rec.autos.simulators

by **mcewen** » Tue, 08 Mar 2005 02:03:36

I guess it depends on how you measure success. Papy made $49.95 off
of me when they released GPL, they would have made that with or without
the subsiquent mods. The mods have been great and have kept me playing
but they did not add $1 to Papy's bottom line or provide enough
encouragement for them to produce a GPL 2. It's entirely possible
that the mods *discouraged* them from producing an update as the mods
could have stolen their thunder.

At least half the people in my GPL leagues discovered the game after
GPL dissappeared from the shelves, if they have an original copy of the
CD it came from ebay or some discount net retailer for peanuts, again
no success for the company.

NR2003 was targetted primarily at the nascar crowd and as such the road
racing mods were probably incidental to sales. Yes they made another
$49.95 off of me and others but apparently not enough to keep them in
the market when they lost the Nascar licence. Personally I bought NR
as a thank you to them for all my GPL enjoyment.

<$100 for 8 years of entertainment (times a few thousand sim racers) is
great value for money but would not put your kids thru college.

First is stuck between a rock and a hard place, in order to make their
code worth what they paid for it (and put food on the table) they have
to keep grips on it's use. But now they've got to produce something
that is significantly better then what we can get for free, AND
convince us to keep paying periodicaly.

Bottom line it is their code, they can take what ever action they see
fit.

Personnally I think going after the modders is an idle threat, if the
modder is in a different country and it's posted by a web site in a 3rd
country the costs involved in finding the phyicial person who did the
codding and convincing a judge that something's been violated would
likely be pretty high.

by **Cowboy Bo** » Tue, 08 Mar 2005 03:11:22

>>They bought the rights (including all source and binary files), why is
>>that so hard to understand?

>>They'r merely clarifying their position.

> That is clear. Although it does gives us a (hopefully misleading) message
> that the modders can compete with what First Racing are planning to launch.
> I was hoping for more innovation than a tweaked NR2003.

> In my view First Racing need to establish themselves as the leaders in sim
> racing and then aim to stay there through quality product releases, rather
> than rely on stopping others use their old stuff.

Sigh,

I sure hope it won't be Nascar Racing 2/Nascar 99/Nascar 3 all over
again... It sounds more like an evolution than a revolution.

P.S.

by **Byron Forbe** » Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:37:19

>>Oh lord, I didn't expect to find that even here folks would put
>>personal pride ahead of professional sense.

>>When a post turns up that actually contains a valid point about First
>>perhaps some valid answers will follow. Posts like this indicate to me
>>that not very many people have any agenda exept thier own in mind.

> My take is, from FIRST's perspective, why worry about competition
> from people modding this older game? I mean there are a lot of
> constraints in NR2003's code which prevent such (hypothetical)
> features like dynamic weather & day/night, complete support for
> enduro racing, more than 4/5 models at once, etc. etc. I still think
> NR is the best sim out there at this moment, but it IS starting to get
> a bit long in the tooth.

My thoughts exactly. Are they saying that what they'll be offering up
soon will be no big change from NR2003???? If so, then they do have a lot to
be concerned about! Just implementing weather and pissing off the
temperature discrepancy in the front tyres would kill any mods for NR2003
instantly.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by **Byron Forbe** » Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:41:47

Yes, this is fair enough. I think what a lot of people missed with the
release of the GTP mod was that no disc was required at all if you already
had a copy of NR2003 and you could even use the public VROC lobby for pickup
racing. I have no problem with a company insisting any mod to their original
game require the end user to have a legit copy of said original game.

by **Tony Rickar** » Wed, 09 Mar 2005 05:04:24

> >Would Grand Prix Legends still enjoy success today and the loss of
> Papy be
> >mourned by non Nascar fans without the mods?

> I guess it depends on how you measure success. Papy made $49.95 off
> of me when they released GPL, they would have made that with or without
> the subsiquent mods. The mods have been great and have kept me playing
> but they did not add $1 to Papy's bottom line or provide enough
> encouragement for them to produce a GPL 2. It's entirely possible
> that the mods *discouraged* them from producing an update as the mods
> could have stolen their thunder.

The quote was from the original article by Steve Parsons. My point was the
mods arguably kept Papy products in the limelight for the non Nascar fans
which may go some way to helping First Racing to be perceived as a credible
rather than yesteryear outfit when they announce their intention to create
"a sanctioning body to launch a truly global online sport"

I am as unconvinced though it will really effect their bottom line with or
without the modders then or now, which is why I think it has not been
handled well. I am sure it is all a storm in a teacup and we are all
probably fickle enough to buy into FIRST if they produce the goods
regardless of the tantrums on both sides.

Cheers
Tony

rec.autos.simulators

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