Video game development is rarely about one man, but if it was, then Terence Groening should certainly get a mention for his contributions to the genre as the man responsible for the physics of Sportscar GT, EA’s PC F1 and NASCAR games of the early 2000’s, rFactor, rFactor 2 and every title and rFpro simulator that spawned from ISI’s engine.
This interview with RSC details his early life and career, through to him joining iRacing in 2021.
RSC contains a database of 153 developers, 467 software titles, 374 cars, 42 bikes, 242 tracks and more...Originally working in military simulator design, this Michigan-based studio developed Zone Raiders for Virgin Interactive before moving to Electronic Arts for publishing their second PC title, Sports Car GT, when Westwood Studios (their SCGT development partner) was acquired by the software giant.
Known primarily for their mod-friendly SCGT and rFactor racing platforms, ISI also developed Formula One and NASCAR titles on PC for Electronic Arts, but perhaps their lasting contribution to the genre was the licensing of the isiMotor engine that allowed studios such as 2Pez, Blimey! Games, KW Studios, Motorsport Games, Reiza Studios, SIMBIN Studios, Slightly Mad Studios, The Sim Factory, Tiburon and rFactor 2‘s ongoing developer Studio 397 to begin with or release on an evolution of their software.
Another fork of the isiMotor engine, rFpro, continues to be developed and is used by a wide array of automotive companies for both road and motorsport simulation.
RSC Podcast Episode 7 – Management Simulations, F1 Managers, Always Used To Be Better?Join Jon Denton, Tim Wheatley, Simon Croft and guest(s) as they discuss sim racing and racing games past, present and future.
RSC contains a database of news items. Our #OnThisDay page shows current day and current week of years past...
RSC contains a database of videos back to the 1980s catalogued as intros, laps, trailers, unboxings and more...
RSC contains a database of emulated software you can play in your browser...
Well, after announcing that Project Cars 4 is cancelled and removing Project Cars 1 and 2 from Steam in the past couple of months, I’m sad to find out that DiRT 4 wasn’t even the only product that Codemasters and EA decided to pull from the Steam store this week; DiRT Rally has also been removed from sale.
The extra sad bit about this is that DiRT Rally was one of the few software titles (VRally 4 being the only other one I can remember) to include the Pikes Peak Hillclimb that is currently under exclusive license to Sony. Sadly, Sony and Polyphony Digital haven’t bothered to use the license yet…
While DiRT Rally 2.0 is certainly the better title, I’m again extra sad to see a track like Pikes Peak simply unavailable to new sim racers. As I said on the DiRT 4 news post this is such a disappointing trend. As an archivist, someone who wants people to be able to play every sim from every developer from every decade, it makes me extremely sad to see any software removed from sale. I fully understand that some licenses may have been expiring, but I’d absolutely have preferred anything other than this to happen… What a shame.
If you already own DiRT Rally, you can continue to install and play it. New users cannot. You also cannot purchase any new DLC items if you didn’t already add them to your collection.
