Maybe so, but look at it this way: I recently invested in VR. One of the first things I did was load up Assetto Corsa and drive a Ferrari F40. Licensed cars make sense then. I got to sit back and go "I'm driving a Ferrari!" because I know that I'll never have the chance to actually drive a real Ferrari.
I just can't care less whether I'm driving a Ferrari F40 or Grazziani 4000R, as long as the RR biturbo V8 in the back and proper handling is there. I love old personal luxury cars, but I never found myself caring whether I have a Cadillac Eldorado or Albany Manana, a Lincoln Continental Mark III or a Lassiter Palatine, or a Ford Thunderbird or Smith Thunderbolt.
Track experience day? It's not that expensive to have a few laps in one, probably good fun, not that I have tried it personally though.
Unfortunately with technical school underway for an engineering degree and an overall lack of funds as such, I simply don't have the money or time. That coupled with various hobbies already (computers and tropical aquariums to name a couple) and trying to get into the autocross scene, it'll never happen, unfortunately. But that's okay, I'd rather not be at the helm of a $300,000 car on a track anyway. I can't drive for shit.
They don't have to overdo it. Remember what I said - a 1998 Camry, if the suspension has been maintained to keep bushing deterioration at bay, is probably more fun to drive than a brand new one. Also, you could get it with a manual transmission, and not just on the Four-Cylinder Poverty Edition either - both engines could be had with both gearboxes. In this situation it would be helpful to compare them to other manufacturers, such as Chevrolet who they are trying to replace in the American popular consciousness. Most new Chevrolets are boring too, and I've been on record many times before as saying that the Cruze in particular represents everything wrong with modern car design, but they still make enough fun cars (and have enough stinkers in their past) that they don't have to worry about video games putting people off their new models, and they are still highly active in all sorts of racing. Toyota, however, is the opposite. In the past, while they always had their boring family cars, they also had a wide variety of interesting sport compact, sports, and grand touring cars, developed via an active and wide-ranging motorsports program. Now, they have exactly one model outside their luxury division (which isn't doing particularly well itself in terms of fun-to-drive) which is even vaguely interesting, their motorsport program is miles off its peak, and they don't seem interested in fixing any of this. It took them four generations to make a Prius that could even sort of hold a driver's interest, and whatever they did to make that happen is obviously not being applied to the rest of the lineup (even in the luxury division where their so-called "radical coupe" lags far behind its competitors, including Cadillac, in terms of driving engagement). The new Supra, if it even gets made at all, will have no three-pedal option. The current Corolla is not only Toyota boring but, according to Car & Driver, doesn't carry their usual feeling of quality either. On top of all of it, what I've heard about their stability control is... not positive (and by that I mean it tries to understeer you off a cliff). Mitsubishi is basically the same except much worse. The problem isn't video games getting people hung up on their glory days, the problem is that they started building entirely to the lowest common denominator. I know that's been done before (the crew behind the Truck Simulator games are another example), I was just wondering why it's so rarely seen in situations such as this. I suppose that AAA developers think this trick is below them, or that it would damage the game's cohesion worse than not having the cars at all, and I can honestly see both points. The difference is, most manufacturers will at least talk to you once you have the money, but if there are one or two that aren't... well, true enthusiasts are obviously going to recognize that 86-Thunder Sport RS as a Sprinter Trueno in all but name, but it's still going to feel like there's a big ugly hole in the game where Toyota should be... and possibly also spawn a legion of twelvies who insist on thinking "86-Thunder" is the real name of a car no mater how many actually knowledgeable people try to set them straight. Artistic freedom is both what I'm going for and not what I'm going for. I suppose the ability to add cars appropriate to the car culture you're trying to represent and add whatever modifications you'd like falls under artistic freedom, but at the end of the day, I'm trying to replicate a specific real car culture, so the GTA/BeamNG approach, with cars that are clearly distinct from their real-world counterparts even if they draw obvious inspiration, would not work. I suppose "artistic freedom" is one way of saying it, but the end purpose of the art is authenticity. 100% this. Authenticity is the watchword from beginning to end... rather than presenting some idealized fantasy global car culture, I want to accurately represent the past and present car culture of a specific place, and I haven't quite decided what that place is yet (I need to waste much more time in Google Maps and Waze before I make that decision), but my current most likely candidate is somewhere in the warm part of Europe.
The new GLE looks fucking depressed. That's not a good thing.... especially that they already butchered their first electric SUV (EQC)'s design.
Says the man going 115 on a public road lol. I’m sure your better than 95% of Massachusetts drivers as @Fenneko can tell you. --- Post updated --- Well it does have a nice interior, a third row, and INLINE 6 POWAAAAAA (sorry for cringe) It looks bad on the outside, but so does the new X5. In my mind it’s a dead heat between the two overall.
Also, I remember that one time back in November 2016 when a North Carolina driver in a box truck almost hit us (not even aligned with the lane), then preceded to move and smacked into the cement barriers between the 2 roads. Thank god nobody was hurt. --- Post updated --- The X5 atleast looks decent, but the grille and front bumper's aero look oversized.
It's a family sedan. All it needs to do is be decent at staying in the black. Because most people don't care about driving fun, and those who do don't care about new Toyotas. Sure. Then have actual MGB GT, MX-5. Fiero, X1/9, E30, etc.. Or just forgo the limitations of real cars. Well, I don't really care about this or that guy's bonehadedness. You don't need real stuff to represent a real thing. Example - Mafia games, a good representation of the mob, set in fictional cities, with fictional mobsters and fictional cars. Well, this is too constraining. I'd rather drop cash on something that gives you freedom of what you'll do, rather than be constrained to a single culture.
