rec.autos.simulators

"Michael E. Carver" wrote

David's post had nothing to do with the failure of GPL to sell, even
with it's pathetic sales, if even only half of the paltry 45,000 or so
that bought the game actually raced it online, then all the other
developers might try to duplicate Papyrus' success.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been any success in online racing. And
that isn't a slam on the "legendary" GPL. The same goes for the NASCAR
ONLINE money pit (a.k.a. TEN), even though the NASCAR games themselves
sell, and I haven't heard any success stories from EA for their online
racing games, even though the games themselves have been best sellers.

For reasons that completely escape me, online racing hasn't caught on
in a big way, just as David said. People that like racing games
apparently are not the same people that like online ***, and/or
vice versa.

GPL has its share of core, online racers too.  The game hasn't sold
particularly well probably because it's such a *** game, and most
folks these days don't have the patience and time it takes to race
well and take advantage of the realism of the game.

Alanb

Not many people that are serious enough about sim racing to do it
online are going to skip a NASCAR game based on the GPL engine,
multiplayer or no multiplayer.

We are a very vocal minority. We listen to one another  telling each
other that multiplayer is important, until we convince ourselves it's
true, but the reality is that racing games sell better on the
non-multiplayer platforms like Playstation than the PC.

Tracey,

Well, I'll admit that either way a lot of people do not race online
and a lot of people still can't grasp the concept of a real human
opponent, but that number that I quoted was of course just at any
particular time.  I really think that Sierra/Pappy would've lost a
considerable amount of dollars had they not included multiplayer in
their latest efforts.

Still, online racing is one of the best kept secrets, and it might be
best to keep it that way.

Alanb