Nobody's Watching, Nobody Cares - The Death of Sim Racing eSports

[@Nineteenfivepointfive]

Ah yes. The man who lied and even made fun of people that criticized pc3 before the release of that mess. The man who don't know simracing anymore. The man who got a Alienware rig from the biggest a hole in simracing Ian bell. You my friend are absolutely not entitled to have an opinion in simracing anymore.

[@peerburns624]

Dont forget about the sponsored late model(?(goes fast left all the time anyway)) car. Ian Bellend outdid himself in that regard. Also A N A L C A V A T Y

[@Nitedontdie]

As someone who lives in a country lead by a horrifically bad dictator who thrives on fear and submission for her growing power and wants to silence all those who share their opinions whether they're right or wrong (basically saying fuck freedom of speech).... Fuck you.

[@Nitedontdie]

@@coulthard2006 If you're counting the one sentence where he said "The man who got a Alienware rig from the biggest a hole in simracing Ian bell." then yes, I'd agree with your statement. But the point of the OP's comment is completely false. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, telling someone otherwise just completely discredits everything else you say prior.

[@Ethefake]

wow man shit, when did he kill your parents?

[@DavidGarcia-oi5nt]

Lol f off dude, you just can't handle the truth that Austin puts down on here.

[@dennisbowen452]

If you are paying thousands of dollars just for the equipment alone while iracing costs another couple of thousand for all the content to play a game that cannot even improve a terrible tire model and pretend this is normal, then you're a nut.

[@Bobbarker23455]

Your commenting a paragraph about how bad iracing is. I think your the nut.

[@dennisbowen452]

@@Bobbarker23455 ok child. Also, wrong you're there. Try again

[@Bobbarker23455]

@@dennisbowen452 and now your projecting seek help lil buddy.

[@dennisbowen452]

@@Bobbarker23455 I pray you're a little kid just learning some of these words and making sure to seem smart in front adults but failed due to basic grammar mistakes. You played yourself kid.

[@Bobbarker23455]

@@dennisbowen452 i pray you get a life and stop crying. Whos the real kid ??

[@laurentderrien]

The main reason why sim racing e-sport never took off is simple imo. Our favorite genre is divided between sim and simcade. And the sim racing market itself is divided between too many games, none of them being significantly better than all the competition on all aspects. No gaming genre as a whole (FPS, fighting, STR...) has ever met success in e-sport. Only a handful of individual games : CS, Street Fighter, Starcraft 2... Even the MOBAs' and CCGs' successes can be reduced to 2 games representing each of those genres. And EA Sports games simply have little to no competition. There's just no room for 10 differents games pretending to offer the best platform for competitive sim racing. It's kinda sad but we need one major release dominating the competition, making us all flock to it. Viewership for events would follow. Iracing streams will never be more popular, given its business model. To be popular, an e-sport needs to be based on a game everyone can play. That's part of the appeal, knowing the game and being able to appreciate how better the guys you're watching are at it. Iracing will always be a niche sim destined to people dedicated to this hobby. This is not enough to gather a large viewership, especially when the market offers so many other good sims. The Codemasters F1 games prove this : it sells more, so it gathers more viewers.

[@Nitedontdie]

The only sim that could ever pull it off would be Gran Turismo, but it's not marketed well enough. I remember back in the 90's and 2000's, we actually had Gran Turismo/Video game ads in general, now we don't here in NZ. Either the companies don't see the point in advertising it here, or our shit country has something against advertising video games (pretty sure the latter is the reason). Truth be told regarding the "sim and simcade" argument, yes, there is division within the sim racing community. For some weird reason, we have a whole lot of people who share this fucked up opinion where if you don't play this or that game, you're a fraud and not a sim racer, just a filthy casual arcade/simcade player. Somewhere along the timeline, some egotistical piece of shit decided and proceeded to grow this idea that certain games are "sims" and others are "simcade" or "arcade", when as a matter of FACT, all driving games that even remotely resemble real cars and tracks, are simulators. It really agonizingly smashes those elitists souls, but that's just fact. Source: I used to be one of those elitist pricks that realized after driving a friend away from the sim racing community by saying "Forza/GT aren't sims, they're arcade" that I was just a piece of shit and shouldn't cast judgement of what I think over what game a fellow sim racer decides they get the most enjoyment from. Back to the GT thing, it's the biggest sim on the market, by a landslide. Forza is comparable, but for the hardcore competitive side of things, they've dominated in drifting but never came close to GT in anything other than that. GT is probably the most relatable racing game with the most relatable liveries and largest licensing, with the longest standing HUGE name in the market, that there really is no other title that could reliably represent the sim racing community/market. Which is probably why Gran Turismo (alongside other reasons, such as PD/Sony being Japan-based and Tokyo being the home of the Olympics for 2020 season) was picked over all other titles, contrary to the popular belief among the top 1% of sim racers believing iRacing or ACC are the only options for top tier sim racing experiences. Statistics/Analytics show that GT would be 10,000 fold more popular than either of those titles, so sim racers can live in denial all they like, but it's just facts. The F1 games would come close, but that's because F1 is a household name in Motorsport, and whenever you search something like "F1 2021" or "F1 2021 season", the game shows up as a result too, and other results for series pop up, so yeah, codemasters get free marketing in that respect, "Gran Turismo" is something you'd specifically search for, therefore it would be forced to advertise on TV or on web pages. Could break it down a whole shit load more, but I think you get the jist of it.

