Sim vs. Arcade, the big debate – The Traxion.GG Podcast, Episode 12

Thomas Harrison-Lord
Sim vs. Arcade, the big debate - The Traxion.GG Podcast, Episode 12

We all love a great arcade racing game, right? Using power-ups, bashing off walls, drifting to victory. Or, do we?

Are we all enabling our best race face, complaining about track limits and tweaking our bump stop rates instead?

What about those games that fit in between the two?

Or, how about this for a revolutionary idea… you can enjoy all three types of games? This is what we propose in the latest episode of the Traxion podcast, alongside charting the rise of the simulator and the origin of the aforementioned terms.

Let us know in the comments below if you are a sim racer that also enjoys Mario Kart, or you play touch-based drag racing games on your phone and are also handy on rFactor 2.

The Traxion.GG Podcast is also available via all major podcast outlets. Simply search “Traxion Podcast” on your favourite podcast service and subscribe to get instant notifications when the latest episode releases.

Hosted by Justin Sutton, John Munro and Thomas Harrison-Lord.

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Podcast transcript

Justin Sutton (00:07):

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Traxion podcast today. We’re going to be talking about Sim versus arcade. One of the many debates that racing game fans love to have with absolutely anyone who will listen on the internet. I’m obviously Justin and joining me today are Tom and John say hello, Tom and John.

Tom Harrison-Lord (00:24):

Hello Tom and John.

John Munro (00:25):

Hello Tom and John

Justin Sutton (00:26):

Thank you both for completing that joke. So I’ve got a number of topics that I want to talk about, and obviously we’re specifically talking about Sim versus arcade racing games. And I wanted to start off with a discussion about Sim versus arcade over the years. So I didn’t actually look up, I don’t know, even if you could look up this statistic, I didn’t look up like how many arcade racing games came out per year, going back to the last 20 years and charting everything, I didn’t go that far into it, but certainly to me it feels like the ratio of Sim games to arcade games is going up over time, more Sim games, fewer arcade games. Is that something that you guys would agree with?

Tom Harrison-Lord (01:12):

Yeah, it seems that way doesn’t it and I think maybe a reason for that is the ever advancing technology, which allows or caters for enhanced realism. Therefore, we have games, well, Simulators has become a term. I don’t think actually really ever, well, it may be was used, but it wasn’t necessarily applicable, I suppose it’s relative. And then also along with the technology, you’ve now got equipment to go with it.

John Munro (01:37):

Yeah, absolutely. I think a big thing for me as well. Like obviously you’re talking about the technology, there’s the hardware and the software, so you’ve got games becoming more realistic and Simulation stuff, and then you’ve got more accessible Sim racing equipment, which is obviously, you know, the wheels are getting better. The rigs are getting better. For me as well. I think, Sim racing is becoming a big thing, which is making a difference to games as well. So obviously you can have some racing on an arcade game but the term being Sim racing obviously suggests, okay, Simulation. We want to recreate racing as realistically as possible. And I think the whole, it’s just, there’s just this massive kind of push, I guess, from the industry towards Sim and away from arcade, whether it’s down to the competition, the equipment, the software, everything like that. It just all seems to be heading in that kind of same direction.

Justin Sutton (02:17):

It seems like that’s where the money is at the moment certainly is on the Sim side of things with that being said, though, the most popular racing games of all time, the most bought racing games of all time are like Mario Karts and those types of games. So, still to this day, but I mean also the most watched TV shows come from decades past because there was a lot less to choose from. So I wonder if it’s the same sort of situation with that. And if the only reason that Mario Kart hasn’t been usurped yet is because, just there’s so many games to choose from now.

John Munro (02:52):

I totally agree with that. I think that Mario Kart obviously was probably one of the first big racing games on a global scale, when the consoles were obviously a lot harder to come by, and I think that therefore it’s carried its reputation, it is the racing game for Nintendo. And I believe that’s kind of why it’s been so big. And it’s obviously amazing at the same time. I love Mario Kart to bits, but I think if you try and create a new Mario Kart now with a different name, it’s not necessarily going to be super successful. Whereas with a Sim, you can come along with it as a new brand, making a Sim and if it’s high quality, you’ll be able to bring the people in. And although I think that, arcade games in history have maybe been bought more, look at the way Sim racing’s can sell, Sim racing games can sell themselves for extra money. People constantly paying subscriptions, buying more and more content. I don’t think you could quite get that same repetitive customer in a situation with a game that just came out or an arcade game, I should say. It’s all a bit complicated, but I can see why it is the way it is.

Tom Harrison-Lord (03:45):

Ooh, cut. I’d like to disagree. Is that okay John?

John Munro (03:50):

No, no, sorry. We’re not, we’re not allowed to disagree on this.

Tom Harrison-Lord (03:53):

I think there’s, I think there’s great scope for an arcade game to do very well in the modern age. I just don’t think someone has necessarily done it in a good way at the minute or has fallen away from it. I think, the Need for Speed games have long been, a bastion of popular arcade races and they’ve just not been that great in the past few iterations. And that doesn’t help when the leading franchise is not on form and likewise, the Burnout games are great. And, we’ve had another remaster of burnout paradise for switch recently. So there’s appetite for it, but, but there’s no new burnout game. So that’s another thing. And then Mario Kart itself was just last week at the time of recording America, Mario Kart 8 on switch and if you combine the Wii U sales as well, became the biggest selling racing game of all time. So imagine if there was a new Mario kart game off the back of that, I still think it would be a big success. However, to slightly agree with you, John, there’s been a lot of other karting games to try and replicate that they haven’t sold that well. Like there’s the Sonic All Stars. There’s the ModNation Racers, LittleBigPlanet, Crash Team Racing. They’re great, but they haven’t sold as well as Mario Kart have they,

Justin Sutton (05:02):

So I’m going to follow up and ask you guys, why are arcade games being successful right now? Why is all the money in Sim stuff when there’s so many people buying? You know, I guess it is a different thing. It’s a quantity quality thing. The Sim racers will spend a lot more money as John pointed out. Um, but there’s a lot more people buying the arcade games as you pointed out Tom, but, what do you think could be done to modern arcade games to make them more appealing to bring them into the space?

John Munro (05:32):

Yeah, it’s tricky. Like I think that, you know, when we were growing up as well and we were all of an age where, when we were younger Simulation, wasn’t really in yet. It wasn’t a thing. I mean, I was kind of, I guess I was kind of growing up just when it was beginning to kind of come into to things. And I think that as a kid, an arcade game is a lot more manageable than a Simulation. Obviously nowadays lots of kids are into racing, get their hands on a wheel or get their hands on Simulation stuff and can maybe be pushed in that direction a bit younger than they would have been a few years ago. But I feel like, you know, we’ve all grown up in arcade games and they’re fun because you can just relax and play them. I just think for us, it’s almost like this new technology, this new ability to do some racing and, be able to play more realistic games, it becomes this kind of quest for more and more, and you just want things to be more and more realistic. And I think it’s that, you know, when you know, you get a new game at Christmas or a new toy and you just want to play the heck out of it for a while before it begins to kind of drop off a little bit. I feel like we’re still at that stage with Sim racing and where we’re still striving for more. We’re constantly wanting more and more out of it and it’s still exciting us. So maybe that’s why there’s a bit more of an appeal for that nowadays. But I mean, arcade racing games are still great fun. I just don’t think that they quite have the same demographic that maybe, you know, for me, for example, I don’t spend that much time, with the demographic the arcade racing games are aimed at. So maybe I’m not the right person to answer that. I think we need to be aware of the fact that children might be more willing to play arcade games. And we maybe don’t hear about it as much.

