The Fall of NASCAR Gaming - What Happened?

the history of nascar gaming is not unlike other sports franchises i've made videos documenting the fall and quality over the years from games like madden to nba live to nhl what's funny is that nascar games might just be in a worse position right now than those other franchises excluding nba live of course the latest nascar game nascar ignition 21 just came out and it's a mess bugs on top of bugs some of the worst and least polished gameplay you will ever see and this is after two years of development of course nascar games had been declining in quality for a while before now after ea moved to the xbox 360 and ps3 consoles their once great nascar games took a huge dive sounds familiar right until they simply quit making them eutechnics then took over and released one of the worst nascar games ever nascar 2011 the game only to then fix most of the issues with the title with nascar the game inside line what many consider to be one of the best nascar games ever however this was only a brief return to form as the next few eutechnics games were merely roster updates although at least they only released for 20 nascar heat evolution came next which was a surprising return to an older name in nascar gaming as nascar heat games were solid entries released in the early 2000s however the game was terrible easily the worst nascar game ever released the following nascar heat titles were better but weren't anything great older and ask her games from the ps2 era or the eutectics era featured more features and game modes a better career mode better driving and more as he continued to be mediocre fans started looking to alternatives such as eye racing then nascar heat 5 released as a symbol roster update to heat 4 a game that was nowhere near where it needed to be this was due to a developer change and all their focus being put towards a new built from the ground up nascar game so at least there was hope finally after a two-year dev cycle nascar ignition released and it was even worse than heat 5. joining me today are fellow youtubers black flags matter and i don't know player links to their channels can be found in the description and i recommend subscribing to them for some great nascar and racing content keep in mind that this video is focused on the overall drop in quality of mainline nascar game releases so arcade games mobile games and games like eye racing won't be included however they may be mentioned briefly nascar gaming has been on a steady decline for a while now let's go over the first nascar game ever was richard petty's talladega which released in 1984. the game wasn't exactly realistic as racers could exceed 250 miles per hour without even using turbo and with turbo could hit nearly 300 but it was the first game to have multiple nascar drivers and tracks the next game to release six years later was days of thunder a true nascar simulation racing game based on the movie it shared a name with this was the game most people would refer to when talking about the first nascar video game bill elliot's nascar challenge was next and was the first game to be officially licensed by nascar it wasn't until the fall of 1994 however that we got the first truly great nascar title nascar racing developed by papyrus was huge from being declared the greatest racing video game ever created by pc gamer and winning computer gaming world's 1994 simulation game of the year it was clear that nascar fans had a special title to play the game focused on realism and was the first nascar game to really give players that authentic feeling of pure speed kyle petty's no fear racing was next although it wasn't the most well received game it got some mixed reviews but still gave nascar fans another game to play nascar racing 2 however was what everyone was waiting for an improvement from the incredible nascar racing papiros added a new game engine and improved the outdated graphics physics and sounds delivering again the most realistic nascar game yet and then things started getting interesting ea decided to get into the mix and with their high budget they knew they could deliver a great game to rival papyrus and nascar 98 was born the game had a ton of revolutionary features such as an instant replay system visual damage rex driver profiles and more it was well received and gave nascar fans a real challenge did they want the more realistic papyrus games or the prettier ea games the important thing was that the nascar video game scene was full of life with competition blooming it was a great time to be a nascar fan the back and forth between ea and papyrus continued into the new millennium with new games published by both companies each year all improving upon the last however it wasn't until monster games dropped nascar heat that things got really interesting now a third company entered the competition with a banger while ea was having success competing with papyrus their games were more tailored for the casual fan rather than those who wanted a true simulation experience like the nascar racing titles monster games wanted to compete with the latter and their first title succeeded at that their development team actually included former papyrus employees and it showed as heat delivered more realistic physics and racing than ea heat was trying to be easy to pick up and play like ea's titles but also realistic enough for the sim heads and the result was actually awesome at that point in time there was a game for everyone the following year however ea dropped nascar thunder 2002 the first game with the iconic thunder branding and it was incredible while gameplay was still more on the casual side the game was a blast to play and the most visually impressive nascar game to date an important note ea's releases were on console while papyrus only released their games on pc and the popularity of ea's titles started to boom the following year monster games knew they needed something special to keep up with ea so they dropped an all-time classic nascar dirt to daytona this