SimBin Studios Makes a Shock Return!

[Paul Jeffrey]

The legendary SimBin Studios name is to make a shock comeback to sim racing, with industry veteran and former Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe and Route 1 Games producer Allan Speed taking the reigns of the new UK based concern, in collaboration with Sector3 Studios.

SimBin, responsible for such classics as GTR2 and the RACE series of sim titles, sadly closed its doors back in 2014, only to find many of its former employees find a new home as Sector3 Studios, and continue development on the last SimBin product, RaceRoom Racing Experience. The "new" studio will be based in the North West of England (yes, I'll be asking for a site visit) and will be focused of developing "cross platform titles for the current and next gen platforms, primarily in the racing genre".

"We are extremely excited to announce the collaboration with newly formed SimBin Studios UK being headed up by Allan, his industry knowledge and talent network will provide the perfect spring board for our future strategy and let’s not forget the revival of the Simbin name which has a long, rich and successful heritage in delivering some of the best racing titles to date" said Chris Speed, CEO of Sector3 Studios.

With an enviable heritage in racing simulations and a positive track record with community engagement, it will be highly exciting to see what the future holds for the company, and how the announcement will effect the desire for RaceRoom Racing Experience to continue with licencing the WTCC series, an historically well embedded associate of SimBin.

Coming alongside the announcement is news that SimBin will be partnering up with Mathias Lauda "to provide his expertise, insight and support for their up and coming racing projects".

Son of three-time Formula One world champion Niki Lauda, Mathias is perhaps best known for his time in the German DTM series and more recently driving an Aston Martin in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

More news to follow....

Excited? Do you think SimBin can regain its former glory? What do you hope from the new studio? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Martin Edmunds]

Cool! The more the merrier.
Just skip the 'pay to play' thing, right?

as opposed to.. ? don't pay anything to play ?

 

[jlnprssnr]

Now if they just could reconfigure the Race07 AddOns to be proper DLC on Steam...

 

[Boby Kim]

Surprised but not exited. "Cross platform" is the killer for me. I wish them good luck. Im not going to fall into another GTR3 trap

 

[Alex Townsend]

Will wait and see what this means when we have more info. Loved the GTR and Race series but still used to go to rFactor more even back then. Hopes are high but not hyped until I know more.

 

[aka2k]

Crossed fingers for a non-ISI motor based sim. Enough is enough, time to bring something new, fresh and exciting.

 

[Jebus]

After R3E I have very little faith to these people. Hopefully this will bring us full blown "GTR3" but I doubt it. And crossplatform news makes me to believe it even less. So I guess this is kinda meh.

 

[Robes]

Interesting. With the way GT is Sony need something for the PS brand...

 

[DaVeX↯]

I am a little meh too...
I think I will wait because I fear what they can do together...
Simbim should be a an opponent, not a friend, of Sector3 in the sim racing market...
Even if I don't like it, while searching info about the new simbin I found some strange info on PRC...

 

[fortyfivekev]

Maybe slightly more optimistic than some just because what would be the point of using the SimBin name if you are just going to knock out some Ridge Racer clone on consoles where most of the players probably never even heard of SimBin?

 

[Andi Goodwin]

its a free to play game R3E ... after that you choose what you want ; even a traditional game is pay to play , you buy the download or the disc ; i dont see any difference between a dlc or just buying a car ....
i find the sim racers general i want it all for free model sucks ; no one thinks twice about buying a beer a coffee a soda and r3e the prices are around that level ....
we spend thousands on hardware and addons to our pc but piss our pants and become outraged at paying a few euros for content ...

Andi

 

[CCKaren]

Maybe slightly more optimistic than some just because what would be the point of using the SimBin name if you are just going to knock out some Ridge Racer clone on consoles where most of the players probably never even heard of SimBin?

SimBin is a name. It might surprise people in the sim racing bubble but in the mid-2000s SimBin wasn't a niche developer no-one had heard of. I wasn't into sim racing then and I'd heard of SimBin because they got magazine coverage, they were a company people outside the sim racing community knew in a similar way to Papyrus. They always made games that were accessible to people who hadn't put hundreds of hours into Grand Prix Legends and that's a big part of why they were successful as long as they were.

 

[Óscar Melero]

I'm sincerely hoping for a non Pay to Play game or a Full-of-packs game.