[@laurentderrien]

@@Nitedontdie GT's brand is famous enough yeah, but it would absolutely require to stop being a PS exclusive. As I said, a popular esport game needs to be playable by anyone, without a specific machine or monthly fee. Same issue with Forza. I agree with your opinion about stupid elitism. I used to be a bit like that too, until I tried playing some fun games again, like Wreckfest, Forza Horizon, Snowrunner, etc. They all bring something different and unique, some other fun experience. No need to always be hyper realistic to have fun. I just think the proper platform for a racing e-sport would be a sim leaning on the more realistic side. But I''m not much interested in watching people playing video games overall, so my opinion here doesn't really matter. Maybe GT is realistic enough idk, I've not played it since GT 4. I really wish we could see what Polyphony Digital could do on a PC. I'm sure this would bring, besides a larger audience, just what GT needs to take off as the sim racing number 1 platform. (NB : Video games ads are not many on French tv either dw. But who watches tv nowadays anyway ? :) )

[@Nitedontdie]

@@laurentderrien Most people still watch TV lol, it wouldn't be so massively financially supported if it wasn't. I don't think Gran Turismo would do better if it were available on PC or Xbox to be quite honest. The exclusivity is kind of what got it its fame as it stands, and I don't think there's anything Polyphony could achieve by making it a PC game that they can't achieve with the PS5, considering the PS5 is an extremely powerful console - in comparison to the average high end gaming PC anyway, not including those who get 5950x and 3090's, that's enthusiast gear, in fact I'd probably be able to promise that the PS5 is not only cheaper, but significantly better than most gamer's PC's, if you go by Steam stats anyway. I haven't played Gran Turismo since GT4 either, I never owned a Playstation for about 10 years until 2 days ago, and I don't even have it yet (fucking pre-order bs), but from what I can tell based on frequently viewing the likes of Super GT or kirethk, it's nowhere even remotely close to the likes of ACC, I'd say if anything it's closer to AC1 or rF2 in terms of realism/physics, they still have that stupid crash physic too where if you hit a car or wall, the car you hit or the wall you hit takes 100% of the inertia you had and you stop on the spot and spin around to face the wrong way because you 100% of the time face the wrong way in real life when you crash. *rolls eyes* Buuuuuuuut, based purely off of speculation, and my own personal opinion/idea, not factual at all... I think Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo 7 might turn things around massively for console sim racing. Both franchise' are astronomically huge, like, not even every single PC sim racing game combined and then multiplied by 100, comes even remotely close to their player counts. Either one of them, if done well, could easily steal the show for all things sim racing, if they're done right. They already have a gigantic playerbase, it's basically just a minority group of elitists and gamers that prefer uncapped graphics settings that still play PC sim racing games like die-hard fans, or because they've found their poison, so to speak. It's genuinely hard to say, but it's very easy to say that the likes of iRacing, rF2, AC1, AMS2 don't have a shit show in hell on generating enough interest in eSport Sim Racing, the only ones that might would be F1 series', ACC, MotoGP, WRC, and why? Because they're endorsed by their real life counterparts. Oh and they actually look good, are accessible to everyone, and play really well.

[@laurentderrien]

@@Nitedontdie yeah no hard-core PC exclusive sim could ever take off a proper e-sport. But I think Forza and GT not being available on all platforms is a big issue too. The current situation regarding sim-racing e-sport tends to prove it. Both series have matured enough, 7 releases, and still none managed to create a proper and durable sim-racing series. The most dedicated sim-racing enthusiasts, the ones spending money in hardware and peripherals, the ones the first sponsors are interested in advertising to, are on PC. Imo, you can't pass on this audience if you intend to create such an e-sport series. The casual racing playerbase is much bigger ofc, but probably less dedicated and less willing to follow an e-sport competition. So far, the most successful e-sports games come from PC, and are still mostly played on PC. I would have no interest following a GT competition if I could not play the game. That's why I never looked into what they did in the past. The new consoles are good machines, but I'll never buy one. Once you have a console or a PC setup, you don't switch for a single game. Especially when PS5 games are slowly coming to PC. It could happen for GT, but not before a few years. It's a machine-seller, they need it to be a PS5 exclusive for a while. That's why I think we need a single multi-platform leading sim to rule them all, in order to give birth to sim-racing e-sports properly.

[@Nitedontdie]

@@laurentderrien it's possible Assetto Corsa 2 could fill that spot, afaik that game is supposed to be PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X. Bare in mind, Forza Motorsport is available on Xbox One, Series X and PC, though I do believe it's Xbox based and ported to its stronger counterparts, which leads to some funky shit. Gran Turismo will never be available on other platforms I don't think. I'm fairly sure Playstation contracted Polyphony Digital as lifetime exclusives, as their Gran Turismo games typically push the Playstation consoles to their absolute limit while maintaining a consistent max res max fps. But yes I do agree, console players are typically very casual, majority are.

[@Raycevick]

This was a pleasant surprise. Clear, concise, and constructive. Selfishly, this makes me feel better about the dumbass league friends and I crash in and it's small following. I think another issue that Racing eSports runs into is how cold they are. I find it difficult to identify with anybody playing because there's almost no interaction or personality with the drivers; the biggest pull a League can do for me is a good commentator, and even then, that's like only watching F1 for Brundle. I'd much rather watch 20 selfish assholes push each other out of the way with their own liveries rather than this meaningless team setup.

[@0uttaS1TE]

I know this is a late reply but you make a good point about personality, especially given the nature of motorsport. It's especially kinda strange, given how games like GT have tools like livery editors for the car and even the helmet to at least show some preliminary idea of personality. Like, I still remember the helmets for old F1 drivers like Jensen Button and Michael Schumacher. It's like, in their attempts to be like the grown ups, with the FIA sponsoring and the kits and the flair, they miss out the heart of it.