was the first an ascor game to have a true career mode where you started in a lower ranked series and climbed your way up to this day dirt to daytona is a fan favorite title that many people still have very strong nostalgia for nascar racing 2003 is another all-time classic that people still regularly play today as it's been modded to include updated cars drivers and paint schemes this is the most realistic nascar video game ever released and what eye racing is heavily based upon and then what many considered to be the greatest nascar game of all time dropped nascar thunder 2004 i'll keep this part brief because i actually already have a video covering the nascar thunder games in detail which you can watch by clicking the top right of your screen that video was also a collab with black flags matter thunder 2004 brought back a career mode had a season mode of speed zone mode lightning challenges and even online play on pc and ps2 gameplay the grudges and alliances system where driving dirty can cause other drivers to hold a grudge against you that carries over into future races while the gameplay again wasn't as realistic as nascar racing it was super fun and solid and with all the depth the game had to offer along with being a popular console game it's no surprise that thundero4 is commonly referred to as the greatest nascar game ever at that point in time players had multiple amazing options for getting their virtual nascar fix you see ea's next title nascar 2005 chase for the cup is actually my personal favorite nascar game of all time it featured a career mode similar to dirt to daytonas with the players starting in the featherlight series and working their way up to the cup it's one of the first retrospectives i ever made the game was even deeper than thundero4 and was simply incredible showcasing ea sports titles at their peak yet behind the scenes things weren't looking so good there was no nascar race in 2004 or 2005. there was no dirt to daytona 2 or nascarhito 405 it was just ea now in 2003 ea had signed an exclusive rights agreement with nascar that would last until 2009 meaning only ea could make nascar games now for the die hard sim heads this was devastating news ea nascar games were good at the time but they weren't sim now those who preferred realism over anything else were forced to continue playing nascar racing 2003. tapiros was unhappy and rightfully so they had released incredible games and were being rewarded with being kicked to the curb it did help that nascar 2005 was fantastic but how long would ea be able to keep up the quality especially with no more competition to help fill the simulation void ea released nascar sim racing on pc in 2005 which aimed to be similar to the papyrus titles but it wasn't even close was it a decent game yes it had incredible attention to detail when it came to tracks and car details but the actual racing and driving was simply not as good as what papyrus had accomplished it never received a follow-up and was actually the last nascar game on pc until 2013. sim heads were left in the dust nascar 06 total team control was another good console release but it wasn't a huge step from nascar 005 and again only catered to the casual console crowd nascar 07 was more or less a roster update and reception started to get worse it was clear that ea was phoning it in especially considering that all of their other sports games had already been released on next-gen consoles while nascar was still on the sixth generation nascar 08 finally released for the xbox 360 and ps3 and it was garbage all the fun depth and features of the thunder era were now gone and so was the attention to detail the car of tomorrow models were unbranded and generic which felt really weird in the exclusive and only nascar video game physics were super wonky and glitchy and the game is just embarrassing it's kind of fun to play today as a joke because you can morph under the ground or fly into the stands after crashing in the most unrealistic ways possible nascar 09 was even worse and while the graphics were pretty it had just as bad physics as nascar 008 this time however since nascar completely moved to the car of tomorrow now calling it the car of today there were no more licensed stock cars in the game that's right you weren't driving chevys or fords or dodges or toyotas in this game but instead a generic mix of the four nascar fans were fed up at this point and ea was noticing a sharp drop in sales and likely blamed it internally on a dying interest in nascar as a whole despite the fact that it was more likely because they were releasing horrible games the only good part of nascar 009 was the paint booth which allowed players to use photoshop and create and upload designs on their computer that they could use in the game on their consoles but besides that the game was trash so of course ea followed it up with nascar cart racing the exact game the starving simheads were craving while it wasn't a bad game actually it's pretty fun no one asked for it luckily for nascar fans however ea's license with nascar was ending and ea wasn't interested in renewing it the company that helped push nascar to the mainstream with their incredible console releases during the thunder era single-handedly killed off all other games and then stopped trying themselves ea tried their best to kill nascar gaming and then u technics became the new dev team for future nascar games i'll hand it off to black flag's matter and i don't know player to tell this part of the story the eutectics era for nascar console gaming started off with a ton of hype the series was making a huge transition from the ea sports era with high expectations these high expectations were further filled with what is in my opinion the greatest nascar gaming trailer of all time nascar the game 2011 was going to be the first in the eutectics era the game looked absolutely phenomenal on the ps3 and xbox 360. it was the first game in the series to introduce an iconic paint booth unfortunately that's where all the positives