iracing posts

This week it was revealed that game consoles will once again be be getting an official NASCAR racing game. Developer Eutechnyx and publisher Activision officially announced NASCAR The Game 2011 which will be released for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii in February 2011. But is Eutechnyx planning to release a PC version via digital download?

That possiblity is stronly hinted at in a new interview at VG247.com with the game's executive producer Dave Thompson. He stated that there is a lack of retail space for PC games that makes it hard to recoup the money needed to ship a PC version to stores. However he added, " ... we have something up our sleeves that should satisfy the legions of dedicated PC racers – watch this space."

Earlier this year, PC gamers were able to enter official NASCAR sanctioned online racing leagues via iRacing.com. However that online-only service is for hardcore racing sim players while Eutechnyx's NASCAR The Game 2011 is being designed for a more mainstream game audience.

Last year, the PC online racing simulation company iRacing.com announced it had secured a deal with NASCAR to launch a fully sanctioned NASCAR online racing series. On February 9 iRacing.com officially launches its first season of the NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship. The 39 week season will have 19 races and will have the top 50 drivers in iRacing.com's line up competing. That group includes real NASCAR driver and racing sim fan Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Even though the series has already picked its drivers for its inagual season, anyone will be able to enter one of five NASCAR amateur series. In addition the 2010 NASCAR iRacing Pro Series begins in May with the top 250 racers competing to earn a spot in next year's NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship.

Many racing game fans know the name Papyrus Design Group (also known as Papyrus Software). Founded in the late 1980's the game developer had a huge success on the PC with the NASCAR Racing series of racing simulations. The games, published by the now defunct Sierra, were highly accurate simulations of driving NASCAR rides on the tracks and even some real NASCAR racers (most notably Dale Earnhardt Jr.) were both fans of the game and used it to train for the real thing.

When the NASCAR game rights were sold to Electronic Arts in 2004, Sierra/Vivendi Games shut down the developer for budget reasons. However many of Papyrus' team decided to launch a new venture, an online PC racing simulation service called iRacing. The actual online service launched in August with little fanfare. However this week iRacing announced that it had brokered a deal with NASCAR to launch a full-saction online NASCAR racing series. It will be the first time the NASCAR franchise will be made available to play on the PC platform in over five years.

While the series won't begin until early 2010, Big Download wanted to get more info on iRacing's plans and got its co-founder David Kaemmer (also the co-founder of the original Papyrus) to answer our questions about this new online-only racing series.

Last August we reported on the launch of iRacing, a multiplayer online PC racing sim company that was co-founded by Dave Kaemmer, a co-founder of the now defunct Papyrus Racing developer that created the acclaimed NASCAR Racing sims for the also now defunct Sierra. Well, it seems what comes around goes around (an apt NASCAR metaphor) as iRacing has just announced a new agreement with NASCAR to run a fully sactioned NASCAR online racing series.

The online series will begin in early 2010 and will allow NASCAR fans to drive in multiplayer online races against each other and even against real NASCAR drivers, including Dale Earnhardt, Jr. This will be the first NASCAR licened PC game since Electronic Arts released the horrible NASCAR SimRacing game in 2005. iRacing charges $19 a month for its services with annual subscriptions lowering the amount to $13 a month.

Long time PC gamers remember the terrific racing simulation created by Papyrus Racing, the developer behind a number of exceptional and highly popular NASCAR and IndyCar racing games for Sierra. Papyrus shut down in 2003 but a number of its former team members have been working for the past few years to launch a PC-based racing sim game available for download.

That time finally came this week when iRacing.com finally made its public debut. The company, co-founded by Papyrus co-founder Dave Kaemmer and Boston Red Sox principal owner John Henry, has signed agreements with a number of race tracks across the US. People who want to join iRacing can do so for $20; that gets them two cars and access to seven tracks. As players get more experience they will gain access to more cars and IRacing will be adding more tracks to the service. It should be interesting to see if this new business model for racing sims will work.