I believe quite a big percentage of "hardcore" AC gamers are guys in their 40's like me or even older who love the historical part of the sport and AC has offered a perfect platform to "recreate" it. But it absolutely requires total freedom of creating things. If this will be removed AC1 will never be "replaced" I think. It has become an "gaming encyclopedia" of Motorsports in many ways.
I consider myself one of those hardcore AC gamer. I "only" have 3948 cars and 913 cars, in CM, I have more in storage on drives not installed. From what I can read, some of you have even more, impressive! I am in my late 60". I love historical racing, F1, but not only, it is a big part of my attraction and love for AC. I play it daily, one of the perks of being retired. I do not do a lot of seasons or championships, but I regularly try to re-create past races with full grid on historic track.
Funny to me, how the "in" crowd on the trendy web site, love to trash AC AI or ACC AI. To me, ACC is the best AI and AC, with a little effort is the second best. My main issue with "proper" racing is that we still do not have "working" non standing start, pit stop is not solid, choosing the proper tire strategy for the AI is sketchy, and finally, despite some heroic progress with rain physic, what we have is still very basic in the best example. To me ACC does it best.
Perhaps the ACE team is not even trying to put AC1 in the history books and the new product will just live side by side with the old. Who knows. Perhaps some crazy modders are even able to PORT AC1 mods to the new game?
I am looking forward to Evo, ready to buy on day one, but not as a replacement to AC. At this point, with all that AC covers, can any game replace AC? Ever? I am expecting to use Evo, like I use ACC and a few more like AMS2, as a complement. I expect the bulk of the hours I play to stay with AC, for now and a long time to come, with some escapade to the other titles.
Time will tell if we can migrate the content we have curated in AC to Evo, will we even want to? To this day, AC is my favorite in most aspect of a simulation experience I care about and with some ups and down, it is getting better with the constant progress of CSP.
I am grateful to Kunos for bringing NetKar Pro, my first "real" simulator who took me beyond my first love, GT, and away from console. then of course Ac and then ACC. But is AC, in its present form, still Kunos? To me, it has evolved, Kunos gene are there, but it is so much more than the original, as it is played still on console. Evo, will need years to even come close, if it ever happen.
Are we a "big" percentage of the user base? Probably not, but it does not really matter.
We already have enough to be kept entertained for a long time in AC, having a lot more to enjoy than any other title, or maybe even all of them put together, missing a few bits, that may come still, to last us probably an other 10 years. Some other hardcore group are still enjoying GTR2, released in 2006, for reason very similar to why we enjoy AC, so Evo or no Evo, I cannot see or simulation world changing any time soon, at least not for me.