Image Space Incorporated Exclusive Interview

One original 3ds model, in one of those early screens of that type, was actually lost in a crash where there wasn't a sufficient backup. I think it was that one. Not sure what is going to happen with the version of it we have, but I will ask again.

 

I can understand people thinking things changed in some way, but that's due to having context. I've been saying for years the things I am, and now you know that we've put something else up on the whiteboard in planning stages, you're interpreting those same comments differently. I don't blame you for that at all, but I don't feel I have changed what I am saying an awful lot. You could probably search for my comments on the Eagle not being built yet alone to prove it to yourself, because I think I licensed that in 2012 and every day that passes where we haven't built it pains me so.

It's not the easy way out, it's a pro versus con. There's very little pros on doing pickup and a large list of cons, among them are what I said.

 

Yup. I've got to be realistic and offload some of it.

 

If you repackaged it with a UI designed by an artist AND got the UI logic right (it is a complete inconsistent mess now); focused on one series (pick one, any one) and polished it so that all the bits and pieces (cars and tracks) were consistent quality (doesn't have to be the best at everything, just consistently good) and glaring errors were not present and ignored (like reflection issues in the historics, or flickering textures at most tracks), you could easily sell it for the same as basic rF2 cost. And then you could repeat for as many series as you could do properly. From a pure revenue perspective, that would be the route to go.

If you prefer to stick to the current model, then most of the problems would be solved if you just properly finished what was started. rF2 is like the neighbour who has five renovation activities going on at their property, but they never finish any of them. Some of them may be brilliant and fantastic workmanship, but all you see is the mess in the yard and the perpetual construction. You don't need to model a whole series--modders will do that, but only if there is one bullet-proof sample/example to work from. rF2 can't even keep its own cars content updated, so how/why would modders be able to handle the other 50% of the job skinning and tweaking the rest of a series?

You don't have to become EA or Codies, and sell your souls to the devil. But turning your back on EVERY form of conventional marketing, customer relations, development processes, product usability and communications of plans and expectations, simultaneously, cannot hopefully result in a surprise that commercial success is not accompanying the recipe. rF2 is the best in so many ways that matter to hard core sim racers. But it is also either the worst, or damned frustrating, in many important ways, most of which matter to more causal gamers or newbies. All I have read here for years is steadfast refusal to budge a millimetre to address those basic issues. Now, the straw that breaks the camel's back, even though you didn't intend the RD interview to be any different, is the greater clarity that while the rest of us have been patiently (and not so patiently) waiting around for about two years for a new build that actually moves the product forward (and not just fixes problems introduced by prior builds), ISI has little intention of doing anything besides housekeeping. rF2 is "done" in terms of major features or fixes because all the things we all (erroneously) expected because we saw pics of them five years ago or presumed they would be included because rF1 had them or AMS has them or your biggest competitor iRacing was doing it are not important or too much effort or bother to implement............with such a small team and lack of resources. The new content (cars and tracks) is mostly top notch (and plentiful), but it's still all affected by some long-standing issues with the core product.

And it really comes down to that which we have been talking about here for years. The super-talented ISI rF2 team cannot produce miracles when it is severely under-resourced. The longer you chose to stubbornly stay the course, the worse the revenue situation became and now, despite talk of not being bound by traditional commercial models, blah, blah, it appears that reality has struck. Time to scale-back expectations. Very sad that with a bit of disciplined focus and direction, we didn't need to be here. Yes, maybe a "packaged" title or two needed to be released in the interim to capitalize on the engine and core work being done, but that wouldn't have to stop major development and could have contributed to financing it. Speculation and hindsight is not useful for this discussion, but the fact is you cannot develop something as complex as rF2 or what rF2 was supposed to be with a only couple of programmers and some outsourced contractors.

And before replying that everything is business as usual and nothing new was said in the interview, etc., take a look around. The public relations battle is being lost. The great things about rF2 require too much tedious effort for the average person to even discover, let alone enjoy. Those few of us fanatics here are NOT the people who need to be convinced or to try the product and get hooked by it. And even among us the reviews are mixed. That really says it all.

 

Yes, worked terribly with rFactor 1. You can argue the differences with rFactor 2 out, of course, and largely those are related to the release method (beta period) and timing of both our product and others, lack of outside investment/debt, not using ad agencies, etc.

It isn't a battle for me, frankly. People either use our product or they don't. Those who are 'battling' in some kind of forum and comment war only increase the loss of a decent community for our product and others, turning discussions into typical nonsense. I've been scaling back on expectation since 2011 in most areas, Marc. The difference is that we've mentioned early planning of another product and given some straight answers on some things we can now give straight answers on.