[@sunshinez-2017]

Surprised to see him here cool

[@w4dester]

got confused about some parts of this, didn't realize this was made pre-covid lol

[@samuele64246]

Not that much as changed now

[@peerburns624]

IMHO it boils down to the simple reason that you can just watch real racing and every aspect of it is better. I mean why should the audience even watch sim racing e-sports instead of the real thing? There are no benefits. Beginning with the production quality. Trackside cameras are often just the prebaked camerapaths of the replay function instead of multiple professional camera man. There isnt a somewhat highly paid live director who knows how to entertainingly cut between the cameras. The commentators do their best but are often lacking in comparison. Then the stakes are just really low compared to a real race. Oh no, virtual car #14 had a crash and teleported back to the pits. No body gave a fuck. Also there isnt really the fascination of people doing things you cant do physically, mentally and mainly because of lacking money. I will never participate in eg a real WRC race. With simracing, i just hop into fucking AC/Dirt/whatever which costs less than literal dirt on a sale and thats it. Surely i need a Wheel for enjoyment which costs a bit more but who watches sim racing esport and doesnt own one? So why should i watch a shitty stream when i can do the same shit for myself right away? The only virtual race streams i watched were from people like oggy, nikki thiem, jimmy and the like. But i watched those mostly because of their personality and not because of the race. The live banter, shittalking with mates or interaction with the community is where its at. Then most people in the races are just some fucking nametag. I dont give a shit about them because i dont know anything about them. Why should i route for "ifcukdyourmom" instead of "xxxdrag0nsl4y3rxxx" or the likes? So we already established that sim racing esport doesnt do anything better than the real thing. But it also doesnt bring anything new to the table? Big esports titles mostly do things which cant be replicated in real live. Shooting eachother to death most likely wont happen on live tv in near future. What is even the equivalent of abstract stuff like lol or dota. Chess on steroids? idk but thats my point. Fucking Mario Kart has a better chance to be a big esport title because it distinguishes itself fairly well from normal racing. Also almost everybody playd it at some point and has a glimpse of an idea why something that is happening on the toplevel is awesome compared to their own shitty abilities. Simracing will never be big esport.

[@pedrosilvaproductions]

I think the personalities are their biggest stand point. By that sense the best thing they can do is what they already do, which is have community tournaments and leagues, with big names, maybe do a live event of some sort. Speedrunning is also very small, and what drives speedrunning? Shows like GDQ or SGDQ which are for charity. They could do that for example. The pandemic brought something fun to watching sim races, which was putting F1 drivers against streamers and other pros. It was fun because you felt closer than ever to real sports drivers and they were not try harding, they were just laughing and having fun. Imagine in the 90s you could see idk Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher bantering with each other in video games, like you saw Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. It wasn't really because of the race, but the amount of memes and good memories. I remember seeing Albon shouting "GEORGEEEE" when he was hit by russell. Or seeing Charles Leclerc noticing he didn't answer the door to his gf so she had to donate the stream for him to notice. Nobody cares about the racing itself, because you're already expecting them to be almost near perfect. It's cool to see in one or two laps, but I wouldn't watch a full on race, because as you said "there's nothing I can't do in my sim racing game". I literally have my cockpit on my side. I can just hop on it and play the games, why watch streams?

[@mahiru20ten]

If the reason is "you can just watch x and every aspect of it is better", then that should also apply to any sportsball related esport. But then you see how much views a FIFA or Madden tournament got. It's way more than most sim racing tournament.

[@benjaminwatson7868]

@@mahiru20ten that’s because like someone stated elsewhere in this comment sections that’s not 15 different individual players versus 15 others playing against each other in a simulation but rather a strategy game with sports controlling all the players on your team as a cohesive move

[@supermaster2012]

For the same reason I watch Xfinity instead of Cup, because it's much more entertaining to watch inexperienced drivers battle not only eachother but also their lack of seniorship.

[@QuixEnd]

The older I get the more annoying and unwatchable I find the youTube gamer scene to be. So I always get stoked to see you talking about something like this. The gamer market is brutally short sighted and everyone acts like the next big thing is right around the corner. Look at how dumb so many consumers are about games, like.. literally every EA sports KZbinr freaking out about how the new $60 game is exactly the same but worse just like the past 7 years. Every game is either exploding or "dying out" there's never a middle ground, especially with sim racing

[@teeffw2776]

I found the KZbin racing stuff absolutely intolerable since everyone is, for the lack of a better word, a tryhard. No fun allowed, gotta be the best, gotta do the best. No leeway tolerated, no weird stuff at all. Jimmy Broadbent was a nice and refreshing breath of fresh air in that sense, but he fell into the usual "Whoops, I grew up poor and with mental health issues and suddenly fell into enough money to buy sports cars on a whim thanks to internet game streaming" thing and started taking himself too seriously. And then he got hired up by a team that only ever hires e-celebrities and his ego went into the exosphere. Not fun to watch at all. So who cares? Who wants to watch? Nobody. Nothing is at stake. If they crash, they don't lose a million dollars in damage repair. They don't get to be called Formula 1 World Champion or MotoGP World Champion or That Guy Who Won This Year's Isle Of Man TT Despite His Enormous Balls Getting In The Way. Instead it's always people like Jimmy "I got punted off by some footballer in the F1 Online GP Interlagos Race" Broadbent who then had to fight for scraps in the back half. Just, nobody cares. It's a video game. Play it if you find it fun. Why would you watch someone else play it unless they're a close friend of yours?

[@DavidGarcia-oi5nt]

@@teeffw2776 I agree wholeheartedly about how huge Jimmy's ego grew in the past year.

[@tiagobelo4965]

Not really, outside of sim racing you have games such as TF2, with a stable and loyal following, and in simracing itself, most of the main sims have incredibly stable player counts (in a wide time range)

[@pedrosilvaproductions]

@@tiagobelo4965 True about the stable player counts. However, you can also see that the player count is also very small. The "biggest" in terms of numbers is maybe AC because of the mods, and iracing next to it (according to their launcher it seems the average is around 10k concurrent players. That number is so small when we compare with things like CS GO or League which have a half million players + people watching streams Even though it seems quite big to us, unfortunately it is true that sim racing is still a niche market

[@cco53587]

I wouldn't say teams are a completely moot point. They're good for running endurance races as well as sharing setups and tips among friends. Not everybody who runs or joins one is a LARPer, just look at the results of any endurance event on iRacing and half the team names are memes.

[@yepwhatever1142]

Nobody is gonna watch stupid fucking internet races regularly. The games are fun to play. That's it.

