WARNING LONG POST FOLLOWS!
Dear Papyrus/Sierra,
As an avid user of your products going back to Indy 500 on the Amiga I
must say it is with some sadness that I have noted your decision to stop
work at this time on upgrades for your Indy car series of sims.
I have a lot of respect for your organization and the innovative
products which have given you a leading position in the auto racing
simualation software market. It will come as no shock to you if I say
that fans such as I do not always agree with your decisions ( and not
just from the perspective of my own betterment; sometimes i think you
are making decision that are not in your own long-term self-interest.
My impression is that the primary reason you have stopped work on ICR2
upgrades is because of limited resources which may be more profitably
devoted to NASCAR2/NRO tasks. This is a business decision which I
cannot easily argue with since I am not privy to the information on
which it is based.
However, I do have some thoughts which I hope might spark some more
thinking and discussion and who knows, maybe some positive actions.
These thoughts are based upon the following observations:
1) ICR2 is an asset whose value will diminish over time if nothing
further is done to upgrade it.
2) There is a solid core of talented programmers and artists who have
contributed (mostly for free) an amazing collection of car sets and
utilities that have greatly enhanced the enjoyment we have gained from
using the ICR series of sims.
My thought is simply this: Is there not some way this talent may
legally be organized to pursue the maintainance and upgrade of ICR2?
Such an effort must assure (at a minimum) the following:
1) A positive gain for Papyrus/Sierra. This may be some combination
of tangible and intangible returns but it is vital that Papyrus/Sierra
be convinced it is in their interest to do this (see business decision
discussion above).
2) Control. However such an undertaking might be accomplished it
must provide control of all elements of what would undoubtably be a most
complex task. I'm talking here of legal, financial, physical, ethical?,
etc. dimensions that must be accounted for and reported to all
interested parties.
I have more thoughts on this but I'll stop here to see what the response
might be before blathering on. What do you think, Papyrus? What does
the racing sim community think?
Dave Bradley
IVGA Friday nite series racer