rec.autos.simulators

According to GoGamer, this is the order of their best-selling racing
simulators. I suppose it's not in line with this group.

1. rFactor
2. Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights
3. Micro Machines v4
4. Trackmania United Forever
5. GRID PC
6. Colin Mcrae: DiRT
7. Sega Rally
8. Pro Cycling Manager
9. Need for Speed: Carbon Collector's Edition
10. MotoGP 2
11. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Second Edition

And so on.

--
The first big front wheel rollerblades.

Most of these are racing games, not simulation oriented. I'm not sure if
sort by "best selling" really represnts actual sales numbers by gogamer,
or if it's what they are pushing. On that list, Ford Racing: Off Road
is #15, while Race 07 is at #17, and Need For Speed: ProStreet is
#19. The Ford Racing series from Empire Interactive, is a little known
game, but gogamer is one of the international online sites that sells
that series, that is rarely availble at retail stores in the USA.

In the USA, the Need For Speed series probably sells mostly at retail stores,
not online, which in my case I only use to buy games difficult to find in
retail stores in the USA (I had to buy the original GTR from computeruniverse,
a German online store to get it about 6 months before the international
version of GTR was released).

At Wiki, there's not a single racing game in their list of top PC games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games

At what was formerly next-gen.biz, edge-online.com has a top 100 list for
"new games" April 2007 -> March 2008, which includes sales on all platforms when
possible, not just a particular console or PC, but excludes sales of older
games. On this list, the top selling racing games (in the USA) are:

#6 - Need For Speed:ProStreet - 5.4 million copies
#20 - Forza 2 - 2.1 million copies
#52 - Motorstorm (PS3 only) - 1 million copies.
#66 - GTA Vice City (only PS2 sales counted) - 720K copies.
#71 - Dirt - (X360/PS3/PC) 690K copies
#72 - Burnout Paradise (X630 / PS3) - 680K copies
#87 - Cars Matter National - 570K copies
#97 - Nascar 08 - 490K copies

Nascar 08 is the only sim oriented racing game in this list.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-top-100-selling-games-last-12...

These numbers are a bit misleading, for 2007, Need For Speed Carbon is
listed at #10, with 1.6 million in sales, but I've read that the total
number of units sold so far is about 9 million.

I don't know a source for sales of sim oriented racing games, but I would
assume rFactor is #1. I don't know how many copies of the older games,
like GPL were sold, especially if you include the sold-out versions of
the game that were less than $10 (USA). NR2003 and EA's F1 Challenge 99-02
were popular back in 2003, but I don't know the numbers. GTR, GTR2 (with
GTLegends included), Race 07, were or are still sold it retail stores in
the USA. Live For Speed is online purchase only. rFactor is available in
a retail box now, but I don't recall seeing it in any of the local stores.

None of these sim-oriented games will have the numbers of the Need For
Speed series, as mentioned, I read that NFS:Carbon sold 9 million copies,
and it's still on store shelves. I know that Grand Theft Auto is also
popular, but not by how much.

None of the racing games compare to the non-racing games that are popular
on the console systems, or the "Sims" series for PC.

The racing sim community is a niche market (sim oriented) inside yet another
niche market (racing games in general).

FWIW.
I had a lot of fun with Atari's Race Driving arcade game. One time,
the car rolled completely over and let me start to drive away before
the game reset to start another race.

On Amazon, seems like a decent list pops up with "people also bought
these items" when looking at something like GTR.

Thanks.

Race 07:

http://www.race-game.org/race07/index.php

No. Race07 has a few series to race but it is mainly to simulate WCC
touring cars.

I think only number 1 can be called a simulator, but I really don't know,
I've been playing Live for Speed for the last year and a half so I'm really
not up to date. And I'm not planning to be.

Protz, Poland

-Larry

Well, rFactor has much better AI than LFS and is pretty close in simulation
quality. The AI in LFS drives right through me all the time. It is very
frustrating. For that reason it is only good for online racing.

But is it good?