BTCC/Le Mans/Indycar in AMS2? Motorsport Games Problems?

With rumours surrounding the future of Motorsport Games (see below and various other YouTube videos)

Could it be that AMS2 could end up with some of the licences currently held by them?
(BTCC, Indycar, WEC/Le Mans, NASCAR?)
How awesome would that be?

I'm sure there may be others on here who might know how likely or possible it might be, but it's good to dream a little...

 

Interesting video.
Having official current Indycars in AMS2 would be nice, but if Reiza can't license the official ones I'd be happy with something like a Formula USA Gen4 or something.

 

Looking into this a bit further I think the BTCC have already dropped Motorsport Games and the only additional tracks that would need to be added to AMS2 for a full BTCC season would be Knockhill (was in PC2), Croft and Thruxton.

I believe Croft and Thruxton are both owned and run by the BARC (British Automobile Racing Club) who also own and organise the BTCC.

Add in official cars/drivers and job done.

Come on Reiza it makes perfect sense

 

The BTCC license also cost MSG $900,000 (information available in their 2020 financial statements), which I'm not sure Renato has just kicking around.

 

Ian Bell would have that much down the back of his settee, maybe someone could have a cunning plan...

 

900K is a lot I'll admit...

However the logic in my brain was:
a) Instead of licensing 10 circuits they would only have to license an additional 3 (plus the cars/drivers etc)
b) IF Motorsport Games is just some kind of con, the amount that they have paid for the license is not necessarily the going value for that license. BTCC may be open to a more sensible licensing deal from a company that had actually proved it could supply the end product (assuming BTCC really wants to have a game out there to gain extra fans...)

 

Who needs licences for cars (the latest F1 are unofficially already in the game), tracks (Azure Circuit and Kansai seem remarkably familiar) or drivers (lovely custom AI files)?

A tweak to the Custom Championships to allow 3 races per weekend and customisable points scoring (which was in AMS1).

 

I think deep down I just want to see Thruxton and Croft done properly and available in a racing game...

I would settle for a generic Touring Car as well as that is a class that is a bit lacking in AMS2 at the moment.

 

Wow that is a lot of money that MSG totally wasted, and it wont earn them a penny

But if no one else will officially license btcc, then surely their licensing fees will drop?

 

Well it's not like MSG actually paid the whole fee - they paid $100k up-front and the rest was due next month. It's doubtful they'll make the payment, which explains why the reference to BTCC was scrubbed from their web site.

In case anyone wonders why more sim devs don't license official series, it's because the rights owners ask for ridiculous money like BTCC here. Nearly a million dollars to license a national series full of nobodies that almost no one outside of the UK follows and very few people would know about it if weren't for a video game from 20 years ago? You're having a giggle mate. V8 Supercars have been quoted as being similarly unreasonable, which is why there are very few official V8 Supercar games or even cars in sims.

 

*looks in pockets*


Jokes aside, I've been wondering the same thing given how abysmal the reception for Ignition was. IndyCar has been on a massive upward trend for the past few years and was fairly open about licensing the cars. Pcars2, rFactor 2, iRacing, etc. all had officially licensed IndyCar content. Given we know there will be a good mix of oval content and classic US road and street circuits, AMS2 wouldn't be a bad option for licensing the cars. Not that the "official" game was really getting in the way of them licensing to other titles, but I would hate to see IndyCar get mocked for an "Ignition" style title in comparison to the Codies F1 games.

While I'm really grateful Austin is warning the community about this mess, I would suggest taking Austin's reporting with a bit of skepticism. I completely understand where he's coming from, but things can get muddy when we're dealing with merely hearsay. I've worked for some sketchy people in my own industry and felt the need to openly warn others to prevent them from getting scammed, but it's often really hard to prove/disprove stuff like this. Whether or not it's an outright scam, idk, but I really hope they don't butcher a dedicated IndyCar title or rFactor2/KartCraft like they did Ignition.

Randomcallsign had a good video looking on the subject as well.

 

It's definitely strange but with all the recent RF2 improvements I sure hope they are putting it all together for the Indycar game...

It would be an interesting direction to take. Imagine a full Indycar season in RF2 with the latest improvements plus whatever else they are working to improve. It may not compete with the F1 games but it might compete with ACC...

The real question is how far are they from getting RF2 to work on console?

 

...in my opinion, coming from an rFactor fan, who owns both rF 1 & rF 2, the rFactor multiplayer components are inherently flawed by design.
Duplication of game assets purely for multiplayer play is a flawed model and the design of rF 2's multiplayer limits the game as a whole (as it's not very flexible, and it's annoying to set up).
Until they address that, which may involve a rewrite of large parts of their code-base, then they are living in the past and will always have a very small audience.
The physics parts of the game are great and have been used extensively by professionals (rFactor Pro and the various pro simulators based on it).
But the multiplayer structure, in terms of how it works in the real world, is very backwards and I suspect it puts a lot of people off (including me).

That's my 2 cents worth. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree. But why would I spend 15-30 minutes setting up a server in rF 2, when I can literally spend 30 seconds doing the same thing in AMS 2 ?

 

Damn, I just bought a boat. If only you had asked a little earlier.

 

Very far imo.
Console players want something that works right away without having to mess with files and a bunch of settings. If S397 released rF2 on console the way it is right now there's a 99% chance it will be a failure.
Console player trying to play rF2: Download and install the game. Click play, oh wait there's more stuff to download and install. Why is content installed twice? Oh no, no career mode. Why are there no tutorials? Why is the DLC system so confusing? Screw this, uninstall, ask for refund, leave bad review.

 

For sure RF2 would flop hard on console but if they fixed multiplayer (I know, a big if...) the Indycar game would have a chance as it would mostly require lots of tracks, the cars only have a few aero configurations and 2 engines.

I'm trying to be optimistic and thinking about it from the perspective of someone in charge of that team. It's not impossible but they would need to be working on these issues already since they probably need to show off something in 6 months or so. An Indycar ACC would be cool...

Circling back to AMS2, when they release their MP improvements, it will be interesting to see how long it took when they made it a top priority. It will probably be similar for the RF2 team, hopefully they are knee-deep in it (MP improvements not some else lol).

 

Agreed. I got ACC a few weeks ago, I've been really enjoying the game even though I'm more of a open-wheel guy, every time I play I keep wondering what it would be like if Kunos made a F1 game with the same quality level of ACC.

 

I may be mistaken, but I believe rFactor Pro is what Honda was using for their sim. Also whoever made the track model for Nashville completely nailed it, I've driven those streets a bunch and it looks really accurate. Too bad clearing wrecked cars takes half of the race there...

 

This^

But not just this, technically I dont think it would be possible to port and make console users happy either...
If you take a quick look at the ACC console forums youll know why