end the pack racing the way the ai race that all the other tracks and all of the annoying game glitches made the game absolutely unplayable at times and the damage model where the car basically looked like a peeling onion really didn't look all that appealing it also didn't help that the rosters were already outdated as it was released at the start of the 2011 season with 2010 rosters but they eventually added a 2011 dlc but here's where the major leap in their history took place with nascar the game inside line i cannot stress enough how this was the first ever nascar console game to perfect pack racing the way the ai raced on super speedways was absolutely phenomenal and obviously this made for some amazing online gameplay add in the return of real life driver challenge scenarios as well as a more immersive and in-depth career mode as well as season mode and you have one of the biggest improvements in nascar gaming history let's not forget the pre-race presentation broadcast you got with every single race this brought back that old nascar thunder feel nascar the game inside line is regarded as one of the greatest nascar console games the best part about this is they didn't rush this game either they took a look at what made nascar the game 2011 so bad and basically improved on it not to mention the 2013 dlcs for the game were pretty damn cool unfortunately that's where the series as a whole ended up peaking in my opinion the final two installments of the series nascar 14 and 15 are basically the same game some of the glitches that were found in nascar the game 2011 were back at certain tracks but at least the pack racing remained unchanged the career and season modes were basically unchanged from inside line don't get me wrong i cannot stress enough that these games were still relatively good it was just unfortunate to see that the developers never really improved much from inside line the final installment of the series that being nascar 15 saw a bit of a transition activision wouldn't be the publisher anymore as it would be duesenberry martin racing to promote the game dmr signed several nascar drivers as game ambassadors including eric jones as part of a promotion with gamestop this also included joey logano ryan blaney bubba wallace and matt tiff it also sold for an amazing 20 bucks for any next-gen console game to sell for just 20 bucks way back in 2015 and even today is absolutely amazing but if we're looking at this objectively the end of the eutectics era pretty much had nascar 14 and 15 basically as carbon copies the younger generation of fans marvel at these games as being one of the best in the series history in my opinion though i think that's a bit of a reach but if we are going to say nascar the game inside line is one of the greatest of all time i can absolutely agree with that but those final two releases were definitely leaps and bounds better than what was about to come next if you're still wondering why the majority of consumers are fed up and not giving nascar 21 ignition any excuses for its lack of actual game content boatload of bugs and the continuous issues that are projected to plague the game well into its life cycle you should look no further than the nascar heat series our first stop is the year 2016 where on september 13th nascar heat evolution release and as of right now it's considered the worst nascar game ever created even though it does have basic features not seen in nascar 21 ignition the graphics look straight out of a playstation 2 beta build game the physics made zero sense the damage model was gross there was no 360 camera which is standard on racing games even in the year 2016. there was no nascar xfinity or truck series which if you don't know is like the minor league of the nascar cup series there was a speed glitch that wasn't passed until the third iteration of the game aka nascar heat 3 where you can spam the pause button to go faster there was this really bad ping-pong effect where if two cars collided they would bounce off of each other like they're bouncing on a trampoline at sky zone i could go on and on but to sum it up it was a hot mess the game was developed by monster games and published by duesenberry martin racing soon after the game launched a quote that you can still hear for the game nascar 21 ignition was used for nascar heat evolution this game is a base for something bigger and better and will continue to be improved on for future games so after hearing that back in 2016 consumers were patient and everyone knew this was a new company and they really didn't have a lot of time to create a brand new nascar game but when nascar heat 2 came out it was honestly a big surprise how much change even though the game was super hyped up and eventually lost its luster about three to four months into the game's life cycle you can see that monster games was putting a lot of effort into producing the game with what it had to work with you see monster games was creating nascar games off of a unity engine and the unity engine is pretty limited to what it can do also in between the time of nascar heat evolution and nascar heat 2 dues and barry martin rebranded as 704 games but nascar he too had a pretty big draw to it it included the nascar truck series and nascar xfinity series also the career mode was updated so you can go through the ranks of the nascar truck series and nascar xfinity series to get to the cup series so the game right off the bat had a bigger draw than its previous iteration so the hype heading into this game was real including with the fact it was the first time a nascar game would introduce the truck and xfinity series since nascar 9 which was made by ea sports also the graphics were slightly tweaked including the physics so what happened to the game well with the combination of bad gamer burn dead end physics and not a real multiplayer grind aspect of the game nascar heat 2 did fall off pretty fast for the ones that don't know physics are like the heartbeat to a nascar game if it is not seen as good to the