Tom Harrison-Lord (06:55):

Yeah. I was going to but in with the exact same thing. We’re older now and employed? And we have our own money and therefore it’s not like we’re a saving up our pocket money or asking santa for something, when you know, when we’re 10 years old, but there is still that market and it’s often to overlook it or forget about it. And I just think it’s a real shame that something like, a Ridge Racer or a Split Second or Blur that these were great games, Blur and Split Second didn’t sell well enough at the time, but just touching as well on what you were saying, John, about a new technology and being able to race online, which wasn’t really a thing back then. I would love to see, an arcade racer in the ilk of the ones I’ve just mentioned. That’s online connected, and it’s more of a games as a service.

Tom Harrison-Lord (07:42):

Going back to what you said Justin in where it’s like, you know, you’ve got this, you’ve invested in your equipment and you don’t necessarily buy that many games, but you invest in that game over and over. So I’d just love to see an arcade racer, try that in the modern era, and let’s see. That’s not really a business case, right. If I went to, if I went to a business and were like, Oh, it was worked in the past, but lets just put online in it and I don’t think they’ll go for it, but that’s what I’d like to see.

Justin Sutton (08:06):

Well, that kind of leads well into my next question, which was going to be, is, is realism getting out of control? Is it, does it, I mean, can it be too real? Does it reach a point where it’s like, this is no longer, you know, I would actually appreciate if there was a little bit of fiction to it because certainly for, for me personally, um, sometimes you get to a point where it’s like, Oh, well I could go do this in real life. Um, maybe not with racing games necessarily, certainly you can’t just go race Formula 1 or whatever. But you know, this is a space where you could do anything. You can do, literally anything it’s like drawing a cartoon. You know what I mean? You could do absolutely anything. So to do something that is done by normal people in everyday life, does that, you know, become a problem. John?

John Munro (08:52):

You made so many good points there, and this question has so many layers. I feel like that question alone could be a podcast genuinely. Like, because obviously the more realistic the technology is, the more impressive it is. And the closer to real life racing we can get. Now, a lot of people that play racing games don’t have access to real life racing. It’s way too expensive. It’s just not, and you know, something that’s within realism for them and that’s probably the, by far and away the most common situation, you know, how many racing game fans say, oh, I just love to drive this a real life or give it a go in real life. So I think that that’s kind of itching a scratch for people. It’s it’s as close to me racing as you can get. But you know, it gets to a point where eventually things get so realistic and you think, well, hang on a minute, when did this stop becoming about the fun?

John Munro (09:33):

You know, maybe I want to do things in the game that I can’t do in real life. And that’s what, that’s where I get my enjoyment because it’s something that the technology allows me to do that normally I wouldn’t be able to do. So there’s got to be some sort of line somewhere saying that does there even need to be a line somewhere? Maybe we just need to cater for both audiences. But I think, you know, when you’re doing Sim racing and esports, for example, there does get to a point where you start questioning, you know, why does things need, why do things need to be this realistic? You know, for example, we’re doing a qualifying session, an esports event, and everyone has to drive back to the pits carefully and drive into the pit box when they’re finished, because it looks neat on a broadcast, wherever the reason is because that’s what they do in real life.

John Munro (10:10):

You know, if they are, if you run out fuel, you don’t get to return to the garage and stuff like that. You cannot use the keyboard, you’ve got to drive. And it’s like, okay, that’s cool. I like the fact that you’re trying to make it look real, but does anybody really enjoy doing that would people in real life choose to do that if they had the option not to? And obviously that’s one example and we can have our own discussion about that. But I feel like there are so many situations where that kind of question becomes a point, you know, do we really need to do this? When we have technology to do something else?

Tom Harrison-Lord (10:36):

That’s such a good point. And it goes back to what Justin was saying about the blank canvas of video games or platforms or Sims or whatever you might want to call them, like on the cooling down lap and stuff like that. Once the race has happened, fast traveling to the pits still doesn’t break the immersion so much for me because it’s just like, well, I can do that. The technology’s there. So that’s, I just want to say that’s a really good point. Yeah.

Justin Sutton (11:01):

And, I guess, uh, the next, the next topic that I wanted to touch on is, I don’t know. I’m, debating on this one.

John Munro (11:14):

There’s so many angles isn’t there.

Justin Sutton (11:15):

We’ll touch on the esports side of things. Since you touched on that, John, do you think that the same skills are there in terms of, arcade games and Sim games, do you think if you are good on the Sim that you can be good in arcade racing games and vice versa? Is there a correlation there?

John Munro (11:34):

Yeah, there’s definitley a correlation to the base skills and the understanding of how to get more speed out of a car, but it’s not nearly as Simple as that because there, you know, you could be really good in a wheel, but you might have a really bad hand-eye coordination with a controller. For example, your brain works in a certain way. So for me, I’ve grown up with cars. I’ve had a wheel since I was a very young age. My dad bought me a wheel so I could play TOCA Touring Cars 2 when I was, as you know, six or seven year old. And I’m forever grateful for that, but you know what, because I’ve had a wheel for so long, I obviously know how to apply my skills to that wheel. Whereas if you then give me a controller and put me in an arcade game, it’s a whole new thing to learn.

John Munro (12:09):

Now I understand the mechanics of how to drive well and how to, how to make a car go fast when the game allows natural realistic inputs to make that difference. But if there’s a game where you’re actually faster by not braking and going flat out and drifting a certain way, that will make you quicker, then there’s no reason why I’d be any better at that than a five-year-old because that’s not me, my brain has to then readjust to this new skill set. So there of course is correlation to understanding how to make a car go faster, but arcade games can take that canvas and throw it out the window because you don’t need the same skills. You know, my girlfriend smashes me on Mario Kart. It took me weeks and weeks of playing Mario Kart to be able to beat her on that. And I remember like, I just won an esports event or something with a top team. I qualified for a big final and then to chill out in the evening, I went for a game of Mario Kart and my girlfriend absolutely destroyed me because I wasn’t used to the mechanic of Mario Kart when she was so yeah, in theory a little bit, but in reality, it’s totally different.

Tom Harrison-Lord (13:03):

So, so you can beat the best drivers on Assetto Corsa Competizione but not your girlfirend on Mario Kart.

