*WARNING* This post is pure speculation and contains very little if any valid information. Do not take anything I say as fact. *WARNING*
So I was thinking about professional racing simulators the other day and I had this thought.
At one point (a long time ago) the devs told us that they had made LFS a full time job. Back then simple maths said that license sales were enough to survive off of, but the devs weren't sitting on gold toilets. Even the most optimistic estimates were a modest living.
Nowadays, with the LFS community having slowed down a lot, I find it hard to imagine that there are enough licenses being sold to keep 3 devs working solely on LFS. This means that the devs have either returned to the real world, making LFS a side project again, or have found another source of income using LFS. I imagine that the situation varies for each of the three devs, but they have more or less followed one of these paths.
Now I speculate more to formulate my point. Remember, this is pure speculation.
While we have been told that top tier motor sport teams can build multi-million dollar simulators from the ground up, I imagine that teams in lower level series (and maybe even some of the budget restrained top tier teams) can not afford this. Instead, these teams have to find a cheap source of a relatively good driving simulator. It doesn't even have to be that excellent, as sim/real racers know that even with the best simulators you never get to learn the nitty-gritty of the track/car. I specifically remember David Coulthard saying that he could learn more about a track through two laps on his moped than with 50 laps in the simulator or something like that. And that was on one of those top tier simulators.
That said, what do the devs have? A pretty cheap racing simulator that does a relatively good job of representing real life. That's exactly what a lot of racing teams need!
I'm sue you see where I'm going with this, but I want to push you a little bit more because chances are I'm not going to respond to anyone refuting my claims. Remember though, it's all speculation.
So Scawen's been very busy with tyre physics for three years? I'm sure he's working very hard on it but I imagine he's working on other stuff too. Either he's gotten a real job or.... he's been contacted by race teams who want relatively cheap simulators!
Yes, it's a stretch, but I think it works to a certain extent. Scawen has a decent simulator that he'll dish out for a fair amount (a decent amount to him and savings over a custom sim for the teams). Yes they could just buy S2 licenses and practice, but then they would only have fake cars and tracks. In my imagination Scawen provides the teams with tech support to get their cars in the game (they give him info on cars and tracks they need and he puts them into their own very special version of LFS for their simulator) and maybe even tweaks the physics a bit so that they work especially well with the cars in the sim.
So why haven't we heard about this? Once again, I speculate, and believe that teams don't want to give up their secret. Here's a chance to save a bit of money, train your drivers a bit more and work on some very basic setup mechanics. Not a very big advantage, but nonetheless an advantage. We all know just how close racing can get! We also don't hear about it on the devs end because, besides (probably) being contractually obligated to keep silent, they may have imported real cars and tracks that aren't licensed for commercial use.
The devs have hid stuff from us before, so is it hard to imagine that they haven't been doing a lot of behind the scenes work for other people?
Take it all in. I'd love to hear some replies, but I'm not sure I'll reply back. Especially if this turns into a retarded flame war over a post that was essentially about nothing. No need to be confrontational, would just like a simple discussion.
So I was thinking about professional racing simulators the other day and I had this thought.
At one point (a long time ago) the devs told us that they had made LFS a full time job. Back then simple maths said that license sales were enough to survive off of, but the devs weren't sitting on gold toilets. Even the most optimistic estimates were a modest living.
Nowadays, with the LFS community having slowed down a lot, I find it hard to imagine that there are enough licenses being sold to keep 3 devs working solely on LFS. This means that the devs have either returned to the real world, making LFS a side project again, or have found another source of income using LFS. I imagine that the situation varies for each of the three devs, but they have more or less followed one of these paths.
Now I speculate more to formulate my point. Remember, this is pure speculation.
While we have been told that top tier motor sport teams can build multi-million dollar simulators from the ground up, I imagine that teams in lower level series (and maybe even some of the budget restrained top tier teams) can not afford this. Instead, these teams have to find a cheap source of a relatively good driving simulator. It doesn't even have to be that excellent, as sim/real racers know that even with the best simulators you never get to learn the nitty-gritty of the track/car. I specifically remember David Coulthard saying that he could learn more about a track through two laps on his moped than with 50 laps in the simulator or something like that. And that was on one of those top tier simulators.
That said, what do the devs have? A pretty cheap racing simulator that does a relatively good job of representing real life. That's exactly what a lot of racing teams need!
I'm sue you see where I'm going with this, but I want to push you a little bit more because chances are I'm not going to respond to anyone refuting my claims. Remember though, it's all speculation.
So Scawen's been very busy with tyre physics for three years? I'm sure he's working very hard on it but I imagine he's working on other stuff too. Either he's gotten a real job or.... he's been contacted by race teams who want relatively cheap simulators!
Yes, it's a stretch, but I think it works to a certain extent. Scawen has a decent simulator that he'll dish out for a fair amount (a decent amount to him and savings over a custom sim for the teams). Yes they could just buy S2 licenses and practice, but then they would only have fake cars and tracks. In my imagination Scawen provides the teams with tech support to get their cars in the game (they give him info on cars and tracks they need and he puts them into their own very special version of LFS for their simulator) and maybe even tweaks the physics a bit so that they work especially well with the cars in the sim.
So why haven't we heard about this? Once again, I speculate, and believe that teams don't want to give up their secret. Here's a chance to save a bit of money, train your drivers a bit more and work on some very basic setup mechanics. Not a very big advantage, but nonetheless an advantage. We all know just how close racing can get! We also don't hear about it on the devs end because, besides (probably) being contractually obligated to keep silent, they may have imported real cars and tracks that aren't licensed for commercial use.
The devs have hid stuff from us before, so is it hard to imagine that they haven't been doing a lot of behind the scenes work for other people?
Take it all in. I'd love to hear some replies, but I'm not sure I'll reply back. Especially if this turns into a retarded flame war over a post that was essentially about nothing. No need to be confrontational, would just like a simple discussion.
i don't care about physics, LFS is best simulator even without it
öööööööö... deleted the h-word XD
... if i remember right