New Racing Simulation Distances Itself From Gamers 208
waderoush writes "In an unusual move that could alienate a large segment of potential customers, iRacing.com, an online racing simulation company that opened its site to the public on August 26, is calling its system a 'driver development tool' that isn't designed for PC or console gamers. 'We don't think of ourselves as a game company,' says one exec. 'World of Warcraft has a real appeal...But our system is more serious, frankly. If you are serious about racing, our product is for you, because getting on a [simulated] track with a full field of other drivers and racing against them safely involves as much commitment and time investment as if you went to racing school.' In fact, to distinguish its system from MMOs, the company has come up with a new acronym to describe its simulation: MMIS, for 'massively multiparticipant Internet sport.'"
Guys (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop taking yourself so seriously and lighten up a little bit. Requiring a subscription and a racing wheel should be enough to weed out the mad 1337 gamers. Do you really think all the WoW people are going to suddenly poo their pants over a racing game?
Re:A better headline: (Score:3, Interesting)
Solstice is an oddball choice. Miata would have been a better one for that class of car. Looks like they're associated with Skip Barber Racing Schools, which leans towards using Mazdas. They're based out of Laguna Seca, which is a Mazda sponsered/owned track (not sure on the exact ownership status), and they use Miatas in their racing program. I see they also have the Formual Skip Barber 2000 in their car list.
Tracks look like they're heavily set on American tracks. Silverstone is the only European track that sticks out to me, and I don't notice any Japaneese tracks. There's still plenty of good tracks in that list (like Laguna Seca and Road America), but I tend to think that a racing sim without Nurburgring Nordschliefe is only half finished (GT5 Prologue, I'm looking at you).
While not perfect, the Gran Turismo series is good enough for race training, IMHO, provided you combine it with a good racing wheel. You won't learn everything you need to know, but you can learn shift points, braking points, oversteer/understeer, overtaking, track layouts, drafting, and being able to think fast enough to keep up with the speedier cars. Just keep in mind its limitations (like imperfect tire physics and lack of a damage model) and you can learn quite a lot of the fundamentals.
Re:As opposed to? (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess it is the same reason people rent porn. C'mon, who would rent porn that is realistic with normal/ugly people
Re:Can you say publicity stunt? (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who has done both, I can vouch for business apps being heaps easier to code than even the simplest game you could imagine.
Disentangling the rules: Yes. One person. Often, not even that. It depends on what exactly you're doing and how complicated the system is you're working with, but generally you need one person, if that, to "translate" the requirements of the business people to the requirements of the IT people. From there on, it's straight coding, and easy coding to boot.
Interacting with users: Again, a one-person job. Usually also the task of the team or mission leader, not the average coder.
Making sense of legacy systems: Actually one real issue not found in games (usually). You have to be compatible with some ancient software written before you were born. But rarely this is an issue. If you're not tasked with maintaining this museum piece, you're usually writing for an interface. And that's usually quite trivial.
In general, it's usually easier. Most companies are quite happy with code that "somehow" works, no matter whether secure or fast. At least the latter is a huge issue with games. If it's online games, the first becomes an issue too. It might surprise you, but there are more people busy "hacking" game systems than business systems.