Simbin Q & a – September 2008
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SimBin Q & A – September 2008 • In which general direction is Simbin heading towards in the gaming industry? Are we going seeing more variety in terms other forms of motorsports e.g. Rallying, Dirt racing etc.? What other interesting content can we expect? JR: The short and easy answer is; Yes DS: In this industry as well as more or less all others it takes funding to initiate and finalize any sort of production. In the gaming industry it works a little like this. An independent developer wants to do a racing game, they write a concept and a sales document. With this they begin to look for funding options, once the funding is in place they begin to work on the licenses needed for the games content. Licensing is far from straight forward and usually licensing has a very big impact on the games content design and/or content limitations. Now that funding and licensing has been cleared the developer can begin the process of trying to find a distributor/publisher for the game. Distribution/publisher interest in a game greatly depends on the games content list, in other words, publishers are the single biggest limitation on content or rather how varied content a game developer can feature. That being said SimBin have always tried to deliver lots of different racing classes to the gamers and we will continue to do so. That is a promise! • What is your view in the subscription base gaming with the likes of iRacing? Is that the way the industry could eventually be headed towards? JR: We wish nothing but the best of luck and good fortune for iRacing since they broaden the simracing genre with their concept. I personally do not believe that motor sport gamers in the long run are willing to spend money continuously on a subscription model. It´s different in MMO´s where you can build huge landscapes and new environments using only the scope of your imagination adding some cool new arsenal and then you are good to go. But if you are forced to continuously develop interesting enough and sometimes licensed content which costs you money to acquire to be able to keep a subscription model interesting and appealing for all users would be like living with a knife at your throat 24-7. • Due to licensing issues, GTR Evolution did not include both Porsche & Ferrari made, but we instead furbish with some excellent additions & un-expecting fun cars likes WTCC extreme & production class cars. Will we be seeing more of this in the future or as an add-ons? JR: The short and easy answer is; Yes • What will the next quantum leap in Sim-racing & what is Simbin envisioning thus far? JR: Maybe Lizard on PC! We always try to do our best with the resources at hand but it´s up to you all to decide what games are to be considered as milestones of this genre, we can only try to deliver what you want by keeping an ear to the ground on community sites like here. DS: in my opinion the Next Gen bubble has burst and to some extent I think the Next Gen phrase pushed games and game development in the wrong direction (with exceptions of course). I believe in a term called Next Level gaming where focus is on making the game standout due to innovation in game play rather than fancy lighting and shader systems. The Next Gen bubble removed (to some extend) the creative responsibility from game play to game visuals, and that is a real shame and in the long run a very unhealthy route for the industry. SimBin have introduced what I believe are quantum leaps for the SimRacer both in terms of game play and possibilities. Both the Swedish and the Danish motorsport federations have included SimRacing into their portfolios and it is now possible to start your career as a race driver at the wheel of your PC. Who would have thought we would succeed with this a few years back? When talks fall on SimBin and our contributions to the simRacing scene one must always remember that we are an independent games developer and that this greatly limits the creative freedom and financial risks we can afford to take. Despite these facts SimBin’s company strategy is to be a leading racing game developer and the future will see SimBin push to include new content and new game play features unique for SimBin. • Can there be a way that our previous legally obtained copies can be combined with evo?! Perhaps via steam?! I was just thinking about it, but then again we'll all need to buy a steam- version of the previous sims..but can this be done?! ..a bit like the hl-story which i have bought 3 times for the same game! Maybe even combining the older simbin-titles in one 'classic-package' or so to be used on steam , just like some other steam-games do!? But then again, i won't be knackered if it's impossible..we do have all the content to play with in the other titles and i'm very VERY thankfull to SimBin and partners for keeping faith and support to all of it's users! JR: It´s a bit more problematic than one might think at a first glance, but every game on the market is normally tied to various different distribution or publishing agreements, in some cases exclusive ones making it hard to combine games into combo packs if looking at the full scope when you have to combine the interests of so many parties. SimBin has published it´s own games since RACE and possibilities like this are more open to us in since then and in the future. • Will you make patches for offline version? I only have offline version but there are no update. JR: Yes • Why did you include the Nordschleife in GTR Evolution and why did you release an Arcade- version only (flat curbs, no corner markers, no bumps)? JR: We decided to take on the task of recreating the green hell because we love the track and we have wanted to do it since we started in 2003. WM: Our track artists had a very tough job optimizing this monster of a track and keep it within the limits of the game engine and the limits of current hardware. Simply put the track in-game is too massive to allow for our usual detailed scenery so we could either shorten the track or we could remove scenery item by item until we crept under the max size possible. We like to believe we made the right decision by removing some of the scenery instead of cutting away some of the actual track ;) To give you some idea of the effort put into this track, our track artists spent days and days removing individual items by hand until the best possible solution was found. The lack of bumps is by far down to the fact that the track has been resurfaces and the surface is now very very smooth. Reviewers and real life races have all pointed to this version of Nürburgring as the most precise and correct version ever created, and we are extremely proud of the level of accuracy and detail we have managed to achieve. • I always liked the accuracy of your tracks regarding bumps and curbs. When entering the GP circuit again coming from the Nordschleife I find the bump far too extreme. It's more like a jump. But what I really miss is the very bumpy approach to the Tiergarten section at the Nordschleife DS: When the track was referenced by SimBin it had been resurfaced in many areas and in some areas new curb stones was being added. What I find interesting is the fact that we actually have the biggest selection of licensed tracks of any racing games developer in the industry. No other developer or publisher has released as many different officially licensed tracks as SimBin. One reason for this fact to be true is that track development is time consuming and extremely costly partly due to license fees and partly due to the cost of sending the reference team to each and every track before and during the development of the tracks. SimBin tracks are created as accurate as humanly and technically possible and if you compare our tracks with those of the competition I am sure you will find that we do a damn good job of it, all nitpicking aside. • Can the AI be a bit more aggressive when coming from behind - especially in last laps of race? They put up a good fight when you try to pass them, but once you get past them, they seem to "give up" unless you (player) make a mistake. JE: AI is always in development in our projects and we always aim to do the best within our abilities. It is an extremely hard process and a fine balance to have the AI do what we want, but still have a mind for themselves. The longer we spend time with the AI the better they can get. DS: AI in general is one of the hardest tasks to get right in any type of game and it is an area where the entire industry is struggling. We do have elements that we would like to include or change and we are constantly working in a positive direction with regards to the AI. • Will we have 24hour racing in Evo? JR: No, not in its current form.