[@cyberneticxylem9614]

The main reason I got a rig was because I enjoy the skill of learning how to drive fast and drive well. Also this is the closest I can get to using an arcade cabinet without having to drive 45 to 50 minutes out of town.

[@dylano0126]

Building your own sim rig and using it as a tool to improve in real life I think is great. As long as you're not viciously paying over 2k for equipment.

[@cyberneticxylem9614]

@@dylano0126 I'd like to upgrade at some point. I don't know how many hours I've logged onto my rig but that thing has kept me out of SEVERAL crashes since I've started using it.

[@dylano0126]

​@@cyberneticxylem9614 As long as you enjoy it, I don't think there's any need to upgrade. Just be wary of those nutcases that have gear worth well over 5k, they are horrible examples. Sim racing as a hobby is very expensive if you get addicted to it. It's more expensive than racing in a real racing car (looking at you, iRacing). It always starts small, then you think it's a phase, but it always draws you back in, it's crazy.

[@cyberneticxylem9614]

@@dylano0126 At best I'd like a second steering wheel, a manual shifter and a button box. I would've stuck with Gran Turismo for the sake of simplicity but we all know how that debacle turned out...

[@dylano0126]

@@cyberneticxylem9614 I feel you man 100%

[@mrj3217]

I think Sim racing needs to hold a tournament with completely randomly chosen tracks, and weather and only allow the drivers to adjust a few things with the car. Allow no outside help and only give these people limited practice. Live race-per-race officiating with very clear rules. If guys drive dirty it's on them. But have it be as neutral as possible. Have like a $20 to 60 dollar entry fee and let the event begin. Pay the top 100 prize money. Good prize money.

[@JZStudiosonline]

This is where you're wrong. The death of something insinuates it ever had life.

[@stewpuddy4161]

I definitely laugh at the "professional teams" and have always wondered, does Ray Alfalla have a job, or is iracing his job?

[@AlabamaCOC]

iracing is his job. i can’t remember what team he races for but he’s a nascar esports champion

[@ba.diecast24]

At one point I’m pretty sure he worked for the US Postal Service. Not sure if he still does, but he did at one point

[@FoRiZon]

@Alabama He should've start applying to McDonalds at some point since it'll not he sustainable.

[@DaytonaPrototypes]

If NASCAR were to partner with Gran Turismo or Forza again to form a league, they might get some decent viewership. Those titles have fairly large communities and both platforms are much more attainable compared to iRacing. But I guess the "realism" of iRacing is more important to them.

[@pentilex4338]

They invest money into their own game so they won't

[@PauloRobertoElias]

Unfortunately, I totally agree. I just love to play these games but hate to watch. However, I think that the scenario can improve using game tools like selecting which driver or cam to follow and this can only be done using the game engine and it does not inflate social media views

[@Lolfungreg]

This is a sad truth, I'm a low-level competitive simracer myself and I don't see how teams and organizations at the top of my platform (rF2) can afford to pay anyone, all the while... Thy do exactly that. Only thing I disagree with is your point on teams. I'm in a certain league (won't say names) where every driver in the league's 4 tiers has to pay 20+ euros to compete in the season, but all of that money only goes to paying out the drivers' prizes in the top tier... People are still wasting egregious amounts of money on it, now most of the marketing happening on my platform is just from smaller sim manufacturers. Though I disagree with your points about the teams. You *can* do it all yourself, but not everyone can. Teammates can potentially develop setups faster together and there are people who are really specialized who join higher-level organizations to help Edit: Almost forgot to add, I'm witnessing a ROBLOX(!) racing league getting more views on it's streams and VODs than 90% of sim leagues... Lol

[@SimRacingNews]

While I do agree with the main point (sim racing is "dead"), as far as viewership goes, how do you see the Twitch impact on numbers? Clearly for some series the "place" to watch is Twitch, not YT (ESL R1). And while Covid gave a spark to the sport in 2020/2021, currently it all regressed to 2019 levels, that were already declining.

[@ydertbh5742]

NR Night In America, a fun, almost daily-ish league by IDK Player consistently gets a little under or MORE views than 10k for his streams. This is just a bruh moment

[@AustinOgonoski]

NR Night in America gets more views than actual pro esports competitions because it's fun and doesn't take itself too seriously.

[@neandertalac]

It was a short lived hit during pandemic, now it is just an expensive hobby, so no kids can afford to do it. Learning curve is steep and just by watching others, you can't really get any useful info. Until there is some remote control reality where PC users could drive cars on road, there is no gain in this branch...

[@supermaster2012]

The purpose of teams, in theory at least, is that it's much easier for an organisation to obtain and keep sponsors since, in theory, the organisation exists regardless of who's driving for them and for a company paying money to have their brand displayed it's a much easier pill to swallow.

[@toastywhiteboy7822]

Also worth noting that teams can pay for the travel and even a salary for their players so they can put all of their time into practicing. It’s why top level smash players have sponsors, even tho it’s a 1v1 setting. You can absolutely go solo, but it’s harder. Also worth noting, teams/orgs traditionally find you, not the other way around.

[@user-fn5xg7qt7u]

There’s too many random series in random cars on random games. I agree with other peoples sentiments that many of these leagues would benefit from merging into a couple big series that are offered for viewing in a centralized way.

