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

I think there is a ton of users out there who are very shallowly informed about AMS2 and what's under the hood with its pros and cons and mostly base their judgement on even less informed sources like many influencers/YTers in a process that creates something that resembles more prejudice given the low level of true information it's based on.
IMHO marketing at the minute should be more aimed at debunking street legends and illustrating exactly what's under the hood and how it works, what are its limits and therefore what are the intended ways to use what's currently made available by developers.
An example of this is how Kunos has managed to have a strong internet presence/voice pushing their editorial approach to a point where many people consider everything they say as the bible even when sometimes it's really not.
The interview Renato gave some time ago was great. There needs to be more stuff like that and through more channels. There is a lot of people that could go from consideration to conversion if the fog of urban legends were dissipated.
The flip side of the coin is that there need to be some improvements in:
- Reliability of I/O device management: lots of people are struggling with having their hardware recognized, configured, calibrated and maintained fully operational over the time and the subsequent updates
- MP: limitations in host/race director capabilities, reliability of the network for races with close to or more than 20 users, reliability of special events like pitstops, rolling starts etc. need improvement
IMHO proper marketing and resolution of these matters would make AMS2 a far more compelling choice.
This is obviously if we are talking about "steam chart numbers" which only account for online players. For offline players other stuff would need attention, but IMHO online is "more important" because it has far bigger leverage in terms of product advertising than offline activities.

 

This is a 'physics simulation' software being sold to a non-technical target market. Because the physics simulation is not as dramatic as beamng, some users may not realise from generic trailers that there is advanced physics underpining the car behaviour (a key selling point).

It may be a good idea to advertise how and why ams2 is realistic. One cannot deduce that ams2 is more realistic than Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport just by watching trailers featuring track cam footage, they need to hear how so.

 

I agree with what was said earlier, main reasons IMO are limited marketing, high price (full game right now on Steam is 114 euro), few GT3 cars and most importantly the saturated sim market. Things are very different now compared to three years ago, we have many very established sim racing titles which all took years themselves to achieve the numbers they have now.

But AMS2 has already gotten very close at least to rF2, RRE and PCARS2, even while still in very heavy development, so I am sure it's only a matter of time to surpass them eventually, probably within this year. And once that critical mass is achieved, it should grow even faster form then on.

 

Agreed, ams2 is great and the sim community are realising this.

 

I can't agree with this: for the amount of content the cost is far less than iracing, RR and even ACC when you divide by the number of track/cars the DLCs carry... The total seems to hit the eye but that is just because people really don't realize the amount of content attached to it.

 

I maintain calling it the "Season Pass" is a huge mistake especially after all the delays (what kind of "season" lasts multiple years?). It gives the impression that the title is subscription-based, and that you MUST buy the $100+ DLC to have access to ANY of the content in the game. Also, the Steam product descriptions are confusing at best creating further doubt about the cost of the game.

 

I agree with this. An intelligent customer might read the description and understand that the product is actually an opportunity to buy a bundle of DLC but the description of "Season Pass" is not intuitive.

 

...Ok that's a little awkward and I kinda feel bad.

I won't pretend to be humble about this: There is no shame in losing against me. I'm not a casual player and I am very accomplished with the input device I use. I have had an exceptional combination of a lot of time to play with and not many financial/spacial resources at my hands, which has lead me to perfect my controls of the pad. I have learnt to drive like this since I was about 9 (15 years ago, with F1 2006 CE) and haven't since used another input device. Within the realms of the madness engine, I probably invested about ~2500 hours of play time since the release of Project CARS 1 in 2015, and I already had several seasons of sometimes intense league racing (F1 2012-F1 2014) behind me when I began playing that game. In Project CARS 1 and 2, I was the founder of my own league, which lead to additional competition practice. Because of the way I learnt to play F1 2006 CE, I still use a button layout so obscure that games like AC and ACC don't even have it available (which also leads to me being unable and unwilling to play AC and ACC). That fact alone should speak volumes about the levels of accustomization and sophistication of play style that are at work here.

You are basically losing against a player that does things probably 0,01 % of the entire PC sim racing community could replicate at the moment, and that is still a generous number. There is no reason to feel any worse about that than about losing against an accomplished wheel player. Just like there is no reason for me to feel special when I beat a wheel user, because, considering my history, it's honestly an equal playing ground.

 

Oh, I absolutely agree that it's absolutely worth it! And I would easily pay double the amount of money or more to get AMS2, considering all that it offers. But the fact remains, that when you look at the absolute prices, the full AMS2 game is more expensive than the full ACC and PCARS2 and unfortunately for a lot of people this is an importan factor making them not to buy it. Just giving one of the reasons why AMS2 hasn't reached yet its potential user base, not saying it's actually expensive for what it offers compared to others.