See, that's the thing. Why does fun necessarily preclude things like practicality, reliability, etc.? You don't need kidney-crusher suspension or 300+ horsepower to make a car interesting. All you need to do is not suck all the feel out of the steering, not program the driver assists to kill people, not add a second of drive-by-wire lag to every throttle input (note this can actually be dangerous), etc. etc. etc. Also, if they don't care about the enthusiast market, then why the frick are they blaming video games for sales trouble? The people who want AE86s, Supras, etc. aren't going to be interested in their current lineup anyway. Also these people usually consume other forms of enthusiast media, so will know in advance when Toyota is going to release a car that they would be interested in. Any way you cut it they're either lying, having an identity crisis, or stumbling along without the slightest semblance of a clue. Not really a good comparison. Mafia gets by because the focus is on criminal life, and the cars, environments, etc. are merely incidental to this. In car culture, the cars and the places you drive them are the entire point of it. Of course there are ways to get away with going the full-fictional route, and BeamNG itself looks like it's working on one, but the thing with full-fictional cars, or rather with the absence of real cars, is that they break the immersion badly. Not necessarily. Car culture can be extremely varied even within a single location, and there will be options (not necessarily easy or cheap) if you want to experiment with cars that are not common in the chosen area. An example of doing it wrong, and of what I'm trying to avoid by deep-diving a specific area's car culture, is the Forza Horizon series which originally inspired my idea. The places change, features come and go, but so much of the game never really changes between installments. Colorado, the Riviera, Australia, England, it doesn't really matter, because they all end up being just another pretty background for the same old casualized, globalized show. Same reused cars (half of which wouldn't even be street-legal in the host country, or anywhere), same overhyped, generic electronic music (is there even any rock in the soundtrack anymore?), same customization, same utter lack of respect for the host country. I mean, just look at Horizon 3 - things like Powercruise are nowhere to be found, the car list looks just like any other Forza car list but with the very highest of Australia's highlights and a few forced meme cars, meaning that a long list of cars commonly tuned in Australia was simply ignored in favor of LHDs that would never be allowed on the street in that country, but oh look they have Liberty Crock and Rocket Dummy now, whoopty frick. Or Horizon 4. No Vauxhall Astra or Corsa, but you can have one of several trophy trucks that no country in the developed world would allow near a road, and maybe a Jeep concept that never made it to production, oh and a London taxi and some 007 cars because LAAAAAAAAAAWL WERE IN ENGLANDLAND CANT YOU TELL? I'm surprised Harry Potter's flying Austin isn't in there yet (with V12 swap, natch), or maybe I should just shut up before someone at Playground Games decides that's actually a good idea. See what I mean? Surface-level and gets stale in weeks. Focusing on specific car cultures, meanwhile, will allow the product to stay fresh through multiple installments, as you're getting something different every time.
Part of my hope for the UK Forza Horizon being a little more interesting is because Playground Games are a UK based studio. Of course we will see how that one pans out... But since I don't have Windows 10 on my desktop, it probably won't matter to me too much. Unless some other really cool Win10 exclusives come out such as a Halo Reach variant. Which might be worth the effort of setting it up as a secondary os with dual boot. I really enjoyed the midnight club series when I was younger, Test Drive Unlimited too. Both provided an interesting look at very different styles of car "culture". But realistically there isn't much that covers what car culture is to the majority of car enthusiasts, but I guess that is difficult to do.
That refinement costs money. Money that does not need to be spent in a family sedan, and can go towards equipment. Possible problems with a "boy racer" image. Not necessarily real ones. Do we really need to get immersed? BeamNG does fine without that. This means lower dev costs and price, as well as cars people actually want. No, this is great. It means you can buy one game and have all stuff you want, instead of a narrow lens. And each of the installments is a narrow-scoped game.
Having spoken in person to playground games employees and hearing their complaints. I have little hope for horizon 4 being any good. I've had 3 employees tell me to never consider working there
Can't speak for working there, but their recruitment process was by far the best one I have encountered so far. They are the only company that I have applied for that have provided feedback, never mind doing so within 2 days of an interview. Most companies that I have applied to seem to leave you completely in the dark if you aren't successful in the interview. Needless to say, I didn't get the job with them though, perhaps for the best if what you've heard is correct
According to IGCD, Astra and Corsa are included. So, you prefer each installment to be a game with the vehicle selection being a carbon copy of the previous one? (It's not like I care about these games where the only cars available are average teenage boy's wet dreams, and where you can drive through a field doing 150 kmh in a supercar)
One question: have you ever taken a closer look at the games? If you don't have an idea of what do the Jaguar XJ-S, Porsche Macan, Mk1 Ford Capri, Ford Crown Vic CVPI, Mitsubishi Galant VR-4, 1981 Ford Fiesta, '46 Ford Deluxe wagon and Opel Kadett C have to do with each other, I'm not sure if you fully get the Forza Horizon scope. And it's not carbon copying, it's "last game + more stuff you'd probably like").
Alright, I have an FH3 car list open right now. First, the Fiesta and Kadett are not ordinary models, but XR2 and GT/E. Second, all of the cars you mentioned (and all in FH3) are either performance oriented, expensive, iconic or just "kewl bcuz retro". Until they add cars like base versions of Neon, Transporter, Avensis and Citigo, I refuse to consider their scope any wide.
To be fair to them, I don't think their audience is looking to drive a Transporter. The Forza Horizon series is more Shmee150 than MightyCarMods. "Forza" means fast, "horizon" (in this context) means "the limit of a person's knowledge, experience, or interest.", so it makes sense that the series is about driving fast, exotic, and trendy cars in interesting locations. A game that focused more on low income car enthusiasm would be a different game.
This game is more about gearhead cars than day-to-day econoboxes. And it has an excellent scope of them, from 30s midrange cars to new supercrossovers.
