Better known today as the developer of Skyrim and Fallout, Bethesda once had a well-respected racing game franchise and were deep into development of a licensed Skip Barber Racing title that never released.
Legendary British game developer whose career spanned a 20 year period and included groundbreaking simulations of Formula Three and Formula One, including arguably the first ever racing sim: Revs (1984).
Most famous for his Grand Prix series that were published under the MicroProse label until 2000, his career unceremoniously ended when his studio was shut down by Infogrames and the Xbox version of Grand Prix 4 cancelled just prior to release.
Join Jon Denton, Tim Wheatley, Simon Croft and guest(s) as they discuss sim racing and racing games past, present and future.
Updated news item:
Studio 397 Confirm rFactor 2 Code Not Licensed To Rennsport.
Original news item:
Today in a post on the Studio 397 forum entitled “Rennsport (Game) stole physic construction from rFactor2” user haunetal1990 posted that Rennsport appear to be using rFactor 2 physics.
He provided evidence, citing lines that mirror the rFactor 2 HDV file parameters within the Rennsport physics data.
The fact that rFactor 2 parameters exist within Rennsport has been known for a little while, it’s something I investigated and found myself by looking at the Rennsport files back in June. A response to the thread in the Studio 397 forum from Dennis Jordan asks haunetal1990 to “feel free to look into the tyre files” which also, confirmed through my own investigation, contain what at the very least would appear to be ISI lines and parameters of the TGM tire model. Anyone who has modded rFactor 2 or worked with the engine in any capacity can see this.
At the time I discovered this, back in June, 2023, I asked Stephen Hood of Motorsport Games whether any ISI or Studio 397 code were licensed to any other party. He said no.
Whether this means Rennsport uses stolen code, licensed code, or barely (badly hidden) rewrites remains to be seen, but Motorsport Games – owners of the rFactor 2 engine – didn’t appear to know about it when I asked. It was my understanding that ISI were no longer able to license rFactor to competing companies of Motorsport Games, or license rFactor 2 at all.
I will update on this story as things move forwards, which I think they now will.
Notes: TGM is “Terence Groening Model” and is a tire file exclusively used in rFactor 2 (and, I guess, will be used in Le Mans Ultimate). No other software would require those lines, especially something written from “scratch”. Should the forum thread linked ever disappear, here is an archived version.