SIMBIN UK Closes Recently Opened GTR3 Comms Discord Channel

Less than three months ago GTR3 developer SIMBIN (UK) promised a new era of open communication by opening a Discord server where they could build a community, answer any questions, and begin to share news that they had ready to go.

They then sponsored a local football team.

Today, they announced the closure of their Discord channel in quite a long-winded set of posts that I have quoted below. The only bit of news apart from the channel closure seems to be that they are now owned by the same parent company as Sector3, who develop Raceroom. Honestly, I already thought that was the case?

This all seems like an utter mess. But, good news, they did save all the questions they were asked and might answer them sometime?

What are your thoughts on this? I know this simulation has existed as I have seen it. Not that I can share, but what are your thoughts? Will it ever happen now? Feel free to discuss in our (new) forum.

Here is the full text of their statement, posted by Dylan_Sim_Bin:

Hi @everyone, I know you have been worried about SimBin, GTR3 and even me. I do have some news from the SimBin team, although unfortunately this isn’t what you’ve been waiting to hear.

The GTR3 project is undergoing a necessary restructure, and as part of that we’ll be closing the GTR3 Discord channel at 18:00 UTC on Friday March 26th. We know this will be disappointing, but we believe it’s the best and most honest thing to do. We would like to thank everyone who has joined the community and followed our social channels, while sincerely apologising for another false start.

Work on the project will continue behind the scenes. But from now on, there will be no more empty promises. No more optimistic statements. We know we’ve let you all down: not just once, but on more than one occasion over the years.

The drive to make GTR3 has always been real: we all want to make something worthy of the GTR name and that desire is still there. The development team has worked hard and made genuine progress. Unfortunately a combination of issues has hindered delivery. The problems have been compounded by over-optimistic communications – but as gaming history shows us, optimism doesn’t deliver results.

You deserve more.

Now is the time to reset and go again. The good news is that there is fresh impetus behind the project. Simbin Studios UK is part of the KW Automotive group and sits alongside Sector 3 Studios – the team behind the venerable RaceRoom sim. KW has a rich heritage in motorsport and brings real-world knowledge to the table, supporting teams in top-line series the world over. The RaceRoom studio has produced an amazing array of content and is fully embedded in the sim racing world. KW’s portfolio also includes high-end race sim hardware brands TrackTime and Ascher Racing, making sim frames and amazing direct-drive wheels respectively.

The solid talent in Simbin Studios UK will be backed up by additional resources and a fresh plan. When we re-emerge from this self-imposed exile, it will only be with real, hard facts – from day one.

The lessons have been learned.

Even though we’re going to be falling silent on our social platforms whilst we enter this new phase, we want to reassure you that the work continues. In the meantime, I really encourage you to check out the amazing Discord for RaceRoom, run by our sister studio, where you can talk about simulation racing and carry on the discussions you started here. You may even see me there from time to time.

https://discord.gg/S4gUfgQzfk

Most importantly though, we want to thank everyone in the community for joining us. You have asked some amazing and important questions, which are still saved onto my desktop and won’t be lost when the Discord is officially shut down.

Also a huge thank you for keeping me entertained these past few months with your top tier memes ^^