absolutely not a title I've been playing a lot. I should take time to use it more...

 

[Leynad777]

From the pure popularity of a sim i can only see one biggest winner: SCS Software (ETS2, ATS). 40k peak players in ETS plus 6k in ATS yesterday is a lot more than the gracious estimate 9k players in the hole sim-racing business on PC with devastating 240 players in ACC for example

Still curious that i got downvoted for my suggestion to make an open world title for sim-racers, like a more serious Forza Horizon including real tracks, but maybe so much more people like to drive trucks instead of race- and supercars

 

[Deleted member 379375]

As much as I love Kunos for their previous work with AC, I'm kind of surprised by the amount of love they are recieving here given their only contribution this year was the EA release of ACC.

ACC is far from complete, so much so, that i stopped playing it so I wouldnt give up hope on the final prooduct.
I have awaited every update in ACC with anticipation since its releaase on Sep 12th, each time i have been disappointed with its progress.

Seriously, all of those giving credit to Kunos for ACC, what is getting you so excited at this early stage? What part of the EA picture am i missing with ACC? I want to be excited about the sim but i cant find anything to warrant the level of hype suurrounding the game right now. As things stand, I have more questions than answers about this game in its current state. I fear we may not get the Sim we had hoped for, fingers crossed im wrong.

ACC is a mixed bag. It was unplayable on my system in VR although I think the single screen visuals were class leading out of the box. Since v0.4 VR it is much improved although there is still a lot of improvement needed. It's not only playable but great fun now. I really didn't like the early Huracan handling , it felt way too understeery. The fine tuning of the tyre model has made a vast difference and all cars feel great to drive.

Developer of the Year? hmm can't say as I don't have any of the other titles but it's shaping up to be the a great sim. It's not just the product, good communication crucial and is It sounds as though 397 Studio have done a great job there judging by all the positive comments.

 

[Wayne Hutchison]

I voted for iRacing. It's been my main sim for the last 5 years. Over the last year I've intentionally spent time on AC, ACC, AMS, PC2, rF2, F12018, RRE, and Dirt Rally. All have something good about them and none are really bad.

I know a lot of people like to race offline against AI but I'm much more interested in mulitplayer racing (been doing that steadily since Papyrus' NASCAR 1.2 "Hawaii" back in 1996). For that reason I don't put a lot of weight on the offline / AI portion of these sims. As for online racing, for someone living on the west coast of the USA, it seems extremely difficult to find online races and leagues for most of these. I have found a couple of rF2 leagues and done some racing - good racers but small fields. There appears to be lots of AC leagues in the Euro timezones during the week but almost nothing in the USA. RRE seems to have minimal presence, and PC2 even less. I haven't tried to do any online racing with AMS, F12018 or Dirt Rally yet - maybe I'll find that they have a big online presence over here. With iRacing there are always many different official, pickup, and league races available at all times of the day.

As for my go to sim, iRacing, I realize it's not for everyone. It can be expensive for sure. A lot of people don't like the current tire model (NTM v6) although there was a recent update in December that has made it much less temperature sensitive at extreme temperatures. The recent addition of 24-hour weather / sky / lighting is a big hit and will make the 6/12/24 hour endurance races so much better. The dirt racing (both oval and road) is improving each season and, of course, iRacing has a huge amount of paved oval content that is mandatory for realistic NASCAR-type racing at all levels from local short track street stocks all the way up to Cup cars. Of course, if your primary interest is paved road racing then some of the other sims probably do a better job, at least with content (ie. touring cars, prototypes, Euro courses, etc.).

The last big reason I voted for iRacing is that it recently announced $300,000 in prize money for it's top 6 Pro series: $100K Porsche World Championship, $100K Peak Antifreeze NASCAR, $25K World of Outlaws Sprint Cars, $25K World of Outlaws Late Models, $25K iRX Rallycross, $25K VRS GTE World Championship. That's a pretty big step towards professionalizing (if that's a word) sim racing eSports.

 

[Leynad777]

ACC is a mixed bag...