John Munro (13:09):

I can now though, I can now because I can put time into it cause I wasn’t accepting that, that wasn’t going to happen. But no, honestly though, we still have really close races all the time. She teaches me how to go faster in time trail and 200 CC and that is not one word of a lie. Yeah. I can jump on this other game and, and be at the top level. So yeah, it’s, it’s definitely, there’s something there.

Tom Harrison-Lord (13:26):

It’s an interesting point though, that you mentioned there, uh, because I agree that each, each platform, you almost have to become a specialist if you want to be super competitive at it. However, there are some transferable skills. I think if you start out on a kart racer or a Need for Speed, or then you progress to Formula 1, and then you progress to iRacing, and that is the sense of competition and sort of the adrenaline rush, also just this edge to be the best. So learning the controllers, learning where the best, boost pads are on Wipe Out or Pacer, for example, is still a competitive edge in the Sim world. You still gonna find the best setups, all the brake heating trick at iRacing, for example, controversial this year. And that’s analogous to, I don’t know, a blue shell or something in a way.

John Munro (14:17):

I wouldn’t fully agree with you on that one Tom though, because I feel like even though, yes, there are aspects of that that are completely true. You can say that about any game, really, you know, learning how to explore, learning, how to explain a game. It doesn’t need to be racing, but you know, learning how to become competitive, how to, how much of a difference it makes to practice three hours a day, or to use the best weapon, you know, all of these kinds of things can be applied to any game. So in reality, yes, you’re right. But I don’t necessarily think that’s enough, of a Similarity that, makes it skills directly transferable, Obviously, as well as you say, there are arcade games where, you know, you can learn that you need to drive slower to go faster. Those kinds of like really raw, basic understandings of racing. Those things will definitely help you when you get to Sim racing as well.

Tom Harrison-Lord (14:58):

If I’m playing Ridge Racer, for example, and I need to work out the quickest way around the track is to use the fastest line and that teaches the, the notion of, oh, okay, I don’t just flat out on every corner I might have to break. I might have to drift the mechanics completely different, The game’s completely different and it’s a tenuous point, but there’s also an element of working out, remembering the tracks, learning things. And I suppose, you’re right. You apply it to any game. It’s like Sebastian Loeb is a nine time WRC champion before that he was a gymnast. I’m sure he learned some, motor skills and his body or his sense of, direction from that or something. I don’t know.

John Munro (15:35):

Sport psychology as well. Yeah.

Tom Harrison-Lord (15:37):

Yeah, exactly. All of that. What do you think Justin

Justin Sutton (15:41):

Yeah, no, absolutely. I actually agree with all of that completely. I, unfortunately I cannot be, I cannot be controversial on that one. The next question I was going to ask was should arcade games have esports because obviously the esports side is even more askew compared to, so we were talking about nowadays, there’s a lot more Sim games than there are arcade games. It feels like, and it’s just getting worse and worse as time as time goes on esports is an even worse thing is, and even worse situation where all of the racing game esports, as far as I know anyway, are Sim related, not there’s, no arcade, or if there are arcade, it’s very, very small. It’s very niche. I don’t really know a whole lot about it, that sort of stuff. Um, do you think that there should be arcade esports Mario Kart, Wipe Out type, you know, zero gravity games? Do you think that should be a competitive thing?

John Munro (16:37):

You wanna take this one first Tom?

Tom Harrison-Lord (16:38):

Ha ha the awkward silence meant that we don’t really know. Speaking for myself there. I think they should. If it helps bring in an audience to esports who are, again, not into the super serious Sims, some like, you know, the light and shade helps bring people into the market. And also there’s nothing wrong with liking something that isn’t serious and enjoying it. Uh, so for example, there’s, esports for shooting games. So why can’t there be for a kart race or a flying game? I mean, it’s not a racing game, but it’s got vehicles in it, but Rocket League esports is very popular. Okay. It’s football really, but it shows the scope for something that’s fantastical.

John Munro (17:18):

Absolutely. Like League of Legends is one of the biggest esports seasons scenes worldwide.

Tom Harrison-Lord (17:24):

Not grounded in reality is it?

New Speaker (17:24):

There’s nothing, there’s nothing realistic about that. So I think there are two totally separate issues. The thing that makes a difference is, you know, esports, in some sense when it’s actual sport, it’s trying to kind of recreate the sport in a virtual world. So whether it’s FIFA, you know, you’re recreating football, stuff like that. Whereas esports is also the term that’s used for just gaming in general. That’s not trying to replicate real life. So there’s, I’ve never really thought about too much, but esports is sometimes is sports, but sometimes it’s just gaming, you know, it’s gaming tournaments under the bracket of esports. So with racing, because you have the ability to make it realistic, that’s tends to be why some racing is the ground for esports, but I definitely don’t think it needs to be.

John Munro (18:02):

There’s no reason why there can’t be top level Mario Kart esports. I mean, you can see how many people try and exploit loopholes and stuff like TrackMania to try and break world records and things like that. And there’s definitely a skill to that too. So I don’t think there should be any kind of, there should be any ceiling to what you can do with esports and gaming because at the end of the day, any game that you’re really good at is a skill that takes time to master. And there’s no reason why one being better at one game is any more impressive than being better at another game. If anything, you know, Sim racing for esports is kind of not the right way to do it because we’ve already got real racing for that. So people can already, show that they’re the best drivers. So surely esports should be almost a way of celebrating people who are better gamers when it comes to racing and maybe Sims aren’t the way for that. Obviously I’m, I’m kind of throwing ideas around and playing devil’s advocate against myself here, but yeah, I don’t see why there should be any, I don’t see why there should be any limits to what it can be.

Tom Harrison-Lord (18:52):

Yeah. I was just gonna add to that, that there is a certain element of the serious esports, perhaps trying to appeal to an existing motorsport audience. Right. And as you say, there you know, but there’s people who play TrackMania who probably don’t watch World Touring Cars or Nascar, but they are still enjoy esports with vehicles in it. And so there’s nothing, there’s no problem with that?

John Munro (19:15):

Well, we’ve seen Formula 1 esports is huge. Is the F1 game a Sim? you know, that’s.

Tom Harrison-Lord (19:19):

Oh, that is a whole podcast.

John Munro (19:22):

You know what I mean? Where does it stop in that sense?

Justin Sutton (19:25):

I would say yes.

John Munro (19:26):

Nascar Heat esports, you know, on heat five, stuff like that.

Tom Harrison-Lord (19:30):

Yeah. I would say Formula 1 is a Sim as well, but that is, I agree Justin sorry.

Justin Sutton (19:37):

And by the way, you mentioned TrackMania. I completely forgot about TrackMania. That probably is the biggest arcade racing esports isn’t it? The grand league or whatever they have at the moment?

Tom Harrison-Lord (19:49):

Everybody forgets about TrackMania though, beacuse its sort of hidden away at the minute.

