The Snowball Derby was rained out. NASCAR had a banquet. Autosport had an award show. There was an endurance race in California. Dale Coyne is narrowing down his list of drivers. Zandvoort is undergoing a facelift. The Vietnam Grand Prix circuit is adding corners. Fernando Alonso is talking to Andretti Autosport about a return for the Indianapolis 500. IMSA announced the details to its 2020 television schedule. One note, this is the final Musings From the Weekend of 2019 but do not worry. Over the final weeks of the year we will revisit a few sets of predictions, hand out some awards and look ahead to the 2020 season. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Ready Player No One
Christmas is coming up and it is the time for trying to decide what to get others and creating a Christmas list.
There are certain things we would like to have in our lives. Either they are too expensive to go out and buy ourselves or they are items we have not gotten a chance to get but here is a chance for someone else to get it. We can put it on a list for a family member, loved one or friend to pick out for us. Our hope is when peeling away wrapping paper on Christmas morning to discover the item our hearts desired.
There are plenty of gifts for race fans. Maybe it is a pair of tickets meant for a stocking, a new t-shirt of our favorite driver or manufacture or maybe it is a book to fill our winter before race cars roar back to life. The gifts range from the young to the old. What a person who grew up in the 1960s with the likes of Foyt, Andretti and Unser would want for Christmas will likely differ than a 13-year-old who has started loving motorsports but cannot get enough for it. The elder statesman may want something that is a little less flash; paper over plastic, something to keep on a shelf. The youngling may want something to simulate a limited attention span; something that makes noise and has a lot of color.
The youths are into video games. Not all, but a lot of them are playing something. It has been this way for a while but video games have migrated from arcades into our homes and have been a regular staple in living rooms, basements and bedrooms for girls and boys for two decades now.
There are many video game options out there for motorsports fan but the one that has been lacking has been an IndyCar game. There is a Formula One game. There is a NASCAR game. There are the compilation games like Gran Turismo and Forza that allow people to drive all different types of cars, from street vehicles to race cars to the wildest imaginations from the brightest minds in motorsports. An IndyCar-specific game is nowhere to be found.
You can find IndyCars somewhere. There were IndyCars included in one of the Forza games not long ago but that is only a small taste. The IndyCar fan base has wanted a game that includes everything beyond Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They want to race the streets of St. Petersburg and Long Beach, they want to navigate Road America and Laguna Seca, and they want to run the banking of Iowa and Texas. They want a career mode, starting at the bottom of the Road to Indy and working the way up to IndyCar and hoping to get the dream call from Team Penske or Andretti Autosport.
An IndyCar video game has potential. It would be more than just driving in circles. It could be something with great depth and provide a player with plenty of content to not get tired of the game. However, there is a reason why it does not exist.
I hate to say this but the demand for an IndyCar game isn't there to justify its creation.
It is one thing for a few hundred IndyCar fans to want an IndyCar game but the number of people needed to justify not only the game itself but the level of resources needed to create each racetrack and each automobile and make it as realistic as possible costs much more than any possible revenue.
There is a strain of thought that the one thing holding IndyCar back is the lack of a video game. IndyCar is not available to a segment of the audience that spends its Tuesday nights with controllers in hand instead of reading Racer Magazine or tuning into Trackside with Curt Cavin and Kevin Lee.
The problem is just because a game exists doesn't mean people are going to buy it and play it. It is a bringing a horse to water type of situation.
Don't get me wrong, it would be better to put something on the table than nothing at all but there is a reason isn't available to begin with.
So, if an IndyCar-specific game is not possible, then what?
IndyCar was in Forza, which is a popular game, but is only available on the XBOX platform. One option could be to expand its partnership with Forza or expand with Gran Turismo, the Sony-developed PlayStation game, and have it be an integral part of either of those platforms. This has been the case with sports cars. There hasn't been a sports car game, at least not in my lifetime, but the 24 Hours of Le Mans was prominently featured in the Gran Turismo games. You could drive the Audi R18 TDI, the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP, the Corvette C5-R, the Dodge Viper GTS-R and historic cars such as the Ford GT40 Mk. I, the Ferrari 330 P4, the Jaguar XJR-9 and Mazda 787 to name a few.
There is a limit to the platforms of Gran Turismo and Forza. Only so much can be included. It is not going to be an IndyCar-game. It is going to be a game that has IndyCar. It is not going to have the depths of a career mode with the Road to Indy taken into account. It is not going to include all 16 tracks and it is not going to have all the teams and drivers.
I think it is better to have something than nothing and if that means having IndyCar be an option in a video game that includes hundreds of other cars and races than so be it. Right now, an IndyCar-specific game is not coming but perhaps IndyCar should get into a serious partnership with Gran Turismo and/or Forza and use those platforms to promote IndyCar to more people. You have give people a taste, have them drive around Indianapolis Motor Speedway in not just the DW12 but bring out the machines that made IndyCar famous, the STP-Paxton Turbocar, Lotus 56, Penscke PC-23 and the Chaparral 2K and make people see how fun IndyCar can be.
Maybe a developer is willing to take the chance. Maybe the market for an IndyCar game is greater than it appears. It is something IndyCar has to work on. It has to find a way to be available to the gaming population.
IndyCar is not going to figure it out in time for this Christmas but it has plenty of time for Christmas 2020.
Winners From the Weekend
You know the Snowball Derby was rained out but did you know...
The #10 Turn 3 Motorsports Radical of Peter Dempsey, Neil Alberico, Antoine Comeau and Eric Wagner won the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.
Coming Up This Weekend
The FIA World Endurance Championship will have an eight-hour race in Bahrain.
The World Touring Car Cup concludes its season in Sepang.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