See the numbers above your post and my conclusion: ACC is dead on arrival. From a pure economic standpoint i would switch to a new project and only set a small team to provide the promised minimum. When i compare the patch-notes and factual changes of ACC compare to iRacing and Raceroom in the latest patch, it looks like Kunos already moved on. AC has nearly 16 times more players than ACC and hopefully i'm wrong and a surprise-update awaits, but maybe not. With likely close to 100k sold copies already they got likely some profit out of it that they can invest to produce AC 2.0 on base of their old engine.

 

[FernandoAFM]

Voted iRacing, though I love and appreciate them all! It was a very good year in sim racing (and arcade racing too with Forza Horizon 4). Thanks iRacing, valeu Reiza, thanks SimBin, thanks Sector3, grazie Kunos! You all give me cars and tracks I enjoy coming back to. Happy new year!
Can’t wait for Dirt Rally 2.0!

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

From the pure popularity of a sim i can only see one biggest winner: SCS Software (ETS2, ATS). 40k peak players in ETS plus 6k in ATS yesterday is a lot more than the gracious estimate 9k players in the hole sim-racing business on PC with devastating 240 players in ACC for example

Still curious that i got downvoted for my suggestion to make an open world title for sim-racers, like a more serious Forza Horizon including real tracks, but maybe so much more people like to drive trucks instead of race- and supercars

Sarcasm on
New generation of concoles is on the way to the market. You will suffer I am waiting for PCars 3 announce and some more ppl will buy rtx cards after for sure
Sarcasm off

Seriously, you have no word about KartKraft and it share the same game engine with ACC.

 

[CC]

Sarcasm on
New generation of concoles is on the way to the market. You will suffer I am waiting for PCars 3 announce and some more ppl will buy rtx cards after for sure
Sarcasm off

Seriously, you have no word about KartKraft and it share the same game engine with ACC.

Makes no difference what engine you use if the core code is wrong,
AC renders the scenes like a joke, it renders everything including the LOD, there just invisible the geometry, so yeah can imagine using those tactics on UE4,
maybe they should render everything in meters not miles.

 

[whip]

all s397 have done is release expensive dlc

why is everyone gushing over that?

 

[bgil66]

I would have loved to vote for S397 but I still cant figure out the UI lol
So Kunos got my vote!

 

[Naliport Halulam]

I vote for LFS developers !

 

[Deleted member 379375]

See the numbers above your post and my conclusion: ACC is dead on arrival. From a pure economic standpoint i would switch to a new project and only set a small team to provide the promised minimum. When i compare the patch-notes and factual changes of ACC compare to iRacing and Raceroom in the latest patch, it looks like Kunos already moved on. AC has nearly 16 times more players than ACC and hopefully i'm wrong and a surprise-update awaits, but maybe not. With likely close to 100k sold copies already they got likely some profit out of it that they can invest to produce AC 2.0 on base of their old engine.

I think you are being a bit over dramatic with all due respect. It's EA and showing all the signs of being a great sim. It may have a slow take-up but that is to be expected in early EA I suggest.

"Kunos moved on" that's the first I've heard of it and I haven't seen any evidence??

I play AC at the moment and dip into ACC as it's buggy and incomplete. I have no doubt I and many others will make the switch to the ACC before release 1.0. I predict It will be a slow burner like AC and pick up users over an extended period.

 

[Slowdive]

I've voted S397 and rFactor 2. The reason? Although I've always admired rF2 all these years, the way that Marcel and co have dedicated the time and effort, in many of the right places, has really brought the game up levels never before thought possible.

I've been playing RF2 for awhile. I'm curious what improvements you've seen in the core game in the last year, beyond updating the shaders? Maybe I missed something.

 

[masteric123]

all s397 have done is release expensive dlc

why is everyone gushing over that?

Probably the fact that there is no other good content out there for rF2. Notice most people use the cars and tracks created by the the devs themselves here and not third party content. Few modders compared to AC and high expectations for quality by the community is why many modders from the rF1 days or other games don't bother anymore. WCP-Series a well known modding team of rF1 didn't dare touch rF2 until just recently, so there will be some new paid content from them for rF2 which might improve the modding scene.