 

No need to feel bad, like I said it is in my head (spontaneous poetic)
I bought a controller to see if I can handle it,and whether it's the golden key for fast times in AMS2, but I don't bake any of it.
On the other hand the controller is perfect for "TT Isle of Man" where I can finally drive laps without falling. So basically I'm grateful to you that you're faster with a controller than I am with a steering wheel.

 

And as a reply to you then you absolutely dont have to either feel awkward or bad.
Because "loosing" to someone when you know by yourself that the laptime you have set is reflecting your own personal level of skills - is one of the normal experience of a grown up person.
Thats the reason I have both greeted you by some of your (extremely fast) laptimes - but also have had no problems accepting that you often are slightly faster than me.
Joke ofcourse

Without being Jesus Christenson who is able to accept all hardship with a relaxed nod then I personally got a mature feeling conserned "loosing" to faster guys when I from being the worlds fastest sim driver in the GTP mod to NR2003 got a reality check.
Because the problem was it was only in my own imagination driving the GTP mod as single player.
Because when I joined the (probably) fastest NR2003 league - The FSB Racing.com - then I suddenly realised that I was maybe reasonably fast - but there was allways someone faster.
And that didnt mean that I personally became slower.

ByTheWay: If you as a reasonable adult person know by yourself that you have done your best - then it doesnt matter (much) that someone is able to do the same thing slightly better.

 

I agree with you that people stop purely at the dollar value but I find that people who unlike ourselves may know less about AMS2, should also be reminded that difference is linked to a big difference in amount of content compared to ACC for instance. And if someone is not interested in all of it, cost can be reduced by purchasing only tracks or only some of the content like the American Packs from marketing point of view

 

I agree the name could be misleading for some people in that it may sound as if you are buying the right to use that stuff for limited time as in other sims or micro-transaction based games. Not sure if it can be changed at this stage though...

 

Also don't forget that AMS2 apparently supports the steam deck, if this device becomes popular then maybe reiza should impliment good stick controls and the sales will come

 

Funny thing about cost is that I gave Project Cars 3 a real chance, I was hoping they were trolling us with no Spa, etc. I bought the deluxe edition, played for 90mins, got a refund and bought the AMS2 season pass.

Maybe all of PC sim racing is about to get a player count boost from new players being introduced to GT7? There will be those hooked on racing that will be looking for something more in a few months when they have finished the single player content. Maybe they will move to a wheel and then hear about PC sims.

We are talking about 10m people lol, so even a small fraction of new players moving from controller to wheel that also have a PC is going to be a significant given the relative size of the PC sim racing community.

 

I thought about making a Steam DLC guide, I really to get over my laziness and actually get it done sometime soon.

In games such as AMS2, PCars1/2, and F1 games there's built-in controller filters that cannot be turned off and cause some input lag, so controller players are always at a disadvantage in those games, any fast laps we managed to get is down to lots of practice.

 

Reiza worked quite a lot on the rFactor 1 engine. Its original members were kind of an rFactor Modding Scene's dream team, taking key members that were known for their jobs. The first job I can remember from them was the Formula Armaroli, which was praised for being at the very top of what rFactor 1 could achieve in all aspects. Then came Game Stock Car, which again advanced what this engine could deliver. Automobilista, Reiza's then masterpiece, refined gMotor2 to the absolute maximum, adding several features that were not available in rF1. It was praised by the community because of its physics, its FFB, its overall driving experience that could be succesfully conveyed into a great multiplayer experience. To compound matters, it was cheap to get on Steam with excellent DLC content which complemented the game. Modders created, ported and improved content into the game, and there are some truly outstanding jobs done for it, which elevate the level of the product. And they still do.

How many active players did it actually have? How many players does it have now? How succesful was/is?

Before even asking what's going on with AMS2, and what are their problems which impede it from extending its userbase, let's start first by looking how things went for their previous product, which was great, and didn't draw nearly as much criticism as the current one.

 

Yeah I think you have a good point there. The wording could be misleading to some.

 

When you have so called respected simracers/pro drivers ala David Perel stating AMS2 is utter garbage and drives like a boat live on his stream it doesnt help.
Easy to see he is well in with Kunos.

 

The difference is those products were fantastic, if you take into account on which engine they were created with. On the other hand, AMS2 is fantastic, fulllstop!

When I had tried the previous games by Reiza, I immediately realized how great they were on so many levels, but this very very poor gfx was a total game breaker and didn't touch them more than a few hours. You may say that this is really shallow judging a racing sim only by the gfx, but for me this bad gfx was a total immersion killer and I'm sure it's the same for many more people. But AMS2, it ticks ALL the boxes and IMO has by far the greatest potential to sell very well, even among all other sims (not simcades like GT) I would say.