Justin Sutton (19:53):

It’s, it’s still not that arcady TrackMania is almost like F1 in the future, or almost like Roborace in the future if you ask me. I think it’s actually closer to Roborace it’s almost like TrackMania is a situation where it’s real cars being controlled remotely by people in a safe sort of VR, but it’s happening in the future, you know, the year is 2320 and stuff like that. And I think that’s neat, but it’s, again, the, it goes back to the blank slate thing. It’s like, I think you could do more and I think they have done more. So they’ve got, they’ve got like those weird things, like those pads where you lose a grip, when you go over it, they’ve got the huge jumps and stuff like that, that are coming into it. So, and it seems to be drawing a pretty big audience.

Justin Sutton (20:41):

I follow one guy on Twitter that kind of keeps me updated with the Grand League and what’s going on with it and seems like it’s getting pretty good viewership from, from what I’ve been hearing about recently. But, um, I mean, I completely agree like I, and, I wonder you got me wondering specifically, John, are we missing out on racing game esports is there a bigger ceiling to be had from arcade esports because you rightfully pointed out the biggest esports have no base in real life. FIFA esports is not bigger than League of Legends or Dota or CS GO, or even, what’s that new one where they have guns and powers.

Tom Harrison-Lord (21:23):

You’ve lost me Justin.

Justin Sutton (21:25):

You guys don’t keep up unless it’s a racing game.

John Munro (21:25):

Formula 1 2021 is it?

New Speaker (21:25):

But so, so do you guys think that we’re actually, this is a missed opportunity and that actually the racing games or maybe could be, could have a much bigger audience if there was more focus on arcade racing games, possibly?

John Munro (21:43):

Maybe it’s because the genre is so big in itself that’s the problem, because I think a lot of racing game fans are fans of racing games because they love racing. Therefore, you know, for me, for example, am I going to sit down and watch an esports tournament for like TrackMania? Maybe I love playing TrackMania, but I don’t think that’s what gets me about it. What gets me is the real side of more sport, but that’s just a personal opinion thing. I think because we are, a lot of racing game fans are racing fans, almost widens that whole thing, so that a lot of people involved in industry will not really look at that. What you really need is a bunch of specific people that are fans of the game. So, you know, if, if TrackMania became the biggest game on the planet, because as many people loved it as, as as many people love league of legends, then I don’t see why it wouldn’t become such a big esports thing.

John Munro (22:26):

So I don’t really think that there are too many limitations there. I think you need to separate the game from the industry. Anyway, does league of legends have loads of other games that are very Similar to it? You know, I’m sure there are Similar styles of games, but I’m not really sure that that’s an entire, you know, it’s not like FIFA is a football game and there are lots of different football games, but I’m not sure if League of Legends has that kind of same thing where it’s part of a much bigger picture. It’s just that game specifically that people love playing. So I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s tricky.

Justin Sutton (22:52):

So that kind of leads. Oh, Tom.

Tom Harrison-Lord (22:55):

No, no, its alright carry on.

Justin Sutton (22:57):

I was just going to say it, that kind of leads into my next question. Which is, would you watch arcade esports would you specifically watch, I don’t know if there was Forza horizon esports cause that’s pretty arcade, you know, I wouldn’t call that a Sim. Would you, would you tune in for that, let’s assume that their camera system and spectating system isn’t total garbage and that it actually looks pretty good. Would you tune in and watch that?

Tom Harrison-Lord (23:24):

That sounds like your Forza Horizon opinion there Justin, its a good episode if you’ve not listend to it.

Justin Sutton (23:26):

That’s right.

Tom Harrison-Lord (23:30):

Yeah, I would, for me, what makes a good sport regardless of the e element is if the competition is healthy. So if there’s a close competition with a large grid of equally skilled people and the racing is unpredictable. Yeah. Why not?

Justin Sutton (23:46):

Why don’t you watch the TrackMania one? Is it because the cars are ghosted? Because that’s obviously a big thing. You know, that’s kind of a defining thing about it.

Tom Harrison-Lord (23:57):

I don’t, I wouldn’t mind the ghosting in particular, but it’s more the fact that, TrackMania in general, doesn’t feel like it’s quite a finished thing at the minute and so nothing to do with the actual sporting competitive side on that front.

Justin Sutton (24:10):

Gotcha.

John Munro (24:11):

For me, the love of watching esports comes from the love of watching sport, as much as it comes from the love of playing games for me personally. So this maybe doesn’t apply to most people, but you know, I love racing and I also love playing racing games. Therefore, if I see a particular series where I’m invested, I know the drivers I’m into the cars, I’m into the game. I can really sit down and enjoy a good race in the same way that I would enjoy watching a good, real race. Now with esports for me in my head is a separate thing to racing and Sim racing, because for me, that’s, that’s a different industry. It’s a game it’s not about watching a real race and that being the thing I enjoy about it. However, what I would say is I used to live with someone who absolutely loves League of Legends esports and the thing about sport is you don’t necessarily need to know everything about the specific game.

John Munro (24:55):

You don’t need to love everything about that. It’s about the competition. It’s about the personalities, the stories, right? So with, you know, with League of Legends, if my flatmate was able to say to me, oh, by the way that team’s the underdog, they’ve never reached this quarter-final before. And the team they’re playing against have won it the last four years. They’re also just, sacked their star player. And everyone’s worried about how this player is going to perform. That’s what gets you excited because you then feel invested, you know, who you want to win. So I think you could do that with anything. I think marble racing, get right into Marbula one, you know, and you could definitely do that with TrackMania. You could do it with Mario Kart, anything like that. The game itself is less important when it’s that aspect. And then separately from that racing esports for me, I love because I love racing. Does that make sense? The two totally different things in my head.

Tom Harrison-Lord (25:38):

Yeah, I would agree that. And I think what we’re saying is that actually an arcade game, whatever you define it as an arcade game, cause that’s a whole different debate, but is, absolutely fine and should be very, very popular as an esport that’s my opinion. But, Justin, where does IGP manager fit into this? Is that a Sim or an arcade thing and that does esports right?

Justin Sutton (26:00):

Yeah. Well not at the moment, not currently, but they have done in the past, they played around with it. Maybe that’s something that’ll come about with the, with the 3D stuff. Maybe they’ll, they’ll get back into the esports side of things. But yeah, I mean, that’s a good example. Something that is not necessarily, you know, something that you’re into already can be very exciting. For example, Rocket League esports is what drew me in, even though I never once played Rocket League, never had any desire to play Rocket League. I don’t watch football or soccer depending on what country you’re from and what you want to call it. So I’m not even interested in the sport that it’s based on, nor was I interested in the game. And the only reason I started watching it was cause I was working at Veloce at the time and they had a Rocket League team.

Justin Sutton (26:50):

So I started watching it for work essentially and got really into it. I was like, this is a, you know, you know, they’re scoring goals that I’m screaming. Yes, yes, yes. And I’m getting the same sort of like feeling and reaction for myself that I got from the F1 esports and the F1 esports, my passion there is due to my involvement. You know what I mean? Like I’m part of it. I’ve been part of it since the very beginning. I know all the drivers, I know all the moving parts and the drama and the stories behind it as John kind of touched on. You know, and that’s what made it interesting for me, but for, for Rocket League, it was just because it was hugely entertaining. Like, you know, I sat down and I was like, Oh, this is kind of neat.