consumer the game will drop off pretty fast and this was a common theme throughout the heat series but the one takeaway was how big of a difference the game was to evolution giving consumers hope the only problem was nascar e3 was like playing the same song with a new verse hype for the game kicked up due to the graphics being better a dirt series being added career mode to having an option to make your own team and you can also work through the ranks and overall the game seemed to have held more value than nascar he too but even though the effort was seen one thing stood out with the heat series from the looks of everything the nascar heat series seemed to have only been trying to play catch up to previous nascar games that released all the features mentioned within nascar heat evolution nascar heat 2 and nascar heat 3 have been available in nascar games before the heat series started the dirt series was available in a nascar game called dirt to daytona most if not all of the quote unquote new career mode features were relevant in the ea nascar games the 360 camera has been in nascar games since the early 2000s and first made its way on the scene in the heat series for nascar heat 3. custom car customization has been available in nascar games in the early 2000s and first made its way in the heat series in nascar he too so to sum up nascar heat 3 it had a lot of hype heading into it but wore off very quickly i would say in between nascar heat 3 to nascar e4 is where we saw some consumers have enough with the nascar heat series and started finding other alternatives like i racing but at the same time there was still a good amount of consumers including myself hoping for nascar heat 4 to be the groundbreaking game we have been waiting for since honestly nascar 15. but for a lot of consumers hope still strung on for nascar heat 4. and once again improvements were made nazareth iv saw a big physics improvement there was also new features like unlockable paint schemes from challenges a track map actually being able to use all of the numbers from double zero to 100 in a custom car customization and a much more made the game a big step up from nascar heat 3. but once again all these features have been seen in previous nascar games and with the multiplayer experience not seen a lot of big improvements throughout the last couple of games and honestly this made the game look really bad because multiplayer has a big stronghold in the gaming community so even though nascar heat4 was an improvement from nascar heat 3 the game once again died out around the three to four month life span nascar heat 5 was set to release the previous year so something needed to change because all of the improvements and new features that were included in every single new iteration of a nascar game continued to not support the game throughout its entire life cycle so for a lot of consumers heat 5 was make or break when the pandemic struck nascar put a lot of support into iracing creating a league where actual nascar drivers can race and for a lot of consumers iracing became very attractive which also improved the sales for the simulator and also during the pandemic a lot of people realize eye racing isn't as expensive as it was made out to be this put a lot of pressure on nascar e5 including with the new changes made behind the scenes monster games would not be developing nascar e5 in doing so motorsport games would step in and the duo would now be 704 games and motorsport games will this be the game that finally breaks through the barriers and become a nascar game that'll be a staple for years to come the answer not even close on may 5th 2020 it was released that nascar he five would basically be a copy and paste twitter instagram reddit we're all in outrage about nascar heat 5 not even looking a little bit different than nascar heat 4. the last nascar game to be a copy and paste was nascar 14 and nascar 15. but the thing is with nascar 15 it released at 20 nascar heat 5 was set to release at 50 and in doing this started a huge i racing migration of consumers moving from console gaming to the pc simulator oh you thought that was it no it somehow gets worse nascar heat 5 might be a copy and paste the nascar e4 but it somehow was worse than nascar heat4 this is not a joke content that was available in nascar heat 4 was not available in the quote unquote new game so you would expect the game to launch pretty smoothly correct well with the launch of nascar 85 there was a ton of bugs in the game servers would crash in multiplayer the game would have lag issues left and right and to sum everything up it was just a worse experience than nascar e4 and what was the excuse during this time well the excuse was nascar e5 was a copy and paste to nascar heat4 motorsport games was working on a new game that was going to set the new era of nascar gaming a game built from the ground up and was going to be a better experience than the nascar heat series well i think we all know how that's going right now after taking two years to develop nascar 21 ignition we were given a terrible terrible terrible game one that almost takes the cake from nascar heat evolution i mean sure the game has some positives such as the new paint booth and the ability to drive around the garage on each track but the actual racing you know the most important part is garbage in the bugs oh man how can you take two years to develop a game and release something this unpolished despite numerous patches after release the game is still in a terrible state i'm going to keep my opinions on nascar 21 ignition extremely brief i've only had the chance to play the game once and that was at daytona i absolutely loved the pre-race presentation like i said talking about the eutechnics games it brought back that nascar thunder vibe but i emphasized my reaction was to that just the presentation as far as the gameplay was concerned i couldn't really tell at the time if it was any good or not i was going to hold my opinion about the game until i saw early gameplay