[@superpv]

I think the key here is what you mention about we, sim drivers, dont even consider watching F1 or GT just because we dont consider them simulators. This creates a gap between our community and the vanilla reality of car fans (and those, i guess most of them dont consider us real drivers, just videogame people). We have to close this gap. Austin, on another viewpoint, if you care, i think we need to talk about how sim racing is a kind of "pay to win" model. I live on a poor country and started racing with a 15in laptop. And i use to use "driver line", not because i dont know where to brake, but to have some kind of "feeling" of depth on track. Then, when i got up on iracing, a lot of races dont support this (and some leagues too). I see a lot of people complaining that a "real" sim racer dont need this (and even that this doesnt help), but they turn off. Just when i got my VR, i suddenly got better, because i finally could see the track. Thus, the "pay to win" mechanic is outside the simulator, but on the gear. Another taboo topic is about iracing incident count. Its great if you are a great driver and want to have 30-45 min race, but i feel joy playing with MX5 and its horrible to be penalized when someone that is one lap down crashes on my back, giving me 4x and lowering my SR. Dont you think iracing could get this system better? On those low levels race, for example, you often see people going off track then rejoining without proper care and crashing on others. Dont you think iracing could improve this? People get up on their licenses without even knowing the basics on track. Tks for your attention and congratulations on another good content! =)

[@JZStudiosonline]

Driving line is only useful to show approximate braking points, or on tracks that are stupid enough to have corners with no warning or distance markers. They're usually wrong and often tell you to brake too early or go too slow. I just played Forza 7 and took a car on Le Mans and on the back straight it told me to slow down the entire time so I couldn't even see where the actual braking line was. What's interesting is that it didn't do that with the same car when I was using a wheel.

[@superpv]

@@JZStudiosonline OMG, how i hate stupid people who cant read/understand. NOBODY said it was supposed to be the best, only a way for people who cant afford VR or triples to have any kind of depth perception.

[@pedrosilvaproductions]

@@JZStudiosonline Racing lines in many games are dynamic, so it's normal. You push harder it tells you to brake at different points. In games like iracing the point is fixed. But many times I see that the braking points are not needed. I use the line for practicing and then turn it off, since I take note on the position and I take a rough idea on how much and where to brake, and I usually see points in which it tells me to brake, but I can just lift and do the corner much better. Many times I up to 2 or 3 seconds just by lifting or braking very slightly

[@Simlife101]

Posted a month ago yet based before covid, sim racing has exploded

[@mustangroadracer]

I love watching the community lose their shit... i love acc... i used to like iracing.. but watching all these karens hating simply because u point out the truth. Its fucking priceless.. keep up the work bro.. and download a pop filter and deesser

[@pedrosilvaproductions]

It's freaking dumb to watch them fight over which one is better, like you can only buy one. I own most of the most popular sim racing titles and I like parts of them all Also, you can't download a pop filter, he's using a headset mic, might as well just buy a better usb microphone, his doesn't sound very good

[@stickdeath1980]

Cannot wait for your Rennsport review dude

[@Christophe_L]

IDK man, I love racing, things with wheels in general, video games, watching races and commentary, I have (been lucky to) had a FFB wheel since I was a kid in 2004, and yet... I can't get myself to watch the more 'official' sim racing events. It always felt so serious and awkward. It felt like they were recreating 'real' races, when they should have just embraced the fact that sim racing is in its essence just Video Games, and kept it fun. Just think of the number of views that a lot of sim racing youtubers get on their races.

[@lmaoborghini5243]

On the teams point, would teams give their drivers money in order to be able to take care of themselves and be able to keep driving for them?

[@gamerageandhobbyrcdu]

you would be correct, alot of higher level teams (like g2, cloud 9, williams, red bull esports, and others) do pay there players.... kinda odd that was not mentioned that alot of these guys are paid to race

[@Royga18c]

Want to skyrocket the sim racing e-sports viewership to oblivion? Just let: Amouranth, Pokimane, Neekolul, Belle Delphine and many e-thotzs more, participate in skimpy outfits and it will be like the Superbowl to the simps. Obviously it will be a wreckfest but...oh well

[@thrasherdave1428]

Yeah that would be jokes lol. I low-key wanna see that 😆

[@toastywhiteboy7822]

I assume teams are like orgs, where they can sponsor you and basically make you an employee. You get more practice time, since practice is your job and they pay for traveling, which is important on high levels because international travel is expensive. That’s why Smash, Street Fighter and even Simracers have orgs. You can absolutely go solo, it’s just harder.

[@xr.spedtech]

9:33 I can draw... But those softwares are hard to use for me personally... I have to write custom code to get what I want done ...

[@daboiracing3848]

Id rather have F1 be considered a simulator and have fun with views, It's not like NFL 22 is super realistic lol they don't even have first person.

[@dasmoools606]

Why would anyone watch? One of the issue's involving SimRacing eSports, is the fact.. why watch simulated racing, when you can just.. watch real racing? especially if its GT's, BTCC and so forth. It's basically like asking a bunch of racing fans to give a crap about a very niche and obscure genre. Ask the average person what is Sim Racing? or what is eSport racing? Majority of them will shrug and laugh, why would they care? the overall image of 'racing esports' is.. arcade games. You can blame Gran Turismo for that, considering it labels itself the 'real' driving simulator, when.. its nothing like driving the actual cars. It's closer to Need For Speed than anything. It looks pretty, its fun! hella fun, but.. thats the image thats slapped onto the entire genre. Furthermore, Sim Racing, again is a very niche and.. arguably expensive Genre. We might look at the entry level wheels, pedals an so forth and think, not expensive. Ask the average joe if they think Logitechs G29 is 'reasonably priced' - for in their mind, its a cheap plastic bit of tat for playing toy cars.. that costs £200. Most will scoff at that, nevermind the rest of the offerings, like my rig in total is about £7000, including rig, pedals, base, wheels, seat, screens and the PC. It's not exactly a genre that the average joe will dive right in on and the G29 offers a very, well, arcadey experience. Not bashing it, just looking at it from an outsiders perspective. So the average joe will think, ah.. this feels like crap, feels nothing like a car and I paid £200 for this?? ( Remember, the average joe wont be watching SRG or some such for 'reviews on this that' or thinking, snag a second hand one. Most people who buy a G29, tend not to realize they can get a second hand one for little to nothing, in good nick too. ) Now add eSports into the mix. Who wants to watch a bunch of kids and old guys, maybe a few girls here an there, stare at a screen for an hour or so, whilst half the field gets taken out by very.. uh unrealistic dive bombs, wipe outs and course.. bugs galore! finally. People don't want to waste their time on something so, well.. not as exciting and interesting as the real thing. You watching it in person or on a screen.. is just, no different, its exactly the same. Compare that to the real thing, watching it in real life is.. electrifying, the presence of the track and the sound, the smell and sensation of the cars wipping past at high speed, watching drivers battle it out before your very eyes where one mistake could result in, well.. not a 'reset to track' or, a car bouncing and rolling then driving on, but.. race over scenarios. racing eSport just.. wont ever have that same presence. It wont be able to reach a wider audiance, it'll mostly just stick around WITHIN the niche genre and even then. Most sim racers would rather race than watch the race.