Justin Sutton (27:33):

And by the end of the first broadcast, I was like, this is incredible. This is absolutely incredible. You know, the showmanship, it was just like, you could see the skill that was required to pull off the things that they were doing. And you could really see the difference between a good player and a bad player, and you got to see them with each other. So, with something like F1 esports or indeed racing esports at all, if somebody is really, really good, they’re going to be boring as hell to watch because they’re just going to take off into, they’re going to get pole position. They’re going to take off into the distance and they’re going to win by 10 seconds and it’s going to be completely uninteresting. Yeah. There might be some stuff going on at the back, which is interesting. That’s neat. But really what we all want to see is like a five-way battle for the lead.

Justin Sutton (28:19):

You know what I mean? Like that’s, that’s like the dream, the dream scenario, anything less than that. And we’re just, we’re just settling for whatever it is. But with Rocket League, you got to see these underdogs going up against these heavy hitters and you got to see the underdogs come out on top every now and again, usually the heavy hitters would win, you know, the top teams would win, but every now and again, an underdog would sneak through. And you know, so I think there is opportunity for an arcade racing game, or maybe not, not an argument. Maybe it needs to be like more of like an Onrush style game. You know, maybe something like that will end up in the future who knows maybe an Onrush type game will end up being the best, you know, racing esports I can’t really predict, but I can say, yeah, I agree. You don’t have to necessarily be into it. You know, if, if you just put on a good show with your game, with your esports, whatever it is that will draw people in for sure.

Tom Harrison-Lord (29:13):

Yeah and I think also what’s coming from this big discussion about esports is that we’re, what we’re saying is I think feel free to disagree. The game doesn’t have to be grounded in reality or ultra realistic to be fun. And therefore, if you’re really into Sim games, this is my opinion now, just because someone really likes an arcade game doesn’t mean the game is trash.

John Munro (29:39):

I feel like that’s the start of another very broad topic of converstaion.

John Munro (29:42):

So I do apologize, I feel like have offended half of our audience,

John Munro (29:45):

I totally agree.

Tom Harrison-Lord (29:47):

By all means have your opinions happy days, but just because a game is not realistic, doesn’t mean that it’s enjoyed by many, many millions of other people.

John Munro (29:56):

Does anyone seriously think Mario Kart is a bad game, you know, because it’s not realistic. You know people love it.

Tom Harrison-Lord (30:02):

You’ve not been on enough forums recently John.

John Munro (30:04):

Maybe not, maybe, maybe not. Maybe I live in a house that loves Mario Kart. I think that, I think, you know, again, it’s such a broad one but you know, there’s so many people that they’ll, if it’s not as realistic, it’s smeared upon its looked down on because you know, the skills aren’t the same, you know, you, you don’t have to be a good driver to be good at this game, but you do have to be a really good one to be good at that.

John Munro (30:24):

Sometimes Sims are even more difficult than real life. A lot of the time they are, I went out on iRacing and I’ve not done a race in five years. I was in the Le Mans 24 hour and I was under a lot of pressure. I was in a really good team and I got out there for the first lap of practice and it was just like driving on eggshells, you know, and that’s not how the real car would react. You know, the tire model at the time was really was, it was criticized quite heavily for, you know, and I don’t want to, not gonna start bashing iRacing thing here. But it was really, really difficult. And because I, because my equipment isn’t quite, I don’t get as much feeling through the equipment as I get in real life. They, try to make all the physics really realistic, but I didn’t get the same feel. So therefore when the tires were cold and getting up to speed, I had no idea where the grip was at and that made it harder than it would have been if I had jumped out in that GTE car in real life. And I know that for a fact. So, yeah, like, yeah, it’s not always, it’s not always the right thing to just look down upon, arcade games as if, because they’re not as realistic, they’re not as good or anything like that.

Justin Sutton (31:20):

That leads very nicely into one of the next questions I was going to ask. Actually, I wanted to talk about some of the best and worst examples of Sim and arcade racing games. Now I don’t think any of us would describe iRacing as a worst example of Sim racing at all. We also probably wouldn’t describe it as the best example of Sim racing either. And in fact, that may be the harder question to answer. I’ll go ahead and kick us off with, let’s start with arcade games actually, rather than Sim games. I want to hear if you guys can think of any, because I know it can be hard to remember bad games. A lot of times we’ll just block them out of our memory, memories, but, I will kick us off with the one that I could remember, and it was more disappointment than, than it being bad.

Justin Sutton (32:07):

So, the, my fun level relative to my expectations for fun level, and that was Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, which I think I’ve actually talked about before, on this podcast, possibly it is probably the racing game that I have, you know, been the most disappointed by in my lifetime. And I think it was down to, the Need for Speed games prior to Porsche unleashed. And I don’t have the Wikipedia in front of me, so I can’t tell you exactly which ones they were. but they were very arcady, because they were from the 90’s. Like I remember I installed the first Need for Speed game using floppy discs. So that gives you a clue to just how old it was. And I got Porsche Unleashed on PS2 I want to say, I haven’t, again, I’m not actually prepared. I don’t have the Wiki in front of me or anything like that, but I just remember being hugely disappointed by it.

Justin Sutton (33:01):

I wanted it to be more of an arcade game, you know, I wanted that Need for Speed experience. I wanted to take a Ford GT 90 through you know, like death Valley at 200 miles an hour, completely unrealistic. You know what I mean? That’s why I loved the Need for Speed games was racing McLaren F1’s against Mazda RX sevens, and just all the really weird wacky stuff in the high speeds and all that kind of stuff. And I was just so disappointed by how slow all of the cars were because they were, they were going for realism. They wanted the cars to be realistic and, you know, it was like a celebration of Porche’s across the ages.

Justin Sutton (33:43):

So, I think they even had like a Porsche, was it the 356, I want to say, which was catastrophically really slow by even 90’s standards. it was just so terrible to drive it. I think it was one of the first cars you drive in the game as well too. And I just remember being so disappointed by the speed, the sense of speed and the tracks as well too, were much more like kind of Mickey Mouse and, and, you know, you had, there was a lot more braking zones and stuff like that, which for me as a child was quite uninteresting obviously. Can either of you think of any arcade racing games that were, was either a huge disappointment or you just think was complete garbage?

Tom Harrison-Lord (34:27):

Oh yeah, well, I’ve got, I’ve got a couple I’ll just briefly go through if that’s okay. So the first one is not, not a bad game, but it just was a bit meh and there, which is The Crew, the first one. Now the second one is still very popular and it’s much improved in my opinion. And it’s still going. The first one was ambitious. It had this massive open world, but it was a bit of a drag. You finished the whole story with the one car hearing the same engine noise over and over. I know you could switch it, but the best way of doing it. And it felt like it outstayed its welcome. Whereas the second one there’s so much more to do in the environment so much richer, it was more enjoyable. And on the Need for Speed theme, there was Need for Speed The Run where the whole concept was you Ran from, your drove across, was it East coast to West coast, or the West coast to East coast anyway, across America, very broad scope, but you did it all within like four hours and then three quarters of the way through the game the track design was just like open down like this. And it was some, there was some bad moments there, I think it was ambitious, but they didn’t have the time or the resource to finish it. They were the two sort of ropey arcade games I can remember.

