I Love Racing Games, They Suck!

People always ask me "Why do you only cover old racing games?" This. This is why. Now I can simply link this video instead of giving a lengthy answer each time. Thank you! A little foot note from my side in regards to the lack of creativity. I've received so many comments from people saying they look more forward to the Pepega Mod my team and I are building for ProStreet than the other upcoming racing games. For a while I pondered as to why a silly mod for a 15 year old game gets people more excited. I think it's because the genre is so drained of any creative, let alone daring ideas, that even a meme mod is a breath of fresh air for people. It's something I'm very grateful for and I hope it delivers when we are finally done.

I'm reminded of something a friend of mine said once: "these days, a 10/10 racing game is a 7/10 in any other genre"

People are so accustomed to mediocrity that big/medium game developers don't even care anymore about delivering a good, fun and stable product. It has become somewhat a market standard to underdeliver

"Did you know it's been 20 years sinc-" YES I'M EXTREMELY AWARE OF THIS

The idea of a racing game set in night city is so tantalizing. One of my favorite parts of that game are the cars and driving them. There is so much potential out there for racing games, just waiting to be capitalized on.

I've worked on one racing game, and I'd imagine the root of the problem lies in the licensing. Players want real cars, tracks and sponsors, but every one of those comes with a company's laundry list of requirements. In the game we worked on, for example, we included a real world person, and were contractually obliged to make sure it was impossible to get ahead of them in the tutorials, because they're supposed to be a pro driver. The list of cars also had to be approved by the naming sponsor, and certain tracks had to be used for certain things. And that wasn't dealing with any notoriously picky brands like Ferrari, Porsche (or Toyota, which went through a period of not allowing their cars to be modified in games). You have to sell your soul to the devil to get real cars in games, and as a developer, you do the best you can to make a fun game between the cracks of the legal contracts, but it's not always possible. Honestly, the success of a racing game is arguably more determined by the quality of your lawyers than the quality of your dev team.

"Why would anybody but the hardcore pay attention to spring dampeners or tire pressure" Couldn't have said it better myself. I enjoy quite a few racing games, but I always pick the simplest control scheme because I really don't care about spending hours fine tuning the way the car takes a turn. i just want car go fast and go more fast than other car. me win get cash get more car or hat for me.

The Mad Max video game kind of laid a good foundation for the concept of an original racing game. It gets repetitive and definitely would need a lot of work to change it into a driving game, but it already has a pretty solid base. Racing across the desert trying in your ramshackle muscle car to take out the spike-armoured enemy cars with grappling hooks trying to pull you apart, as a sandstorm swallows up the back of the pack and you if you can’t keep it together… it was pretty great.

That sobering moment when Mario Kart is definitely the highest quality racing game on the market. And it’s not even close.

In RF2's defense, I've watched a Formula E race and the cars all piling into each other is very realistic.

I want to play that sci-fi-but-with-real-cars racing game so bad

It's always been such a mystery why the gaming industry is so obsessed with making "realistic" racing games geared toward cars lovers. What about a racing game in the world of Mad Max ? Or in the world of Star Wars ? What about a futuristic driving game with fun characters, a proper story, RPG elements and cool races ? What about a secret racing society competing every years in dangerous races all around the world, with experimental cars, interesting rivalries, the possibility of sabotaging rivals with mini games before races, RPG choices...? There are tons of possibilities for fun racing games.

on old racing games we say: "Wow, this game is decades ahead of its time!" on new racing games we say: "This game is decades behind of its time."

Fucking yes, finally somebody called out the asinine complaints about NFS Unbound's aesthetics. Older racing games were gorgeous, and not necessarily because they were "realistic". Some were, but a lot of the most beloved franchises had their own aesthetic. It's bizarre that racing games aren't allowed to have one now.

This is why I love Motorstorm so much. The fact that I could drive a giant hunk of metal and see motorbikes jumping ahead of me, meanwhile trying not to go off the big turn In Raingod Messa was amazing. Another factor was the way the vehicles would evolve during the race from pristine to muddy and crumpled. I’m still hoping for a re-make of the original.

After watching The Game Award, I had no idea how tf Forza Motorsport could win The Best Racing game

you've given me (somebody who doesn't really follow racing games) a comprehensive overview of the entire genre while explaining why i don't care about them, where the issues with each subgenre are and how we could take from the videogame industry at large to fix them. you reviewed a good dozen specific titles and only mentioned what was absolutely necessary for your script on top of this. this video is 36 minutes long and yet it feels as if it's half that length; not a single second of it is padded out or wasted and you kept my attention perfectly throughout. i've been a viewer of yours for a good few years now and i firmly believe this is your magnum opus, i'm seriously impressed. it feels criminal to watch this for free.

Those concept art photos gave me a mini heart attack. For a second, I thought you were going to say "its in development". I legit got so sad when I learned they were just concept arts. That would be incredible to play, it would be such a new, refreshing take on the genre. But these days, publishers and devs only try the "safest" option. Thats why I don't think we'll see any change in this genre any time soon, maybe at all.

Man I miss Motorstorm. Imagine what modern computers could do to this franchise.

There are a few other issues that come to mind in my eyes. 1. Live service Self explanatory. Live services, and to a lesser extent yearly/frequent releases destroy creativity and basically just run the developers through an endless grind to create content for a game long after they want to take a break, leading to uncreative ideas and lackluster content releases. Additionally, live services heavily rely on multiplayer for content, as it dramatically extends the amount of time that a piece of content is used for. However, this leads to a drought of really good experiences, as things like campaigns get pushed off to the side in favor of adding a new car or track for the live service. This results in these games being unmemorable, as there is no story or anything to "experience", only the same multiplayer that's been around for years. 2. The pokemon problem. As the roster of pokemon kept increasing, it became harder and harder for game freak to keep up and remodel the pokemon (or rip them from the 3ds games) for each new release, leading to dex gate. The same issue applies to the racing game genre. People expect certain cars and brands to be in the game, they'll beg for their favorites to be added all the time, and this creates an ever escalating issue of modelling and recording dozens and dozens of cars while dealing with the eternal hassle of licensing agreements.