What do you think is the most significant reason AMS2 userbase is so small?

@stealthradek althought i think reiza should promote better this ambitious and full of great potencial project, let's agree.
so to sum up, "let the game finished" should be the answer to this thread;s tittle:
when the game is finished it will gain the popularity it deserves and both the influencers and reiza efforts to "promote" will not be wasted...!

PS: i bought AMS2 after an YT "influencer" from australia called ermin started to release frequent videos about how good it was. after some time he released a video saying that he will stop to "promote" it so frequenly because its unfinished, it changes all the time, developer instead of trying to finish and polish existing content release new -unfinished and unpolished- content and features and things he says in his vids about some features (like physics, FFB, content, AI etc) are change so quickly that make his videos unreliable ( a "waste of effort" someone could say...)

after seeing that reiza (although it charges a full price for existing and future content) waiting to finish AMS2 and then promote it (as you said and probably you are right) i can see now why, probably, some youtubers (and existing or prospective buyers) doing the same...

 

Basically if you watch a Youtube video about AMS2 from a few months ago, whatever is being said there about features and car handling is out of date already. I can very well see how this is frustrating, investing time in a video that becomes useless so quickly.

On the bright side, when v1.4 is released the constant big changes to physics and car handling should stop, save for bugfixing and minor adjustments, and the cars and setups should remain relatively stable for the coming months while other features are being worked on. Maybe this gives the game the stability it needs for Youtubers to reconsider making videos about it.

 

yeah, lets hope so. maybe the expected stability will allow reiza to start promoting its own product too. long shot, but we never know...

PS: i found out about an upcoming sim called rehnsport after the developers organized an event that showcasing work in progress that many (if not all) "influencers" was invited to try and stream/review/promote...
thousands of potencial buyers and/or just curious viewers watched them and noticed a new product is coming. im not hyped but im waiting for it to release.
this marketing tactic to promote existing, upcoming and/or unfinished products is known since 18th century and it works quite well...

PS2: one of the most succesful developers in the genre (also a relative small team), which currently working (hard) developing content for an existing very succesful sim AND at the same time developing a new in-house engine for an upcoming sequel to an iconic racing sim, finds the time to communicate with his community via very frequently YT streams with live uncensored chat in which he answers to viewers questions, promoting his sim, racing with his community, making track guides and giving tips about everything. i cant say if he is doing it only to promote his game and make it even more popular than it is, but i think he is ALSO doing it because he really likes it. he likes to play his game with his community and in the same time, he do the most direct promotion he can had.
maybe some other developers should start to do the same thing, until other youtubers (re)consider to bother with their game?
what do you say about this idea? i think its cool and it could help a lot in popularity...

 

$$$$$$$$$$$ and more $$$$$$$$$$ talk

 

and whats wrong about this?
BTW in PS2 there is a promote suggestion that cost nothing (except of time and passion). not only this but it can provide a (very small) income from ads and donations. both PSs requires the dev actually want to promote their game.
is this the case with reiza or we should expect from influencers and/or players to promote AMS2? thats my real question here.

im afraid i know the answer. lets hope im wrong.

 

My issue with Rennsport is the fact that it seems their main focus is buzzwords (NFT anyone?) and investor's money with simracing in the background. They don't scream passion at all which is essential in simracing. It's all around building hype and getting rich rather than actual racing.

I'm getting strong Star Citizen vibes with Rennsport.

 

yeah, it gives these vibes lets wait and see.
it was just an example
kunos (like many other gaming devs) when major changes (like patch v1.8) or DLC releases always do promo vids, teasers and organize events with popular youtubers, real life drivers, developers, "famous" ACC aliens etc racing the cars or tracks and streaming them. streams get many views and do good promotion for the content and the sim in general IMO. and of course to the youtubers who find another reason to keep streaming it and promote it. its not rocket sience...
i dont know if they pay for it (probably not, to be able to stream unreleased content for a popular sim seems enough rewarding for most youtubers)

i repeat, last vid in official AMS2 channel was 8 months ago... why?
and i never saw a promo event who renato, steel, nemesis, sim 604, davecam, ilja, rubens baricello, you, me, VW brazil guys, some loyal backers etc racing together unreleased content to have fun, attract views and promote the DLC and the sim. correct me if im wrong...

 

Nothing wrong with it. Just when you have Porsche and BMW behind you funding your sim with their pocket change from their marketing budget worth maybe a billion a year or when you have SRO and Fanatec supporting your sim, all of which are having budgets a few orders or magnitude bigger than Reiza things are relatively simple from marketing point of view. You can afford to pay whatever is needed to wine and dine streamers and esport players to a weekend escapade to Germany from all over the world or to one of your real racing events and they will feel obliged to grant you the benefit of the doubt just out of decency for what you have done for them at the very least or maybe even more than the doubt.
It's easier to get a positive review, create a big buzz and reach out positively many users who consume the content of those streamers/esport racers.
I don't think we will ever see this from Reiza and therefore I highly doubt we will see the same amount of twitch/YT time and support and consequently number of players.

 

I do agree that Reiza could do with close to no cost a bit more through their channels, but unlike what you may think the biggest streamers aren't for free. And to invite aliens and other streamers to a presentation/preview event you first need to have a sim with a MP that supports a clean event and that is not the case of AMS2 yet. Which is why I keep saying that MP was to be a far higher priority since it is the main channel of free advertising.