John Munro (35:35):

Yeah. I struggled to remember as you saying like bad games. Cause I think you kind of like block them out of your memory in a way. Yeah my experience with bad arcade games is probably more based on expectation and the pattern I found is games that tried to do things realistically that then weren’t realistic at which point they would have been better, not trying in the first place. So I mean, the games that spring to mind for me. And it’s weird because I kind of think back on this game, particularly fondly and, but not necessarily because it was good and that’s Need for Speed: ProStreet. It’s funny that we all mentioned Need for Speed, but I think there’s so many games that, you know, you can’t really blame the Need For Speed’s because they’ve got so many games that are great, that bviously we played them and that’s why we know them and remember them right.

John Munro (36:16):

So I remember pro street tried to be like real racing kind of thing, where you actually go to circuits and there are actually really cool circuits that they did, but because they tried to make it more like actual racing, it almost needed to be better and it was still, it wasn’t good at all. And it took away all the fun of it and it’s like, okay, if you’re gonna make a Need for Speed game and you know, if you’re gonna make the cars really slow and frustrating, then that’s a bit of a strange one for them to make, then make it more realistic in terms of the racing you do. But if you’re, you know, if you want to make a fun game, don’t take, take away the thing that makes Need for Speed fun, which is the close high speed action drifting around massive coroners and all that kind of stuff. It kind of needs to be one or the other and I think a lot of the time the games that disappoint me are the ones that fall too far in the middle. Cause they’re trying to be realistic, but they’re really not. And then the fun also goes.

Tom Harrison-Lord (37:03):

Was it trying to be a Sim then or was it still an arcade racer that was grounded in reality?

John Munro (37:06):

Well, that’s, I don’t think you could say it was trying be a Sim that’s for sure. I mean, it was the, it was like here’s an arcade racing game, but we’re going to then make the actual racing itself frustrating and, I guess real racing, but actually racing you couldn’t ever do in real life. I can’t really explain what it was about it, but it just missed the Mark in terms of, it was clearly an arcade game, but it was trying to get rid of the fun things of arcade. If that makes sense. The other examples are like one of the, some of the newer Grid titles I’ve not been super keen on. I feel like they’re in a Similar boat sometimes.

Justin Sutton (37:42):

No, that’s, that’s actually a very good point. well, okay to be fair to the, to the Need For Speed franchise though, I’m now going to ask for best examples of arcade racing games and I’m going to kick it off with Need For Speed Underground, which was my first online racing experience. I remember I had the game for PS2, and I had the internet connector thingy, whatever.

Tom Harrison-Lord (38:08):

Oh, the network adapter thing.

Justin Sutton (38:08):

So yeah, my PS2 was, was network connected. And I played against a friend who had Need for Speed Underground or maybe this was Underground 2, but it was one of the Underground games and, he had it for PC. So it was not only one of the, it was not only the first online racing experience that I ever had. It was also the first cross-platform gaming experience that I’ve ever had that went from PC to console of where you can play with your friends, despite them being on console or you being on PC or whatever the case might be.

Justin Sutton (38:42):

And I guess I can kind of put those two together, Underground and Underground 2. Cause they did come out rather rapid fire for those of us that are old enough to actually remember when those were brand new. They, out very, very close to one another and it was surprising the difference from one to the other. I mean, we see these yearly releases nowadays in the modern era and we’re like, Oh, it’s just a copy and paste. Well, first of all, it’s never actually a copy of paste There’s rare examples where there really is actually very little work done from one to the other. But genuinely very surprising the amount of like new content and stuff like that was added in such a small space of time, between the two games. But they are some of the most fun I’ve ever had with racing games, Just full stop, I mean just absolutely incredible.

Justin Sutton (39:34):

I love the customization of both of the games they were really, really well done. I really enjoyed like the aesthetic of it as well too. You know, it really drew you in there wasn’t so much of a story or if there was a story, I really don’t remember it. But what I do remember from almost 20 years now later is just the style and the vibe, you know, when I cast my mind back to it, I just remember drifting at night through a city in like a tricked out Mazda Miata with NOS, you know, just stuff like that. And, and I think weirdly it’s, it’s one of the best examples. I would say also Burnout Revenge, is probably the best sort of like handling in my opinion, of all the arcade racing games. I just really, really enjoyed how Revenge felt. It was a lot of fun.

Tom Harrison-Lord (40:28):

Just quickly Justin, Need for Speed Underground, Underground 2 which, which caused it to have him on the cover. Was it two that had green MG Z SV, can’t remember what the first one was.

Justin Sutton (40:35):

One of them had an R34 skyline. That was

John Munro (40:46):

Reddy orange, wasn’t it? That was the original underground.

Justin Sutton (40:50):

Was it okay?

John Munro (40:51):

I think

Justin Sutton (40:54):

That’s all right. Cool.

Justin Sutton (40:55):

I’m going to look it up while John talks.

Tom Harrison-Lord (40:57):

Yeah,

John Munro (40:58):

Yeah. I mean, it’s funny, you know, you guys have kind of touched on the same thing as I was going to mention. I mean, if we’re, if we’re going to then, you know, repair our relationship with the Need for Speed franchise, I would probably throw Most Wanted it into the ring. I thought that was a great fun game and underground as well. absolutely same, same thing, you know, great games, but maybe it’s because I was younger that I loved them so much. And also the other one I was gonna mention was a Burnout game. Burnout 3 Take Down for me was the one. And it’s just because that game was so fun to play and it didn’t try and be realistic in the slightest, but it was just such a wahhhhh, satisfying feeling to play it. The offline career mood style thing was very engaging.

John Munro (41:35):

You felt like you were making progress in terms of modern games. Obviously you guys know how much I love the likes of Art of Rally, but the other one I want to talk about is Wreckest. You know, Wreckfest becoming one of the most popular games at the moment. And no one would argue it’s a Sim. You know, it’s hard, it’s just as hard to drive in the wheel, I’d say as the controller, but it’s just so fun because it, it takes, you know, idea of something that you would love to be able to do in real life, but never can, and then just goes mad with it, you know, so for me, you know, Wreckfest for that reason has got to be one of, one of the best and track very quickly TrackMania. We’ve given it a lot of top inventions, but it’s huge fun as well. So there’s, there’s lots.

Tom Harrison-Lord (42:10):

How many did you have there five?

John Munro (42:10):

Yeah, there’s, there’s lots more good arcade games than bad arcade games, Tom.

Tom Harrison-Lord (42:17):

Yeah. Well mine I’ll just keep it brief, Drive Club overlooked, often forgotten it had a terrible, terrible launch with bad PR. The reviews will stick forever, but over the next two years, they made it really wonderful. It was an arcade game, but it had a feeling of solidarity and weight to the handling, which really meant that it was easy to get into but hard to master. And then they also added bikes, which is underrated and VR, which was wonderful. So Drive Club is my pick for best arcade racer I can think of today.