[@kondor9998]

I lost interest and went back to playing tennis IRL. Got tired of sitting on my ass all the time.

[@connorhillary2816]

Why watch video game racing when I can watch real racing? I like racing in simulators because I can't do it in real life. I can turn on the TV and watch nascar.

[@orangeavenger1597]

90% of the issue with racing esports are they are boring. It doesnt help the community are a bunch of try hards that embrace rules meant to save money for team owners in real life. REEEEEE SOMEBODY SMASHED INTO ME AFTER THE RACE! (Files 10 complaints). The format just doesn't transfer well. If anything you'd want a system that enables MORE carnage. Thats what people want to see.

[@OhItsThat]

There is no real life Rocket league or Fartnite. There is real auto racing and it’s more exciting to watch then sim racing. Let’s face it. Id love you to debate the Sim Pit on this topic. Sim racing esports is dead, let it die. Let’s talk about software and hardware and all the fun that can be had in cars other then GT3s.

[@mitchdrew9005]

Wait, you think watching sim racing live/replays is better than watching ACTUAL real life racing live/replays? Or am i misinterpreting your comment? Because if that is what you mean, I couldn’t disagree more.

[@OhItsThat]

@@mitchdrew9005 I was saying real is better and that I don’t like watching sim racing, especially sim racing esports. I’m cool with esports that don’t have a real life counterpart. Looks like I misspelled a word.

[@samiraperi467]

Nobody's going to watch if the names aren't familiar. People follow *people* more than brands.

[@N4CR]

Check your sound levels during editing man this is so quiet.

[@MidnightMechanic]

Compare it to Smash tournament view counts. Hell, I'd like to see the metrics for LMS IRL vs. simulated!

[@daydream3rr]

>crying about your divorce is a bigger esports than simracing lamo

[@63101]

Salty but hard to deal with

[@virgilthemob1242]

Sim racing has every issue to hold it back tbh. Equipment costs are ridiculous unless you're ok running on a Logitech G29 or entry level Thrustmaster wheel, dipping your toes in it is difficult because unless you're playing iRacing, every online game is filled with griefers and joining a league is a big commitment, online populations are fairly low, sometimes falling even lower than other "Dead" genres like fighting games and watching them is just not entertaining. Partly because the direction is ass and obviously because you could just watch the real deal instead. While games like Gran Turismo are basically the closest you can get to a popular simracer, having a terrible handling model and a childish playerbase even takes care of that. So yeah, folks! Sim racing is never gonna be popular and it's only got itself to blame.

[@JZStudiosonline]

Lol, the facebook group forbids mention of Forza and GT, while still promoting the heaping pile of garbage that is RBR. What a joke.

[@kem0n0.kokomo]

What's the problem with Richard Burns? Never heard no bad about it.

[@JZStudiosonline]

@@kem0n0.kokomo It's just an old game. I kept hearing how great it was so I tried it and I don't understand the rave reviews, especially compared to something like Dirt Rally. The physics vanilla or modded just aren't that great.

[@TheFurryInShambles]

Elitist weirdos

[@cementer4life]

That DC Solar shade 😂😂😂😂

[@Mark-sy9jy]

When talking about viewers you conveniently omitted Virtual Le Mans with 81 million and GTR24H with over 400 million 🤔🤫

[@supermaster2012]

of course he did, this guy's a 4chan clown LARPer.

[@DavidGarcia-oi5nt]

Eyyy he's back!

[@zebucombat]

Interesting Video, but consider this: Player online at the time of writing this comment Rocket League across all platforms - 198 000 (activeplayer io estimate), of which all could be potentially interested. Iracing - 9500 of which not all are oval drivers who would be potentially interested in the peak series. With that in mind 10k vs 300k views makes more sense. A question IMO that would make a more interesting video is why nobody cares about simracing as a whole, not just sim esports.

[@Nitedontdie]

Because the barrier of entry is so fkn high. You have to have a really strong PC for a lot of AAA sims, or a current gen console, then you need the games, and their dlcs, then you need a wheel and pedal set, then you need internet generally, then you need screens, then you need other peripherals like sound/keyboard/mouse etc. All adds up, making it kinda rough to get into. I personally have $9k in my setup, albeit 50% of that is in my PC, and I only have a T300RS GT, because that alone was $700 and they don't sell Fanatec gear in NZ (huge customs tax to bring it in).

[@cbj4sc1]

@@Nitedontdie but tbh, it really isn't. A good enough driver could do well on a G920 and while Iracing is VERY expensive it isn't the only sim out there with Simracing leagues. The main reason no one cares about Simracing eSports is because we're racing fans. And many Sims lie in an uncanny valley, which makes it feel less like we are watching a real race but instead watching people play games together for fun. Maybe we should go the Moonhead/Bottom Split approach and embrace the silliness. Do what you CANT do irl.

[@supermaster2012]

And most importantly KZbin VODs only count views past 25% of the length of the stream during the live period.

[@canadiankrispybacon]

I think there are plenty watching and participating…it’s just that the community is saturated with leagues …if some of the league’s would merge I think we’d see the participation levels grow…but imho it’s like when a political party of the same or similar mandates break up forming toe parties splitting the vote…esports needs to consolidate…and there is a decent Canadian following…however Canadians are sidelined in most of the competitions, we’re omitted, disallowed and discouraged from any meaningful competition…imho there when we’re next door neighbours

[@allanjohnsen1034]

the sale however of simracing gear is exploding ... so at least the sport is not dead

[@redbullsauberpetronas]

It's not a sport lol

[@allanjohnsen1034]

@@redbullsauberpetronas 😄

[@whodat1721]

I don't see eSports in general as something for viewers, except for those who compete in it. The only reason to sponsor is to get other players to buy the product. Most regular eSports viewers don't really care about sponsor products unless it's something that will help them in a game.

