Why is Live for Speed not on Steam?

[Bram Hengeveld]

Does anybody know why LFS still isn't on Steam after all these years?

Personally I would play it a lot more often if it was. Also I can imagine the sales of this hidden gem would go through the roof as it's still a fantastic game.

 

[AccAkut]

Because the Devs, or rather just the single main Dev, Scawen Roberts, doesn't want it. He's somehow fine with whatever state LFS is in and keeps tinkering.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Has there any public statements about this @AccAkut? I can't think of one reason why you would not want to be on Steam with a racing game nowadays.

 

[Kenny Paton]

LFS has always followed its own path, annoyingly it has probably the most user friendly mp system of any racing game.

 

[BrightCandle]

It costs money to put a game onto steam, unless you think you will get that back it doesn't make much sense to do that. LFS also has its own store and launcher/updater already so it is probably development work to even put it on steam and yet more to support the DLC system or other steam API for finding games and such.

Would enough people buy it there instead of from the website? I am not sure that would be a worthwhile trade off.

 

[Stan]

I only buy games on steam. I own LFS aswell but I had that before I had steam. All that other plattforms, I'm not using because I always forgot they are existing. Just by thinking of that. I bought Battlefield 1 and never played it because I forgot after an reinstall from Windows to reinstall origin again or how it is called?

So many people have no idea from LFS and how great it could be, couple years ago when cargame closed his server I couldn't find an alternative to race on. which is really sad because almost everything is perfect in LFS.

 

[MJQT]

It's really too bad it isn't on Steam, agree with those above.

Also... since it still drives quite well, and runs on a total potato PC, and according to Kenny has a very user friendly multiplayer system, maybe it'd be a good idea to have RD host LFS races with free and paid content (or even simracing.gp integration down the road)? Would definitely help bring well-deserved attention to the game – and without imposing the Steam developer costs on the LFS team. Don't want to take the thread too far off topic though.

 

[Stan]

It's really too bad it isn't on Steam, agree with those above.

Also... since it still drives quite well, and runs on a total potato PC, and according to Kenny has a very user friendly multiplayer system, maybe it'd be a good idea to have RD host LFS races with free and paid content (or even simracing.gp integration down the road)? Would definitely help bring well-deserved attention to the game – and without imposing the Steam developer costs on the LFS team. Don't want to take the thread too far off topic though.

sounds great, but I remember that the dev didn't wanted help from someone else to bring new content. Which is not good at all to grow the community. Checked the LFS webside an the online monitor has shown 170 people where driving at that time, yesterday evening it was around 300.

 

[MJQT]

I may have misunderstood you @Stan, and please forgive me if I have. But I literally only meant that RD could promote and host a server for LFS races! Or something like that. No change to the content in LFS whatsoever. Maybe nobody would join and it'd be a flop, so it wouldn't be worthwhile. But it would have a chance of growing the LFS community by increasing awareness of the game and ease of online racing in a familiar place - and with no effort required for Scawen and co at all. What's not to like?

To bring this back on topic, only with a larger community bringing more money and attention in would the team be able to justify putting it on Steam. But who knows, maybe there are ways to help the LFS community grow again... and... maybe not. :shrug:

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

sounds great, but I remember that the dev didn't wanted help from someone else to bring new content. Which is not good at all to grow the community. Checked the LFS webside an the online monitor has shown 170 people where driving at that time, yesterday evening it was around 300.

 

[Stan]

I may have misunderstood you @Stan, and please forgive me if I have. But I literally only meant that RD could promote and host a server for LFS races! Or something like that. No change to the content in LFS whatsoever. Maybe nobody would join and it'd be a flop, so it wouldn't be worthwhile. But it would have a chance of growing the LFS community by increasing awareness of the game and ease of online racing in a familiar place - and with no effort required for Scawen and co at all. What's not to like?

To bring this back on topic, only with a larger community bringing more money and attention in would the team be able to justify putting it on Steam. But who knows, maybe there are ways to help the LFS community grow again... and... maybe not. :shrug:

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

With that RD Server sounds great, but you need at least 2 servers, one for the race cars and one for the roadcars which is the real benefit in physics and tyre model

 

[AccAkut]

sounds great, but I remember that the dev didn't wanted help from someone else to bring new content. Which is not good at all to grow the community. Checked the LFS webside an the online monitor has shown 170 people where driving at that time, yesterday evening it was around 300.

Over a span of at least ten years (2007 - 2017) the Devs have said no to so many opportunities... hence much of the community leaving. Not going onto Steam is only one of those.

They are somehow, weirdly, fine with how it is.

 

[Dzul]

Ah! LFS... the good old days racing on the V8 at Westhill . . . I just digged my fastest lap, a 1:31.03 (from an old excel sheet with laptimes for LFS and GTR2). Mind though, that was with a Logitech MOMO Racing wheel so, old school.

I still have ver. 0.6S installed on my Pentium4 PC. I actually used LFS to show my little one how to steer a car (much safer than on the real road). When she got older she started lapping the MRT at Fern Bay (short) as training before we went karting. Ah, the nostalgia when seeing those three letters together... Haha!

If RD gets a server going I will surely drag the old .exe file to my current PC and take it for a spin!

 

[therealPogu]

It's my only sim not on steam, so the only one I can play if my kids are using my steam account. I kinda hate having to deal with steam Everytime I want to play the other games.

 

[kakakakkaka]

I wish it was on steam too. In my opinion LFS was mismanaged. The game never grew despite amazing gameplay. It's like a pet project of few friends who work on it on a lazy Saturday and don't want anyone else involved.

 

[AccAkut]

I wish it was on steam too. In my opinion LFS was mismanaged. The game never grew despite amazing gameplay. It's like a pet project of few friends who work on it on a lazy Saturday and don't want anyone else involved.

as someone who was rather active on their forums, you're 100% right. It had amazing groundworks laid out but did not manage to make much out of it after ~2008. The single main Dev kept things streamlined, but also slowed things till infinitum. Sure LFS was like the first race sim with great VR.. but the real Scirocco the game was to get was first superseded by a new model, and then discontinued, before the car ever appeared in the game.

Someone once outright asked Scawen if this was just a hobby project for like the last decade, but he declined, he himself said he was only working on LFS. Either this isn't the truth, or his family is pretty frugal... can't imagine it bringing in much money still.

 

[Todd Wasson]

It's only $100 to put a game on Steam these days. Years ago when I put one of mine on Steam, it was free, just had to get voted through Greenlight. It's a pretty easy, painless process really. Valve takes a huge cut of your sales though. That might be a factor. Personally I think they ought to do it. Someone might be surprised by the reception and new business it brings.

 

[Paul_V]

Hi Guys, late to the party, but just want to say that i love LFS.
Its great in so many ways. If its unlikely to see the light of day on Steam, then the idea of someone running LFS on a RD server would be phenomenal fun. It drives so well even on a lowish PC that surely it would be very popular.

I would sign up to race straight away.

 

[Enorazza]

Scawen said few time ago that moving LFS to Steam would be actually a very bad idea for the gamers, for the developers and for everybody else. Basically too much junk files on user PCs and less update freedom and I don't remember what else.
As a long LFS user, I appreciate this choice. LFS is a very indipendent game, so..