It's still a really bold move of SMS to allow WMD to do this. On the opposite side, they could just as well do the same as Turn 10, keep everything silent and behind closed doors, have 100% control of what gameplay exactly is shown and make sure that such gameplay is shown as good as it gets.
It's a unique move, but that's largely because PCARS is a unique proposition: it's crowd-funded.
So yes, allowing people with early access to do the advertising
for SMS is a clever move: both GT and FM have the first-party bags of money to throw at advertising. And sim racers, arguably more than any other genre in gaming, crave "authenticity", so getting direct-feed footage over the same usual trailers is a good move.
There is the argument that it could over-saturate the market; that it won't feel "new" anymore by September. I'm not necessarily agreeing with that, but it is something that cropped up in some folks' thoughts on DiRT 4: the pre-release footage showed so much, there was nothing left to explore for some.
Or all those fancy FH3 DLC trailers made with the developer build version (cars without drivers and hoods opened, people standing on parking lots), these are all things players cannot reproduce with the normal game. Of course all with the deceptive "all in-game footage", sure it's in-game footage... of the developer build yes.
...you're not going to suggest precisely zero of the footage from SMS hasn't been via unique developer tools either, are you?
Everyone does it.
No, I rather have it the SMS way, I rather see dozens of videos of actual REAL gameplay by people who are not affiliated with SMS (but are just part of the WMD community and basically payed upfront to help test/feedback the game).
You're not mentioning a very important aspect here: these are folks who have already put money into the game and therefore
have a vested interest in its success.
But I'm sure that is something that MS / Turn 10 will never ever do, they want to keep complete control of what exactly is shown until release day. Surely the night before release date there will be a livestream but by then all potential pre-orders have been placed already anyway.
Actually, the usual embargo time is about a week before a game's launch. In today's market, that's plenty of time to decide on pre-orders, I'd say!
Of course, there's also a bunch of footage taken from random people at every event that Forza appears at. That isn't the tight lid you're suggesting. Are people able to showcase every aspect of the latest developer build? Of course not — that's not available, because that's not how Microsoft/T10's business model is structured.
Turn 10 lives a lot on the hype of the past, even with content as little as what was shown at E3, even with DLC or pre-order car packs not yet known already a lot of fans buy into the hype and place that pre-order.
If you're correct, and Turn 10 coasts on the hype of the past, take a minute to ponder why that is. Like 'em or not, the Forza series has received consistently solid critical responses. Project CARS — and by extension, the Shift series — has a somewhat troubled history given the day one state of the game in 2015 on consoles. It was patched, sure, and it sounds like QA was a major focus of PCARS2. But it's completely understandable that some folks are wary.
Personally, I've never had too many problems with the game from a technical perspective. My main criticism with PCARS1 was the pad implementation on XB1. After buying the Complete Edition on PS4 a while back, I found it better, even more so once I borrowed
@Wolfe's settings.
Just the fact that all FM5 (2013) liveries and tunes are compatible with FM7 (2017) says enough already: there has been no real innovation in this game series over 4 years, period. Meanwhile PCARS1 tunes (2015) will not be compatible with PCARS 2 tunes (2017) because the underlying handling and tuning model has been changed significantly.
You realize the tunes carryover strictly from a parts/settings perspective, right? And that an S800 tune in FM6 won't mean the car is an S800 in FM7 (or will even necessarily handle the same). I've transferred tunes from FM5 over to FM6 and wound up with wildly different cars. Yes, this means the underlying system is only an evolution of the previous one. That in itself is no bad thing, and huge sweeping changes just for the sake of huge sweeping changes is a horrible idea.
The livery carryover is a double-edged sword — one that PCARS admittedly dodges, since it doesn't even have a livery editor. I've been critical of the system in the past: it means there probably haven't been many changes, if any. But, livery design is a huge sub-community for Forza players, and I can see why T10 wouldn't want to force them to start over if it could be avoided.
Ideally, big changes could happen to the overall system without it necessarily meaning designs had to be scrapped. But T10 is between a rock and a hard place there. Luckily, it has one of the best livery editors in the genre, so that does help (though NFS of all games shows what could be improved).
Each car that made it from PCARS1 to PCARS2 has had it's handling model updated, sounds have been improved and the controller settings have been tweaked for each car individually (on top of the game-wide handling improvements). That my dear friends is innovation, is taking a series forward and not living in the past.
Whoa there cowboy, ease up on the blatant sales pitch. A lot of us are curious about the game, we just don't subscribe to this "one or the other" mentality.
So much for racing game "expert" heh?
Personally I would never do the latter though, I really cannot stand chase cam with a wheel, that is the most bizarre combination for me.