The rest of your post is largely a summing up of how you feel and have interpreted things, which is fine, but it doesn't really add anything, nor give anyone anything to respond to, due to the fact it mostly seems to be conjecture. I believe the only people who will probably respond will be arguing that you're wrong to feel how you feel, dragging this thus far quite nice discussion down into the usual cesspit. So, as usual, I'll have another thread not to visit.

 

Before I entered the sim racing universe about 2.5 years ago I was and still be a huge fan of flight simulation and spent most of my free time (and a huge amount of money) on flight simulators. So maybe I have a slightly different perspective on some things that are debated in the follow up of that interview. But one thing I have learned over years is that if the FS community would have just had Microsoft - the developer of the FS franchise - this whole genre would have been dead for more than a decade now as they stopped the development long ago and even killed a potential successor (MS Flight) when it just started rolling. But what lets FSX still running is a broad community of commercial and professional "modding" studios that deliver a broad range of add-ons to improve especially FSX far beyond its release status, despite it was not much and couldn't be any longer improved in its core as Microsoft has killed all its basic ressources (the commercial licensing from LM with Prepar3D is far from anything but a consumer product and doesn't count in no way as a potential successor for the masses)

The more I would like ISI to concentrate on its good basis and develop it further on and give professional modders a stable plattform to build a business on their own on it. That could be a real win-win situation for all of us, I think. We as the users could get more and better stuff to play with, modders could get some return and even build up professional studios if they are good enough, and ISI could built up their user base (and maybe earn some licensing money from mod sales??) and could focus on its core business - a solid racing simulator base.

Maybe its a little bit too much to compare rF2 with the much bigger FS9/FSX community and there is a lot more competition because there are much more racing simulators on the market then flight simulators, but all the other racing sims - besides AC, that still lacks Steam workshop integration for mods - built mostly on a closed programme and do not encourage or even actively support modding at all, but just focus on package sales and building up a solid franchise that sells DLCs. So maybe its a good strategy for ISI to try it the other way...

Just my 2 cents.

 

Tim, here is a follow-up question:

I recall there being mention of ISI having licensed the rF2 engine and another company having purchased the entire rF1 base code.

Has ISI been able to license the rF2 engine in the same way as they did the gMotor2 engine. Should we expect more Sims to pop up using the rF2 engine like we saw with the rF1 engine?

 

Hi Tim.
Thanks for this interview.

I was very surprised (or not so much in fact ) how some are so disappointed by your answers.
Correct me if i'm wrong but :

Talking about proudest work of Rf2 and ISI :

We broke new ground on a lot of features that once implemented by other engines and studios will move sim racing forward as a whole; RealRoad rubber build-up being probably the most useful for the genre.
Plus, even though we are an extremely small team, we are proud to continue to support our products and the community around them for many years. Too many products seem to be abandoned if they do not achieve a huge critical following, and that’s not our philosophy.


What's bad for that?
Yes, you can be proud of what you do for the future of race sim ( "the future of race sim" is in your logo lol )
If i'm right, your previous gmotor version is used by so many race titles...

Talking about VR :


I think Microsoft have already dropped Windows 8 support (last month, I believe), as they’re trying to push everyone to Windows 10.
The VR APIs have frankly been way too fluid for us to seriously look at, and I doubt we’ll look again at native support until after devices are in the hands of the public for a few months. Their changes in specification have obviously left things behind that we rely upon at this time.

I'm not perfect with my English (so i can make mistakes ) but, you don't talk NEVER, you just say NOT NOW.
And that's pretty comprehensive.
I'm very excited by VR but it will take time and maybe one or two years before starting to stabilize things and technology.
I understand your answer like this.

Talking about Weather (The biggest waiting for me ) :

W: We’re actually looking at this again now. We haven’t decided on what features will get dropped or pushed, and which should be implemented in short order.

Again, some people understand that dropping/pushing things will be to not doing a great weather system.
Hey, if i'm right, you just tell us that weather system development can have some more attention now by the programmers.
It's just a question of priorities and a small team like ISI MUST do it like that.
Isn't it great that weather is more on top of priorities now?
For me it is


Talking about H patterns heel toe, etc...

We still have plans to release an updated drivetrain model.

Nothing to talk more about, i guess ISI will do a great work for it

Talking about damage model :

It might be something we look at in the future, but not sure what will/won’t be seen in rFactor 2.

Translation for those who want to see some things that are not said ...
In the future, we'll look at this but not sure what will be possible or implemented or not for RF2.
I guess that if some want the "ultimate sim" with everything implemented, then they must by a racecar and drive in real life lol.
(very expensive ! )


So,i just think that, reading between the lines is not always useful when answers are done in a Q&A.