 

THIS

 

I agree with this, there have been significant changes since then (Racin' USA pt2, F-Ultimate Gen2, Stock Car 2022, Galeao GP, Argentina tracks, tyre updates), Reiza not posting anything in their Youtube channel about that stuff was a wasted opportunity imo.
@Renato Simioni maybe for 1.4 Reiza could post some videos showcasing new content and features?

 

Oh I hope this is the case moving forward. As the physics constantly changing has been a huge PITA in the past.

 

They need to deliver the career mode they promised. It needs to be very much better than the career in ACC. Many players will take Automobilista 2 more seriously.
If you have a ranked multiplayer like raceroom, it will help a lot too. Not a multiplayer with a practice session of 90 minutes before the qualification and the race, when you see that, you just want to quit the game and to play something else.

 

I don't like racing AI so I prefer the MP side of things. What puts me off is that the vast majority of online lobbies are just short races. When I see settings like 5 laps with 25 mins. qualifying then I wonder if those are satire lobbies. It just makes me want close the game again because I don't get it. You normally want your qualifying session to be shorter than the race. As soon as you start getting into some kind of rhythm the race is over, there's no way to recover from mistakes and everyone rushes to get to the front because there is no time. I do not enjoy that.

Another sad thing is that people don't use the rating although many complain about dirty racing. It's not perfect but definitely better than not having a rating at all. Performance rank farming is also not the best thing to happen in online racing. If you ask me Reiza should get rid of it completely and only keep the safety rating. I wouldn't miss it one tiny fraction of a second.

Scheduled races would be very nice. 3 different races, single seater, GT and Brazilian machinery e.g. then mix things up. 30, 45 and 60 mins. with mandatory pit stops etc.etc. It'd be really cool, the sky would be the limit, the number of combos countless.

What MP folks need to realise is that we tend to be in our 'bubble' and think everyone plays online, but that's not what's happening. The vast majority of players are offline players. I hope that changes a bit but that's the reality. And if you zoom out more and look at gaming as a whole it looks like most gamers play mobile games, globally speaking.

So yeah, we're a niche in a niche, that's why SP seems to be the priority. MP is not perfect ofc with some bugs here and there but imo the easiest fix is on the players' side.

 

I also dislike long qualifying and short races but not because of the short races. I don't want to waste time, I want to jump in and drive short races over and over again. Ideally with the host able to have a list of tracks that can keep the action going in addition to reversing the grids, banning people, etc.

I know that style of lobby is not terribly popular with sim racers on forums but 30 mins is too long for me. Even 20 minutes is a stretch but is what I normally do in AC. 15m is my preferred length of time and my ideal lobby would be 10m qualifying, 2x 15 min races with the 2nd reversed and then move to a new track and repeat. Less than an hour commitment and 2 good races.

 

I like 1 hour races as well but for me those have to be planned out well in advance but for a weekly event that's ok.

What did GT Sport do for their daily races? Looks like short races every 10 minutes and longer races every 30 mins? Obviously they had incredible numbers but something similar would be cool.

Has to be official though. AC has huge numbers for a PC sim and even then the 3rd party systems are too fragmented to have the impact all of us want them to...

Which brings us to Raceroom. How are those lobbies population-wise? They aren't that much bigger than AMS2 overall but maybe the SP/MP split is different.

 

All the different style of online races you like and want to see, are all in raceroom!
If you are in Europe, weekdays between 4pm and 10pm and weekends the grids get decent from about lunchtime, grids will be between 20 and 30 in each 15 minute race. The daily and weekly special events between 30 and 40 car grids and those races will be 45 to 60 minutes long. You have different splits and also have to have a certain safety rating to be able to qualify and enter the special races. Rookie servers are decent as long as you qualify towards the front of the grid.
Raceroom is free to try and from your specific taste in online races, it’s almost as if raceroom was made for you! Get involved, it’s an amazing sim and also has decent AI!

 

Dying.

 

I am on the west coast in the US and generally miss out on the peak EU time slots. However when I have a day off I join AC servers via SRS around noon. I didn't think to fire up Raceroom at that same time to try their servers but since it is official there are probably more players in them than in SRS for AC (even if AC has 10x more players).

If so, that bodes well for AMS2's MP future. I'll check out Raceroom on my next afternoon off to compare it with SRS, I now realize I never gave it a fair chance (evenings in PST are empty, like in most sims lol).

 

I think 15-20 mins are perfect, even 30 mins go by very quick, you can actually focus and try to get into a rhythm, a lot more things happen which make you forget time. The only disadvantage is that if you got 2 hrs time for racing in the evening e.g. you get less variety ofc, that's it. Overall it makes the racing much much better. You can join late without qualifying or practice and get a feeling for the combo during the race and try to get the lap times down lap after lap. You can recover from mistakes and nobody needs to win the race almost literally in the first corner etc.etc.

Unfortunately that kind of lobbies are very rare. I want to race so I join these short races and often I just want to keep racing after the checkered flag because perhaps the combo is great or people have great respect on track etc. but more often I don't join and close the game again instead because there's no point doing a 5 laps race imo.