I hope (and pray) for a BUY-IT-AND-PLAY-NO-INTERNET-CONNECTION-NEEDED-OR-ANYTHING-JUST-PLAY-IT-GODDAMN

I don't mind if it's ISI engine or the content, as long as it is a pure sim as GTR2 or GPL were.

 

[Dan Costa]

Ah, a renewed chance to dream

- Driveclub graphics / weather / dynamic day
- Sounds from R3E
- Car/tyre physics from Assetto/AMS/LFS
- Contact physics from R3E
- netcode from R3E
- Online sessions from R3E + ratings from iRacing
- Leaderboards from LFS
- FFB from the bastard child of Assetto + R3E + AMS
- Tracks from R3E + AMS
- Cars from R3E + Assetto


good lord there is of a lot from R3E in my list.

Well, it figures, because as I only play online the obvious game to chose would be R3E (maybe AMS too)due to their netcode and contact physics. Everything else R3E does worse than others is still very good, just no quite up there yet.

 

[Kenny Paton]

Ah, a renewed chance to dream

- Driveclub graphics / weather / dynamic day
- Sounds from R3E
- Car/tyre physics from Assetto/AMS/LFS
- Contact physics from R3E
- netcode from R3E
- Online sessions from R3E + ratings from iRacing
- Leaderboards from LFS
- FFB from the bastard child of Assetto + R3E + AMS
- Tracks from R3E + AMS
- Cars from R3E + Assetto


good lord there is of a lot from R3E in my list.

Well, it figures, because as I only play online the obvious game to chose would be R3E (maybe AMS too)due to their netcode and contact physics. Everything else R3E does worse than others is still very good, just no quite up there yet.

Seems like a good choice although pcars weather and time is pretty good as well, don't know Driveclub.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Ah, a renewed chance to dream

- Driveclub graphics / weather / dynamic day
- Sounds from R3E
- Car/tyre physics from Assetto/AMS/LFS
- Contact physics from R3E
- netcode from R3E
- Online sessions from R3E + ratings from iRacing
- Leaderboards from LFS
- FFB from the bastard child of Assetto + R3E + AMS
- Tracks from R3E + AMS
- Cars from R3E + Assetto


good lord there is of a lot from R3E in my list.

Well, it figures, because as I only play online the obvious game to chose would be R3E (maybe AMS too)due to their netcode and contact physics. Everything else R3E does worse than others is still very good, just no quite up there yet.

Hmm to me the weather graphics and graphics overall from P CARS just without the overdone stuff
Physic engine from rF2 (and cars made by Reiza)
Contact and net code either from iRacing or rF2 (I don't think there is any sim doing better than these 2 in this point)
Car and track list from R3E and Assetto for sure would be great in a sim.

 

[Pknoia]

Hmm to me the weather graphics and graphics overall from P CARS just without the overdone stuff
Physic engine from rF2 (and cars made by Reiza)
Contact and net code either from iRacing or rF2 (I don't think there is any sim doing better than these 2 in this point)
Car and track list from R3E and Assetto for sure would be great in a sim.

That´ll be a dream come true.

 

[PsyaNyde]

but there is also the near certain fact that without KW/RaceRoom AG bank rolling development of the game, it wouldnt be developed any further because there would be no money to pay employees with.

RR AG may make some decisions that the average customer may not like, but they are also the reason we still have this game, its still being developed, and will still be worked on in the future.

That said, I do take issue with plenty of decisions made.

Maybe if they hadn't such a rubbish and expensive content pricing system to begin with, they may have made more money

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Excellent news. Great to have the iconic name back in business again

 

[Xenozoid]

we all new stector3 is sim bin,anyway.so what the fuzz?monney?

 

[Jeff Huber]

I find myself mostly playing AMS , RF2 and AC because the community is a huge part of the creative content we can get for those sims. I Like RE3 and Iracing too , but what turns me off from those titles is....no community input as far as content goes. They charge for everything , and it seems like they nickle and dime you to death.

So....will this new Simbin project be a " community modded " type platform , or will it be like RE3 and iracing? If it's like the RE3 and iracing....I'll skip it.

we all new stector3 is sim bin,anyway.so what the fuzz?monney?

I may be wrong on this , but I don't think they are the same. As a bunch of the employee's from Simbin walked off and started S3 , creating a whole new sim. I don't see how Simbin and S3 would even be willing to work together. I may be totally off base here , as I wasn't around when it all happened. I'd like to know though.