[@redbullsauberpetronas]

It amazes me that so many people watch any "eSport" like everything is more fun to play yourself

[@ameyavarma8568]

thrustmaster lol, that name will never not make me crack up

[@Mathieu_soDjo]

Mostly agree but there are teams in esport for solo players in RTS games, arena shooters and sports ports. The point of the team is to get visibility for their fans and sponsors and your incentive for joining is the salary and/or the added value. Let's not kid ourselves and think most people can afford a high end computer and high end sim gear, which, even if not necessary will always be chosen by the top players who want less variance. Teams have had "training" facilities for some time now. Reality tv has more viewers than most football games; is reality tv a better football game ? Dont' reach :p

[@orangeavenger1597]

I don't know why intel sponsors anything. Who the fuck is buying CPU's based on it being pasted on a car or event?

[@Riggsfan99]

I didn't know Cars Tour had a esports league. Probably didn't get growth because the actual late model series is just a small series on the east coast.

[@yingderekliao1981]

i only watch a sim racing match is the replay of my own race. Watching others' match is really dull.

[@michaelmartz8426]

Why would we watch esports when we can participate?

[@JorgeAraujo97]

Gran Turismo events seems to attract a decent number of people. Besides the games being wildly uneven in quality, there's also the problem with personalities - most sim racers have the personality of a door, or they are flat out crazy. In other games, you have charismatic people playing. Just check out some World of Tanks community contributors, for example, like Skill4ltu and Claus Kellerman. They are fun, affable people.

[@Lilandy33]

Racing just isn't as popular as football or basketball. Thus why it isn't as big as those.

[@FATALROTARY]

Cant say that its very popular maybe not as much in the u.s. but it's like soccer some countries super bowl is racing like in Italy or Spain even in South America its massively popular

[@philosopher2420]

Why would people watch Sim racing, They don't watch Real Motor sports. The only watch motor racing is F1, Indy car and Nascar.

[@fpupesh]

why are not mentioning the 400 million global viewers gtr24h claims? :D

[@supermaster2012]

Because that would spoil his narrative. For reference, this guy is a 4chan LARPer clown that tried to get into iRacing profesionally and failed misserably so like a bratty kid he now dedicates himself to belittle the community that he wasn't good enough to enter.

[@luichinplaystation610]

But of course nascar is the older one Tracks never change, cars are the same easy to model it

[@edoardodalpra4742]

Tracks change and NASCAR cars changed different times since the 90s

[@TracksideViews]

Well I mean, anyway…

[@Nitedontdie]

It's such a weird position because if it were done right, there could be a MASSIVE series, but it would requires tons of money and proper teams to take care of every sector. GT:S or GT7 would probably have the highest possible chance at a sim racing series taking off massively, but it would have to be done right. - And lets just straighten something out real quick, Gran Turismo, Forza and pretty much any other racing game that's based on real cars, tracks and physics (regardless of how close they come to reality (and who the fuck are most sim racers to say what's realistic when 98% of them don't race irl)), they ARE sims. They are by definition, simulations of driving, only a fucking idiot would disagree with this, or someone with so large of an ego it's bigger than Mt Everest. Point is, I'm not certain on this but I feel like a lot of these orgs and coordinators are just in it for the quick money grab from sponsors. They never pull huge numbers, but they're also not advertised. Where does the sponsor money go from these HUGE sponsors? Like Nvidia for example, or Intel. Where exactly did their money go? It sure as shit didn't go into advertisement or marketing, hell I wouldn't be surprised if they spent millions on these event coordinators and the EC's invested as little as $250k in their series, meanwhile they pocket $1m+. Something just doesn't add up, advertise a series on TV, buy TV time slots internationally, plan it a year ahead, run registration and qualifyings, get the servers, get the production team, run a series and bring in huge numbers. Make it easy for viewers to understand what's going on and it would likely take off.

[@Nitedontdie]

Also, the game that's used has to be one that has been internationally recognized by millions of people, not some tiny elitism based sim like ACC, iRacing, rFactor etc, that's never going to be popular, but if you use a sim like... Forza, or Gran Turismo, something that has had 15+ years of mainstream console recognition, idk maybe it might actually just be popular and bring unseen life to the sim racing communities. This is kind of why the GT Academy was fairly popular among people who knew it existed and generally within the sim racing community, it was a big game with a big audience, whether you were one of those weird, "die hard, no 200-point tire model, no play" sim racers or a "filthy casual forza gamer", it was massively recognizeable, it just wasn't advertised well and therefore didn't reach 1/100,000th of the potential viewership available. Idk man, sounds like shit decisions is the death of it, not a lack of interest.

[@Nitedontdie]

Oh and yeah the NASCAR thing has pretty much zero interest from any other country but America and maybe Canada, in Oceanic region we're mostly interested in V8SC, F1, and in recent years we've had massive growing interest in GT racing. Aside from that we love our burnouts, like I can't express how much we love burnouts, to put it into perspective, there's a gigantic annual car show called Summernats in Australia where thousands of people gather to watch hundreds of people rev their cars and pin them to around 7,000 rpm for 2 minutes straight while completely obliterating some poor tire's soul... and of course, Drag Racing. So yeah, NASCAR is fairly dead, meaningless to us, probably the same in every other part of the world, it's just not very appealing, you know, turning left for 3-6 hours straight, very fun. It adapted later to road courses too, but I mean, other series kinda fill that spot and are substantially more exciting to watch. Is what it is.

