A Dilemma For iRacing
(Or Nobody Likes Me)
In The Beginning...
If you don't know the story by now where have you been? The nutshell version is Papyrus put together the Nascar sims that we love, culminating with NR2K3. Nascar decided to give the license to use its tracks to EA Sports and entered into a long-term relationship with them after the 2003 season. Most experienced sim racers found the EA game lacking and decided to stay with "Old Reliable". I mean, why settle? Trackmakers were giving us all the places to race that we could ever drive and updating the Cup tracks as necessary. Painters were detailing carsets for each season as it arrived, keeping all the carsets updated. Some of the Papyrus people started Project Wildfire and started creating mods for additional series and different car models. All was well in the sim kingdom.
For Better Or Worse
At some point Red Sox owner John Henry partnered with David Kaemmer, co-founder of Papyrus Racing Games, to produce a new "ultimate" sim experience. I believe they were named First-Racing in the beginning and later changed the name to iRacing. They purchased the rights to the NR2K3 game from Vivendi but of course could no longer sell it as they had no rights to use the Cup tracks or the Nascar trademark. So supposedly, and there are varying opinions on this, they were going to use some of the code as a basis for the next generation racing sim. This is where things begin to go awry.
Applecart Tumble
Modders got a good taste of the possibilities for game improvements when Project Wildfire turned out new series for Busch cars and Craftsman Trucks. Touring Cars and Trans Ams came along. It was only a matter of time before some industrious types discovered ways to modify the game physics. Where first-Racing may have been hoping that interest for the old game would die out, modders were not only keeping it alive but they were finding ways to improve it. The trouble is, some of these methods (allegedly) involved tampering with the executable code which first-Racing now owned.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
My best personal estimation of what followed is that first-Racing mangled the public relations aspect of the whole affair. They managed to alienate most or a good percentage of the sim racing community. They called modders hackers and thieves, they monitored the community and sent C & D's (Cease and Desist Notices) and eventually filed some suits against those they decided were most acrimonious. To get a better explanation of the process you can see the hairy details at Tim McArthurs' forum posting. Many other boards dealt with the issue and you can find supporters for both sides. However many felt that first-Racing was turning their backs on a loyal community who was willing to support them. Some were even starting to say that first-Racing sucks. Some wondered why they were making such a fuss over code that they were supposedly not using in their new new sim.
EOF Part 1
So that's the encapsulated summary as my feeble mind understands it. Continue to Part 2 to see an equally feeble-minded possible solution. It seems so easy to me now since I have yet to write a word of it; I'm sure that writing will introduce other scenarios that plainly point out why it won't work. If not, you'll tell me why won't you?