footage from other content creators and let me tell you the early launch edition of nascar 21 ignition objectively speaking was probably one of the worst launches of any game i had ever seen there were multiple glitches as well as the ai not being able to race you properly there weren't any setups there were no private lobbies added and not even a track map also throw in that you couldn't turn off the steering assist just a bunch of features that the nascar heat series had were completely erased but some of the positives are that i absolutely love the fact that they brought back a legit paint booth that we had in the eutectics games the game looks absolutely amazing on the next-gen consoles you can drive through the garage we couldn't even do that in previous nascar console titles as i stated earlier bringing back the pre-race presentation is an absolutely amazing ad and finally as it's been heavily requested in other nascar console titles drivers actually retire and change rides throughout the years in career and season mode after all the things i just listed if you feel the game is worth 60 bucks or worth a 90 dollar pre-order let us know down in the comments below while most nascar fans have been fed up for years this is the game that seemed to break the camel's back more people are jumping to iracing a simulation racing game for pc that based their nascar driving on the old papers titles also why is it called nascar 21 every other sports game is called 22 and those games are based on the 2021 seasons of their respective sports if anything this game should be called nascar 23 since it's for the 2022 nascar season but hey that's that's probably the least important thing to complain about here the craziest part of all of this however has to be the nascar community i thought the madding community was bad but by simply announcing this video title and thumbnail on twitter i had numerous accounts that don't even follow me reply to the tweet with all kinds of horrible things for some reason there's a large group of people who love to defend terrible games long time viewers of my channel see it all the time with madden but nascar 21 is actually a much worse game than any recent madden nascar 21 is one of the worst video games you can possibly play and easily the second worst nascar game of all time in its current state yet rightfully calling out the game causes outrage on social media people buy games without doing any research or waiting for reviews and then throw a fit when other people start criticizing the game because they don't want to feel like they wasted their money you have pro nascar heat players defending the game because they have an obvious agenda you have people saying we need to buy nascar 21 because the developers need our money to improve the game whatever happened to just buying good games and avoiding bad ones then you see garbage takes like this ps2 games were rarely rarely buggy messes and if they were no one would buy them today the ability to patch games after release has been a crutch and an excuse to release and rush out unfinished messes and people like this guy and anyone who agrees with him are only helping that trend continue stop making excuses for massive companies and stop lowering your expectations so low have some self-respect and have some standards what people need to realize is that anyone upset with nascar 21 has the right to be nascar video games have been terrible for a long time with very few exceptions to be slapped in the face so constantly it makes sense that people are angry trying to silence criticism is a dangerous thing to do yet it's becoming more and more popular thanks to social media sites like twitter if you like nascar 21 good for you go play at that those criticizing the game online are doing way more to help improve the future of nascar gaming than those telling them to stop whining or whatever these people say the fall of nascar gaming has been sad we've had such an epic and awesome era with three great games releasing simultaneously and then we've had over a decade of mediocrity and trash iracing despite its flaws is currently the best option besides playing modded versions of nascar racing 2003 or popping the old ea games into your ps2 for a more casual experience it sucks it really does and i wanted to bring attention to it what nascar fans have had to deal with has been awful stop saying that next year's game will be better or that the dev team needs our support or this or that or blah blah blah enough excuses we've seen this song and dance too many times now and most of us are fed up gaming in general is hitting a low point and nascar games are a great example of that but the community trying to silence criticism or excuse a terrible game are honestly doing more harm than the actual companies releasing these bad games we have power as consumers to vote with our wallets going forward that's likely the only way to see nascar gaming improve or even come remotely close to where it was at its peak with the technology we have today video games have almost an unlimited potential yet here we are still playing games from the early 2000s does the future look bright not really thanks to black flags matter and i don't know player for helping me with this video in the description box below i put links to both of their channels if you like content on nascar and on auto racing in general from video games to the actual history of the sport subscribe to both of these guys and turn on the notification bell for them they only make high quality content unlike the recent dev teams for nascar video games thanks for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: SOFTDRINKTV

Views: 224,416

Keywords: softdrinktv, softdrinksports, retrospective, documentary, sdtv, the fall of nascar gaming, the history of nascar gaming, nascar 21 ignition, nascar thunder 2004, nascar heat evolution, nascar the game 2011, inside line, heat 5, iracing

Id: K-CJwpbD0jo

Length: 31min 4sec (1864 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 20 2021