[@avgvstvs96]

You talked about teams being silly, as an ACC driver teams are super helpful bc you need to swap drivers for endurance racers, teams can also help setup your pit strategy and car while you're racing. I agree with all your other points though

[@azvez_122]

You missed his point. He wasn’t talking about a team of drivers in endurance racing. He’s talking about the eNascar league teams being smoke and mirrors because they try to be like their real life counterpart Nascar. These esports drivers literally have their own spotters and “race engineer/setup shop guys” in their headphones. These drivers are already so good in the sims… so why would they need a whole team behind them like they’re an irl driver?

[@FRFM00]

You're right. Esport sim racing should have been just hype for the 1 driver, never teams or members etc.. all the glory to just the driver. Would have been easier to popularize

[@frankd.b.9233]

A game is and remains a game if you like to do it, that's all that matters, the rest is crap bullshit speech

[@peerburns624]

The return of the shittiest microphone ever.

[@felonious_monk1972]

I’m not a sim racer so I’ve got no skin in the game but still trying to understand the pint of this video………. As far as I can tell the point is just to say “Hey I think it’s stupid and here are some stats to prove it” In your spare time do you drown puppies and tell kids there’s NO Santa?

[@mitchdrew9005]

No, the point is, lets stop acting like sim racing “pro” leagues, are gonna turn into the cod pro scrims tournaments, where hundreds of thousands of people will watch. Iracing is one example, they promote it on their social media as if it will be the next biggest thing in gaming, with a $300,000 purse (nascar side), yet the average player, who is actually more responsible for iracing making money than anyone in any of their pro series, doesn’t feel the cars or tracks act as they should, and nothing is done about it, for months, sometimes years. Tire model, multi groove racing, are a few examples. Instead of fixing these things, they spend their time toting iracing as the next biggest thing in gaming, when in reality, its a niche hobby that racing fans, an already not so huge hobby, enjoy doing online. Lets stop acting like its something it isn’t, and actually try to make the games better all around. Thats the point I got out of the video, thought it was pretty clear, maybe its just me. Then again, maybe its just you, and a select few others, in the comments, crying because he made a video saying “ya, this sim racing esports thing isn’t what you think”.

[@bslay4r]

So what do you think about Rennsport? DOA? Btw 20K views: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKLagZ2njMyHhJo :D

[@velocitaaa]

Facts.

[@NewWorldCT]

Literally was talking to my friend about this last night.

[@Simlife101]

Not sure i would listen to the opinion of a guy whos mic sounds like its from the 80s

[@revhead1001]

Virtual racing always looks stale and ganky compared to the real thing. Why watch some unfit dude drive fake cars when you can watch actual people putting their lives on the line. Not sure if i agree that its dying, it never was all that big a deal to begin with. Also, the good esports all present a game that cant be played in real life/ a different strategy to real life. Sim racing is not distinct from real racing.

[@orionexplorer]

Austin, I found your channel a few days ago. At first it seemed good, now I wonder. You sound like someone who tried to make it big in sim racing but didn't quite make it. I don't know you in iRacing or any other title. I do hear a lot of negative from you in the videos that I have watched. Let's go back to 2020 and the pandemic. As Bruce Jones called it "full metal racing" was at a standstill. Sim racing filled the void for a lot of fans, it gave people something racing to watch. Yes, eSports grew at that time, and I knew it would tapper off over time. And I'm sure it has. The only series that I follow is the dNLS or in German, Digital Nürburgring Lange Strenke Serie. I follow the NLS & the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring in real life as well as 24H Series, WEC, Australian SuperCars, and some IndyCar races. I just can't get into IndyCar the way I did in the 1970's & '80's. I also run AI racing in iRacing since I too am tired of the way Division 1 drivers act towards lower ranked drivers, being told to get off the track and to stop messing up their race. Why can't you find anything positive in sim racing. Or has your day job ruined sim racing for you?

[@riman8493]

I hear what you are saying, but... why would the focus on e-sports and making good games be mutually exclusive? I don't see how they relate at all. E-sports involves marketing and community managers... not developers. Has literally nothing to do with the quality of the game/sim. Of course Sim-Racing gets obliterated by basically any other topic in viewership... Sim-racing is _very_ interesting to _very few_. Real world events are orders of magnitude more interesting, relevant and relatable to orders of magnitude greater crowds. If you compare amount of views against size of pool, sim-racing actually does _incredibly_ well, compared to those chicks gushing about their failed marriages... As for the marketing push into e-racing being cringy: Yeah, agreed. But, dude... why wouldn't they try? And what's the harm? Like, who cares? It's literally something you can completely ignore with zero consequence to yourself or anybody else (I know; I do that). Basically, why does this bear complaining about?

[@marcusss.carsss5096]

Man did a whole vid on this, sad man

[@zachbishop5421]

The new Gran Turismos can provide some amazing racing online once ur in the higher ranked lobbies

[@zackantonioli8313]

a weird hobby for old men? huh?

[@DagumiWAT]

Or he’s wondering why someone would watch someone else simrace instead of actually playing a simracing game himself

[@thrasherdave1428]

Sometimes you just don't have the energy to play but still want your daily sim racing fix

[@Mamac2006]

at least you can talk who are you

[@Aro3o6]

Simracing esports cringe :D

[@Jeff-ne1lh]

Damn dude you hate Racing E-sport lol

[@bumble_24bee34]

I strongly disagree iracing esports is Alive and well

[@AustinOgonoski]

How?

[@supermaster2012]

@@AustinOgonoski By counting views properly instead of using VOD views, you nanoscopic smooth brain.

[@ChesterGlover]

Clickbait old ass video

[@BigDuke6ixx]

No one is interested in dweeb sports.

[@noname2031-w5r]

No body cares Austin what you have to say :)

[@ittybitbobo7657]

Its just not interesting. Grass growing is more interesting. Its a great, fun, game now a spectator sport. A game ! PLAY THE GAME DONT WATCH THE GAME... DAHHHHHH

[@elatsilie1232]

igs52 #vur.fyi