Kunos Translation

Ok, this is an important video. Why? Because the fact that a brand like Ferrari is present in an indipendent product is the signal that we are trying to do something that goes beyond the usual productive channels (I'm sorry, but I don't undersand the word, but I think the sense is this). Obviously we can't achieve something like that just with the money, but we have to make ourselves a name inside the italian community of sim racers and gradually we arrive to contact Ferrari, to speak to them about our project and to realize it.
So, today we'll take a look to the market of the racing games, then we'll talk about the laser scanning technology, then we'll take a look to the Kunos team and finally we'll talk about the evolution of the technology that is behind the product.
As for the racing games market we see that we have different categories:

-arcade, the games that don't have the driving as the center of the experience, where you play to just have fun; here all the attention of the devs go on this aspect of the game: the fun experience; there aren't big differences between the cars and once you learn to drive one of them you'll be able to drive all of them.

-driving games, that are the games where the characterization of the cars become more important, but still the base is a game, a fun experience.

-simcade, here we have still games, but the experience become more complex, because there aren't just levels to overcome, but entire championships; these are simulators because the core that's behind them is important, especially because they can run in machines that aren't so powerful as the modern computers; these games base all their marketing on the word "simulation", except they can't be considered 100% simulators.

-simracing, the interesting thing about these category is that here we have only indipendent developers; this is a niche rather little, there are approximately 50000 units, 50000 simracing fans; and these are a pain in the ass, because they are people who know about cars, even professional drivers, people who really know what they are talking about; every time a new product comes out in the forums start flames of hundred of pages where you see people debating for example of how the car behaves in a certain turn.

-professional, these are the simulators used by professional teams to train their drivers; if my driver has to race in Portimao and he has never seen this track, well he can race 150 laps in the simulator and when he will be in the real track he will know every turn, where to change gear and how the car can react with different setups; so, we are also in this market, together with the guys of rfactor pro, that are our competitors; but many times the manufacturers, like Ferrari and Dallara, develop their own software, in a way to be able to use their data in it.

Ok, then what is the plan of AC? The plan of AC is to take these three sectors of the market (simcade, simracing and professional). How we will do that? Well, we can say that we have already the simcade part of the market. How? Well, offering a game that offers no compromises from the point of view of the simulation, but that allow also the casual gamer to play the game and have fun, introducing fun features like the drift modality; If we will be able to do that, to realize this plan, the next time we'll come to the 2014 Game Jam we could have parking problems, because we would arrive with this one (the plane in the slide). He's joking.
More realistically what will happen is that we will be able to take a part of the simcade market, but since we are talking of 5-6 millions of people it's ok. Again he's laughing.

Now we talk about the laser scanning. What is it? What is the big problem with the simulators? There was a big study on the mathematical model that simulates the car, but if then I'll take this perfect model and I'll make it run in a track that isn't perfect, that doesn't correspond to the real one, then all my effort is useless.
He describes how the laser scanning works and he shows a picture of Monza to explain how the thing works. At the end he says that with the laser scanning they obtain a detailed reproduction of the real track, with every bump or depression, and reference points.
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AC will be out with a tech preview in days, in february 2013.
This tech preview will be available to the people who have our previous games, in particular NK pro.
We hope to release the game in the 2013 spring.
We will support the game at least for five years with free updates and DLCs. So the game will improve gradually, with the including of features that wont be available with the first release, like the rain, or night racing.