What Will Happen When Beam Is Gone?

Eventually, at some point, the BeamNG.drive community will stop growing. People will start leaving the community. The BeamNG company will start losing money. This won't happen next year, or the year after, but it will happen at some point. Maybe far off in the future, like 2025. There may still be diehard people that continue to visit the website and interact with the community. But eventually, the servers hosting the website will be shutdown. What will that last little nugget of the community do then? There will be elements of the community that stay together because they know each other personally, but that won't be many people. At some point, people will just forget the game. What would that feel like to the devs? They are pouring their time and money into this beautiful game, but all good things come to an end. What will they move on to? Will they stay together? Or splinter off into different directions? Maybe they will have made enough money to retire, maybe some will continue to work to have a sense of purpose. Probably the most hard-core fans will set up some sort of revival project, and keep updating BeamNG. But what effect will Beam have on the other members of the community? The people who just visited the forums every once in a while. The people who were with Beam from the beginning. Those who joined late and still loved the game. Where will it have all gone? What about the sometimes thousands of hours people have spent on Beam? What will the modders do? Will they move onto different games or stop modding entirely? Maybe the BeamNG company will live on, and do other things... Maybe there will be a BeamNG.fly or a BeamNG.shoot someday... Or maybe it will just sort of exist, not doing anything, living off of profits from the original, BeamNG.drive. Time will tell us this, or maybe it will just come to a sudden end. Some crazy lawsuit that forces the shutdown of the BeamNG company and all of its assets. Something to think on.

-Cooper

Note: Yes, I know I was a bit heavy with this. And I asked a lot of questions. Will ya answer 'em though?

 

Damn, that's some deep sh*t, man.

 

Yeah. Sometimes I just have some real deep thoughts.

 

Sad, but true(

 

BeamNG is a software company that makes an engine. I can see them making other games later on.

 

Yes. But right now, BeamNG.drive is their only source of income. (Or so we think?)

 

Currently, yes. But drive is only the prototype for the engine. When drive is finished, they will probably make more games.

 

Well... we do want better physics in the future right? So got to start somewhere.

 

Really? Only a prototype. This is actually news to me. I wonder what else they will do with it. I know everyone wants BeamNG.fly, but I would LOVE a hyper-realistic boat simulator.

 

Not sure if prototype is the right term, but it is the experiment for the engine.

 

If this is just an experiment, who knows what they could do?

 

We already have fly. It's in drive. For hyper-realistic boat simulator, that might be a while...

They can do just about anything, as long you have time.

 

I heard someone say that they plan on making another game after this using the same engine. It wasn't a dev so I don't know how accurate their statement was, but being a software company it's safe to say they will be branching out from their single project at some point.

I must admit, I too have always been worried about the fate of this game. This, Spintires, and Wreckfest all got popular at the same time. IIRC KurtJmac uploaded his first BeamNG and Spintires videos within days. Look where those two games are now (such a shame about Spintires, it's up there on my most played games in steam and tbh it's still a game in beta being sold as full release). Minecraft didn't exactly go well after Notch sold it (yes it's incredibly popular still but it lost its touch now that Microsoft is taking it in the direction they are). Yes, BeamNG is still very popular on steam and YouTube and has a big community, but at the end of the day it's a small company with a single game that's a one time cost of like $20. I can't see that being sustainable.

I found this thread off of the "last seen viewing thread" when I accidentally clicked on Naedox's profile, so I assume there will be a developer response to this soon if not in the couple mn it took me to write this.

 

I agree with @Fera, there's a possibility that once the development of drive ends, there is a chance we may get new BeamNG games with a new focus on different types of vehicles other than automobiles.

Hopefully, the BeamNG name lasts a long time. And let's all hope that North Korea doesn't trigger the end of the world before drive gets finished and before the development of any future BeamNG games starts.

 

MemeNG.dank is forever.

 

Spintires is absolutely amazing! The problem is that the dev decided to screw the company. I don't think that will happen with Beam though. The devs are too dedicated for that.

 

Yep, sad, but true though. One day, they will stop developing the game.The community will shrink, and maybe even the company itself will die.

 

Even if the game dies out completely it will always be remembered as the most realistic car simulator ever. Unless someone makes a better one......

 

The publisher and the dev were both claiming different things. Doesn't really matter who is right though since the entire game is still in development limbo. (End of reasons this post is a response)

(Beginning of kind of on topic rant) When both BeamNG and Spintires released tech-demos, I was sure that Spintires would be the one to take longer (at the time I thought BeamNG would just be an updated rigs of rods, I didn't know they were going for a full career mode and in depth simulation). Spintires was in full release with really only a couple new maps, two vehicles, and a hardcore mode. It is a great game, but it's just so underdeveloped. Sad to see a game with such potential ruined because they were rushing to get it out.

BeamNG is the most dedicated developer team I have ever come across. I've been playing a lot of Bethesda/Square Enix/Ubisoft games lately. I don't have any problems with Square Enix (really wish more companies would include so many Easter eggs. I've suggested before that BeamNG maps start doing this, it adds so much IMO). However, it often feels like a lot of other large developers don't even play the game. I love seeing that the BeamNG team is so open to suggestions/feedback and really cares about the game and the community. I can't believe how patient the developers can be with people, especially with how many people weren't happy with 0.10.0

I accidentally hit "post/save changes" twice while typing this... Mobile....

 

I hope it stays up long enough to put my content on my resume.