Justin Sutton (42:51):

By the way, I think Wreckfest was an incredible show. I’m really glad that you mentioned that because if I, if I remembered it, certainly I would have mentioned it to, The cover art car for Underground 2, was a green Nissan 350Z.

Tom Harrison-Lord (43:04):

Oh no an MG, I got that well wrong.

Justin Sutton (43:07):

Honestly, I was, I was like, I don’t think they would put an MG on the cover of and EA in America.

Tom Harrison-Lord (43:14):

It was green.

Justin Sutton (43:14):

Right? You were, you were right about that. You were right about that. And yes, we were right about the car before skyline. The kind of like reddish reddish, kind of orange, one, for the first underground. Okay. So best and worst examples of Sim racing games. I’m actually less prepared for this one but I really like, I’m going to say, let’s start with best for this one, unless you were going to give, your worst worst, Tom,

Tom Harrison-Lord (43:44):

I was going to go worst but I’ll give you both a really good one at the minute, Assetto Corsa Competizione, it’s got a single vision of replicating sort of GT3 and GT4 cars. And it does that very well. So I think it shows that if you focus on one series, it’s very good and a bad one? Well, I quite like it. I think it’s okay. I’m an apologist for it. A lot of people in internet hate it the TT Isle of Man 2 Ride on the Edge, I think the full title is everyone always forgets motor cycles when it comes to Simulators that is one it’s impossibly difficult. It takes five hours before you complete a lap. And I think that’s probably why people were off put by it, but the replication of the Isle of Man circuits is superb.

John Munro (44:21):

I can’t wait to try it.

Justin Sutton (44:25):

John do you have an opinion about Isle of Man specifically?

John Munro (44:30):

the thing is, is, cause I know Tom has feelings about that. I’ve heard him talk to me about it before he’s come crying to my corner going Oh, they’re making fun of my game and I don’t want them to, and.

Tom Harrison-Lord (44:38):

I’m not saying it’s a great game.

John Munro (44:40):

No, well, so I’m actually saving myself with that game. I’ve got it downloaded, but I’m actually, cause I wanna, I wanna make a Traxion video on it first time ever playing it to see if really is difficult. So, you know, that’s one for another time, but you know, the good Sims I could talk about all day and the different qualities, you know, I think Richard Burns rally needs to mention, I think it’s just an for its time, a phenomenal example of, of a Simulation done really, really well. And they’ve nailed the things they needed to nail. And obviously that game has been carried so far in the future.

John Munro (45:06):

Stuff like ACC more recently, it’s probably been up there for me and the big hitters iRacing rFactor 2 do a great job because they’re constantly fighting for that top level and pushing themselves to get better. So, you know, I could sit here and go on all day, ultimate blister, another great example, fantastic game, bad Simms. I don’t have as much experience, but I think a lot of the smaller Sims, um, some, some of them go under the radar, but mainly because they’re, they were a bit too ambitious and you need a big budget and a big, uh, you need, well, maybe not budget, but you need a big, big resources to be able to create something really good. And when it comes to Simulation, you need a big team, you need experience and a lot of kind of smaller companies that try and make Sims quite often fall into the wayside. But I’m not here to talk about any of those specifically, because I think it’s a bit unfair, but I think some of the, some of the less known Sims, there are some disappointing ones out there that are still quite pricey.

Justin Sutton: (45:55)
I will say it’s hard for me to pick out a, bad Sim. It seems, it seems to me that almost all of them have some sort of redeeming quality. And I don’t know if it’s because they’re a Sim that I’m willing to sort of forgive, any, any sort of faults that they might have. Cause yeah, I could immediately tell you an arcade game that I wasn’t happy about, but a Sim and you know, I’m not a massive fan of a lot of them, but for me to say that they’re like, you know, the worst example of a Sim racing game. Ooh, that’s, that’s a tough one. And also I think Sims, as we, as we discussed at the beginning of this are a much newer sort of experience. And I think, you know, they have the benefit of all these older games and they’ve learned a lot of lessons, so it’s hard to make the same sort of mistakes and stuff like that. I’m not, yeah, I’m not sure, like you could maybe argue that Project CARS 3 but is that a Sim anymore? 

John Munro: (46:58)
That is a problem.

Tom Harrison-Lord: (46:58)
Separete podcast

Justin Sutton: (47:00)
Exactly. 

John Munro: (47:00)
I will say something quickly about that though. They, they, the problem they have is they advertised as a Sim, but the game’s clearly not a Sim. So therefore as a Sim game, it’s really not good if you were to just take at face value and say it’s an arcade game is not as bad. So yeah,

Justin Sutton: (47:14)
I’d like to say though, so I couldn’t come up with something for worst Sim, but I would like to say my favorite Sim of all time probably is actually the original Assetto Corsa I think, just the, the mod community and I thought all the pricing very fair and stuff like that. It’s not ideal for multiplayer or for league racing. The original Assetto Corsa certainly the damage model was not good. There was a lot of problems and stuff like that, but, I thought what it did well, it did exceedingly well and with very little resources as well, too KUNOS is a very small team, especially back then. They were a much smaller team and I think it was just like a few guys in Italy basically. This was before they got, now they’re getting their games, published by, was it 505

Justin Sutton: (48:06)
Something like that. Yep. Yep so they, they’ve definitely got like a cash injection and stuff like that and, you know, things have turned around for them. but I think Assetto Corsamis. I mean, it’s got good VR as well too. I’ve never done VR Sim racing. So I can’t speak on a personal level about that one. But the mod community as well too, is, you know, second to none, it really is kind of like in a space of its own when it comes to the mod, the mod world of modern PC games, racing games.

John Munro: (48:34)
I’m with you on AC as well. And to be, to be fair, I I’ve been, I actually been doing Sim racing league as recent as last week on AC and it’s still pretty good, you know, So even, even the things it’s not so good at, it’s still completely viable. It’s just not as good as some of the newer ones. Same with the likes of VR. The usability is not fantastic, but it still works like once you get it on and working. It’s great. And I just want to very briefly as well, two games that we, you know, one game specifically that we’ve never mentioned on these podcasts that really need a shout out Cause I believe there are some of the pioneers of Sim racing and that’s Live for Speed We haven’t spoken much about Live for Speed but that was way ahead of its time in terms of its quality as a Simulation.

John Munro: (49:08)
And I still think it would stand up well, if you drove it today, apart from maybe the graphics and there’s another one I wanted to mention is netKar Pro I don’t know if any of you guys have heard of this, but it’s an old Sim, from, from quite a long time ago now. And again, it was a small budget. It could, I think it might actually be kind of a lot of, actually I’m going to say that without knowing for sure, but I think it might have some ties loosely to what became Assetto Corsa, but that was, that was brilliant. You know, it was a small budget Sim as well and weather they absolutely nailed it, at a time when other people were not nailing it. So just wanted to give those guys a little shout out because they, you know, some of the pioneers of, of what’s become a massive

Justin Sutton: (49:41)
Wasn’t there weather in Need for Speed Underground. 