RF2 is a magnificent physical engine and help the future in racesim technology.
Both for RF2 itself and MOds or other titles using the gmotor.



Patience is the key and have always been here

 

I think you're very right about that.

 

I just hope we will see those rain effects on the windshiled and not in the car That's all I am asking for Am I asking to much?

 

A strange kind of love you have for this community Tim!
And to not fullfill your expectations, I agree with most points of Marc here.
That ISI doesn´t have to do a full series, because modders do that, I still feel as wrong.
Modders don´t and won´t do it! For reasons.....

By the way: nothing wrong with ISI´s way to do marketing, development and communication, as long as it is a win-win-situation for dev/customer, what it isn´t with rF2!
Talking about expectations: Who generated the expectations that (most) people had with rF2? You did!
With the possibilitys of rF1 and teasers and statements from long ago (do I really have to bring examples for that here? I guess not) YOU did!
Question: how come that (teased) customer expectations and developers ideas are not congruent?

Said if "nonrF3"-product is some sort of commercial racing-game: What I didn´t understood either is, why the things that obviously wanted to be achieved with the new "nonrF3"-product, can´t be done with rF2!?
Why not doing this things, polish up, doing (and licensing) the whole series and releasing it as "rFactor 3 BTCC" or whatever? (licensing-problems regarding old content only possible in rF2?)
If done properly, this would bring a lot sales.
Or bringing the series as payed DLC to an updated rF2?
When I understood ISI correctly in the past, they wanted 3rd party-modders/companys to do content for rF2.
Why not begin by yourself and push the rock to roll?

I (and it seems many people) find it just hard to follow and to understand what you communicate.
Like I said earlyer, it´s a matter of "being part of". The community wants to be a community and wants to be part of rF2 (works for any other product) and is interested in what ISI does and
how and why!
Remember this silly coding-sessions that Kunos streamed?
Jeeees, lots of people watched that! They wanna be part of, they want to be there!

I feel ISI does a lot to prevent such a feeling.

 

Yes, there will be. Obviously we won't be sharing any technical details about how that is done, but it is one of the things that needs to be in place before we can release this.

 

If you interpret my comment as bringing things down to a cesspit level, or as some sort of battle, then you have truly crossed-over into the "part of the problem" category. My comments were sharp, as usual, but respectful.

I am sorry that you cannot see the history here. rF2 is not rF1 for a whole host of reasons that others have pointed out. Times have changed. The competition has improved dramatically. There are many more competitors. It is too complex to be easily modded, and does not have a stable history long enough to allow mods to flourish. We've all talked about that for years now. But ISI is the one who said all along that rF2 would not follow the same development pattern as rF1. It would not merely be a modding platform. Pick a path. Either build a niche-of-a-niche product that is really nothing more than a platform for others like Reiza or a mainstream publisher to license, that can be fiddled with by a few extreme hobbyists who have the patience, or, mould it into something resembling normal racing game software. To do the former requires finishing and polishing what has already been built so it has the same or better features as the competitors, but a superior simulation engine, so there is some competitive advantage and reason why a publisher would prefer to license it. To do the latter requires finishing and polishing what has already been built so it can compete with AC and AMS and iRacing outside the tiny audience here. I won't bother commenting again, but if I can sum-up about four years' worth of comments, it is that you (ISI) have missed that point. Regardless of which way you want to go (and I don't really care which or whether you have changed course now or a dozen times int he past), the exact same work has to be done to make it commercially successful as either a licensing platform or as a traditional point of sales product. My conjecture (yes it is only that) after watching carefully for many, many years, is that the development team has not been given the sufficient resources to properly pursue either path, which is deeply disappointing to me, but I think also to many other of your loyal customers.

Instead of complaining that people on here are complaining; instead of shutting down threads; instead of ignoring threads; instead of insulting customers; try realizing that if you cannot keep the positively fanatical people here informed and satisfied then it may be a sign of greater concerns. Why would someone even bother to comment or care about rF2 in the first place? Because it is a hidden gem. If polished, it would be recognized by all as a jewel. ISI and the dev team would hopefully directly benefit. The sim racing community would benefit. By starving the product development (for whatever combination of push and pull reasons that we all cannot know the details of), the opposite occurs...both groups lose. That is what I care about, not whether some particular rain drop graphic gets applied now, or two years ago, or never. You have to be willing to meet half way or to at least acknowledge that all the other titles that are out-selling yours may not be for all negative, self-serving, money-related reasons. Maybe there are some conventional designs and features and usability that people actually enjoy and are useful and positive. But to get noticed in a licensing and marketing-driven world, your product has to be special in ways that people won't care whether the actual NASCAR logo is there or that it's Jiminy Johnpebble driving the car. That's a tall order in a world with multiple competent competitors who all do pursue mainstream licensing.

