Here's the thing: I don't have a Logitech G920 so I can play a Mario or a Spider-Man or a Space-Dungeon Zombie Roguelike Farming Simulator. I have one because I want to play a fun racing sim. And I think one of the reasons I want to love Forza Motorsport more than I do, and why it sucks that the game's flaws have alienated so many people (myself included), is because I've had a really hard time finding a fun racing sim! ACC and Automobilista 2 and most other stuff beloved by the hardcore RaceDepartment-poster types tends to be more complicated and hard for me to drive than my wheel-beginner self can handle, and if I have to spend two hours futzing with my wheel settings and the game settings and the car tuning just to be able to take a GT3 car around Monza without winding up in the grass I'll probably just wind up doing something else with my time. Assetto Corsa's handling model isn't as tricky for me, but the sprawling mess that is the modding scene has flooded the market with half-finished, fictional-feeling garbage, and even the quality stuff can't make up for the fact that singleplayer is a thoroughly bland experience suited mostly for hotlapping. (What's the point of driving nearly any car/track combo I could ever dream of when it can't fully capture the credible, history-minded, wow, motorsport is amazing feeling I used to get tinkering with modded versions of GTR 2 and GT Legends?) And my plans to finally buy one of those elusive PS5s so I could reconnect with my Gran Turismo roots went down the tubes the moment I found out just how divisive-at-best that game was, too. I don't trust that Rennsport or whatever blue-sky hype Ian Bell's up to will make up for that, either. I still enjoy the basic driving experience of the new Forza and I have at least a little faith in T10 to keep polishing it until it's at least 80% of the game I hoped it would be instead of the 50% it's at now, but it's pretty clear at this point that there's not enough life in this game -- or its community.
Long gripe short, with Forza and GT both being this disappointing to people now, I think we might be facing the end of the casual sim/"simcade" as we know it. The vast majority of gamers seem largely uninterested in these kinds of games and would sooner pay $60 for a remastered Burnout 3 than try out even a theoretically perfectly-functioning and feature-rich Forza (if it ever exists) for free on GamePass, and the people who take racing sims super-seriously won't care because they already have iRacing or whatever. Most big-ticket cultural phenomena these days seems extremely risk-averse and driven primarily by a need for endless growth, and if the new Forza turned out to be too much of a risk that failed to pay off, I guess I'll have to learn to enjoy Soulslikes or something because there won't be anything else I'd want to plug in my wheel for.