John Munro: (49:43)
Well, maybe Simulation, I mean, wet weather Simulation.

Justin Sutton: (49:48)
I seem to remember rain in Need for Speed Underground. 

John Munro: (49:50)
It always rains.

(49:50)
Okay. We’re really coming up to the, to the end of our time here, but I did want to pose one final question and I’m going to answer it right away because you already know what my answer is. And is it possible to perfectly blend Simulation and Arcade? The answer is yes. Forza Horizon 4. Do either of you believe that there is a game that more perfectly blends Sim and arcade than Forza Horizon 4. 

Tom Harrison-Lord: (50:19)
Yeah, Formula 1. 

Justin Sutton: (50:20)
Ah, that’s, that’s a good argument. That’s a good argument. 

John Munro: (50:23)
I think at the moment I prefer playing Forza Horizon 4, but I’m with Tom 100% on this one. I don’t think, I think, I don’t know if you could argue Forza Horizon 4 blends Sim and arcade because the speed of the cars is so much faster than you can actually carry in your life and you can drive over fields and do 200 meter jumps and it’s all fine.

Justin Sutton: (50:39)
Okay. How about this? What would you, so if you, if you were doing like a 70, 30 split 50 50 split, where Sim is the first number in arcade is the second number. What would you grade Forza Horizon 4. So I would say Sim versus arcade, it’s maybe 25 75. 

John Munro: (50:58)
I was going to say 30. 70. 

(50:59)
Okay. Okay. Tom, what about you? How would you score it?

Tom Harrison-Lord: (51:03)
80, 20, 

Justin Sutton: (51:04)
80, 20. Okay. What about the F1 games? Cause I would say that’s 60% Sim 40 arcade, 60, 40. 

Tom Harrison-Lord: (51:13)
I would agree with that. Yep.

John Munro: (51:15)
Yeah. I I’d even go as far as say nowadays, the more, very recent ones closer to 65, 70% Sim, because you know, you look at the speed of the cars, it matches the speed of real life cars. And I think they try their best to recreate a lot of the things that actually happen in a real race. So for me, it’s, for me, it’s even higher.

Justin Sutton: (51:31)
Is there an ideal percentage, I guess that’s really down to the individual person really isn’t it,

John Munro: (51:39)
You know, something like maybe something like GT sport are doing a good job of that, but it totally depends on where you are on the experience scale. Right. You know, if you’re learning, you want to get in this further close towards arcade maybe Forza Horizon is great for learning to control the car, but when you get a bit more serious, you maybe move to Formula 1. Likes Of project cars is a great stepping stone into something that Sim racing. And so I think it’s totally subjective there isn’t a right or wrong answer. What I would love to see someone come along and say, here’s one game with an incredibly realistic handling model. And here’s a second handling model that you can turn on, you know, I know a lot of games try and do this, Sim versus arcade mode, but why it doesn’t you know, I’d love to see it a game that had two full on physics engines that actually appealed to both.

Justin Sutton: (52:16)
Yeah, no, I agree with that. 

Tom Harrison-Lord: (52:20)
I think the time to create that and the skill is you know, difficult. 

Justin Sutton: (52:25)
I do agree though, because I, I think, variety is the spice of life and all of that, you know what I mean? Like I really do think it would be fantastic to have that level of customization to be able to turn things on and off. I think that’s, yeah, absolutely the way to mass appeal to a lot of, a lot of different skill levels and, and all that kind of stuff is to yeah, exactly. Have it be an option in the game essentially? let’s see, I did have one final question. We do have a couple more minutes. I’ll I’ll ask it,, is the focus on Sim right now a trend and this is sort of several questions. So I’m going to ask all of them at once is the focus on Sim right now, just a trend?

Justin Sutton: (53:09)
Do you think maybe with VR becoming more popular that we’ll see stuff going more towards arcade again? Do you think people are going to start to get sick? It’s oversaturated, there’s just too many Sim racing games at this point and not enough, not enough arcade. So it becomes financially better to create an arcade game rather than a same game. and what about remastered games? We have Hot Pursuit remastered, but that wasn’t super fully remastered, but we’ve seen things like Tony Hawk being remastered very successfully recently. So yeah, it’s multiple questions. Is it just a trend? And what do you think about remastered stuff? John go.

John Munro: (53:48)
No, it’s not a trend. I think the technology allows it and therefore development is going really fast in it. So there’s more coming out and more people are putting effort into it and people are loving that kind of new lease of life that’s been given into racing games. I don’t think it’s a trend though. I think it’s here to stay. And I think that both can definitely live in harmony because depending on your experience level, as I was saying, there is room for both and both demographics. I don’t know if you want me to touch on the second part. I don’t really, I don’t really know my thoughts for that yet I think I need another second,

Justin Sutton: (54:17)
Are you even old enough to enjoy remastered games?

John Munro: (54:19)
Well, thats the thing

Justin Sutton: (54:21)
So let’s take your pick your favorite Richard Burns Rally, would you like it if somebody essentially took that base game and just threw some nice graphics on top of it and re-released it and charged you 60 bucks?

John Munro: (54:33)
Yes, but I would love them to add to I’d love them to be able to add maybe features, you know, the base game of the physics is absolutely fantastic if they could improve the graphics, sounds and maybe add a few. 

Justin Sutton: (54:44)
quality of life

John Munro: (54:45)
Yeah. Something, yeah, definitely, there’s definitely space for that,

Justin Sutton: (54:50)
Tom. 

Tom Harrison-Lord: (54:52)
Well, on that point I’d rather a sequel to Richard Burns Rally, than a remaster to be honest. And i think, yeah, I agree with John, I don’t think the whole Sim is a trend per se. It’s here now and it’ll continue to grow and I feel thast I hope that the trend of less arcade racers happening is reversed soon and maybe it’s just a lull for the time being, but it will survie it will evolve.

Justin Sutton: (55:17)
It’s not that we need less Sims. We just need more arcade racers.

Tom Harrison-Lord: (55:19)
Exactly. Yes. 

Justin Sutton: (55:22)
Yep. Well, I completely agree with that. So that’s, that’s a great place to stop on. If you guys would like to hear more discussion about any of these topics, as we did mention that several of these probably could be expanded on an entire episode. Do let us know, let us know on social media, you can also leave comments on the website now as well.

Justin Sutton: (55:42)
So if you’d like to leave a comment directly on the website, you can do that as well, just let us know what topics you would like to hear if it was a topic from this one, or if it’s a topic we haven’t touched on at all at any point whatsoever, do feel free to let us know that is it for today’s episode of the Traxion podcast. If you have an opinion on anything that we discussed at all, please let us know on social media @Traxiongg or on our website at Traxion.gg and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube and to the podcast on whatever your favorite podcast platform might be. Thanks for listening and keep it pinned bye bye.

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