Time spent reflecting on what would encourage the average person (not the fanatics here) to look at such a product...and then to be willing to try it...and then to have such a positive experience with the software that they would get excited about the steep learning curve ahead to master it is useful. Where is rF2 today lacking in that regard? Would it be a good business strategy to try to fix those gaps and use lessons learned for the next product, or just coast along and get frustrated by the lack of consumer response while blaming the consumers for not comprehending the niche-inside-a-niche nature of what you offer? rF1 was relatively popular due to the mods available, which were plentiful for several reasons that no longer exist. What combination could today breathe some life into rF2/a successor? I suggest ISI actually engage with customers here (Reiza is a model of customer engagement--ISI could learn a lot from them) openly and honestly to find out what is important. Then put that feedback into the category it deserves--"the 5% freakoids" and go out and talk to the other 95% of the 10% that might be interested in a hard core sim racing product. If you actually listen to the feedback, I don't think it will take too long to prioritize what needs to be changed in rF2 to make it a more appealing and welcoming product that sells enough units that some future further development and possible licensing of the core to other publishers. But only do this if you are willing to reverse the stance on a bunch of priorities, because they are now and have been for quite some time out of order.

 

There are multiple people in talks right now, NONE of the currently known simracing studios though. I think Gjon said no at the stage they'd have needed it.

 

Can you elaborate on exactly what, if you want a straighter answer?

 

I didn't actually say that. The way forums work, that's where posts like yours end up because of how people treat them. Not a direct failing of you, but mankind, I guess.

I didn't say that or deny that either. Times have changed, during our release. That did not happen with rFactor, whose sole real competition was iRacing, which went fully public in 2008, the year of the last major update to rFactor. rFactor essentially has the community to itself for it's entire update period, and at the time of planning for rF2 (remember I joined ISI late in the process), that's how it still was pretty much (SIMBIN, maybe). Yes, certainly, things could have gone differently, been adapted, etc, but they went how they did. Where is the sense in talking about that history? It changes nothing, and the decision still sits in the hands of the person who made decisions. I feel like you're trying to educate me, which would be great if I was not saying some of these things myself from time to time. I either give you no response, or counter what I believe can be discussed.

 

That is a terribly written post, but hopefully you get what I mean lol

 

Thanks for doing the interview Tim. I find it both interesting and at the same time slightly concerning.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm very surprised to learn how small the ISI team is. It seems some modding groups have more members than the guys who built the software that they mod on!

What I'm quietly hoping is that the "not rF3" title is the new GT Legends 2 which will be running on the GMT2 engine, and will run as a standalone purely historic motorsport simulator, with cars from all historic eras and classes, and period historic tracks. If this happens I'll be saying goodbye to my social life, job, wife and kids, and lock myself into a world of old school racing for a few years. I'll keep dreaming...

 

Without wanting to start a new thread, I've quick question for Tim: Is any more development time planned for the (already wonderful) AI? There's an easily reproducible full-course-yellows bug that often ruins endurance races for me (where half the field drive at walking pace). I can share replay data if it's not something your team is aware of. In the past you've said that oval-AI still needs more development time, so perhaps this bug is already known and already fixed? Either way, fingers crossed and keep up the awesome work.

 

1. You positioned your game as the most realistic racing game ever. It's true for now, but over the years the gap started to tighten. Your strongest and probably only selling point is the ultimate realism, which by dropping features like VR will start to fade away.

2. The hardcore community already bought rF2. And is going to buy VR. So no new sales after supporting it. I get it.
But what would lead to new sales? Creating and deploying the missing features, or the better than average upcoming content? Neither of those. These things are only important for the people that already bought the game.

Please tell me, that you've made a representative poll/market research amongst gamers. That you've asked gamers about what they want, how they want and when they want. Average gamers, who might buy NFS too, what is their biggest NO about the game? Knowing these things is crucial to be able to catch up and make the right decisions.
Planning based on real-life poll data is always better than doing things from the gut. Like playing russian roulette with an empty gun vs. 3-4 bullets loaded.

I think it's possible to market a game which is the ultimate realism standard, and uses next-decade technology.
But please tell me, that you do/will do in the future marketing with the tools a small company can operate for almost no cost. DM, social marketing and so on.

Don't get me wrong. I'm thinking publicly with you, for you.