New Free to Play Porsche game in development (AutoManiax)

Ryzza5 · April 13, 2012

Now this looks exactly like pCARS, but Thomas from Fanatec said it isn't - it's that free game that Automaniax is making with Porsche. (http://www.virtualr.net/automaniax-porsche-online-new-title-coming)

So now SMS must be involved with Porsche, since it looks like they are providing the game engine, and hopefully that means pCARS will get Porsche's soon, which would be brilliant.

But if you recall 3 weeks ago, Ian from SMS said that they were going to restructure and "become part of something bigger and better", but this partner wasn't going to be a publisher (i.e. EA). So perhaps Porsche is providing the rest of the pCARS funding?

"Ian Bell - 11 April said:
We're still in negotiations chaps. Things will take a little longer to resolve.

Which is interesting considering how we saw that video yesterday of Suzi from SMS talking up their relationship with Ferrari and somewhat lamenting over how pedantic they are. :)

superhyper · April 13, 2012

Whatever is going down, I hope the result is Porsche in pCARS :lol:

Eudemon · April 13, 2012

It could simply be that they have decided to license the engine and this in turn is generating them funds also.

CLR-GTR · April 13, 2012

Won't be able to beat NFS Porsche 2000/Unleashed, and free to play = pay to win.

Ryzza5 · April 14, 2012

Yeah I think it will be more like that Ferrari Virtual Academy title.

Jusmar · April 28, 2012

I could have sworn that EA and Porsche signed a exclusivity contract..?

Ryzza5 · April 28, 2012

Ran out/expired/terminated a few months ago - something along those lines.

Porsche Motorsport is also different to Porsche AG.

Jusmar · April 28, 2012

That's excellent news! *Crosses fingers for a DLC with a few 911's in around 19 months*

Well, maybe not, thats why they got the Ruf's?

ScoobSTi · April 28, 2012

Yeah it is. Same reason why TDU1, Forza and GT5 had RUF's.

Jusmar · April 28, 2012

Gotta love a good ol' loophole. Was BMW part of that deal as well? It seems like only EA games had BMW's.

superhyper · April 28, 2012

Ever played Forzas or Gran Turismos? They have pretty much always had BMWs in them.

CLR-GTR · April 28, 2012

Jusmar said:
Gotta love a good ol' loophole. Was BMW part of that deal as well? It seems like only EA games had BMW's.

Ask Diablo about that, he has claimed several times the BMW license exprited, now perhaps 4 months ago already.

@repy :p : perhaps they managed to bring enough bags of money with them for EA to soften a bit on the contract.

Ryzza5 · July 19, 2012

Automaniax now has a trailer + a signup page and competition:

Automaniax

It's using the pCARS engine (although if you click the Feedback link top-right some people think it's illegally used for some reason :confused:)

[media=vimeo]45972157[/media]

---------- Post added at 09:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:53 AM ----------

Actually there might be something to this:

Quotes from pCARS forum:

"Andy Garton said:
:mad:

c172fccc said:
You don't look happy, Andy. :a05:

"Rob Prange said:
Wow..just wow.

FLX81 said:
Seems like somebody is either a) very angry that his gaming engine got nicked or b) very grumpy because the trailer leaked a day early! :a21:

Either way, this is all very confusing now atm, I gotta say. So SMS licensed the madness engine and the tracks to them and the rest is done by automaniax? Or are you developping 2 games in WIP state simultaneously now? I m glad I ll be away all weekend and hopefully have a bit of clarity until Tuesday, when I ll be back.

PS: Christopher brings up a good point as well.I really hope this doesnt end up playing against SMS in the long term.

"Andy Garton said:
It's not b).

I'm away for two weeks from tomorrow, I hope for clarity on my return as well.

FLX81 said:
Whoa... then there is probably only one person that can shed some light on this. :a23:

"Andy Garton said:
It's absolutely not clear that we are involved.

"Andy Garton said:
I'm saying no more in this thread guys, mostly for legal proceeding reasons. Although it is true that my initial anger at what I've seen from AX has now been added to by WMD members calling me a liar.

"Alexander McKenzie said:
Perhaps Automaniax licensed the madness engine for their game but have used pCARS assets without permission?

Hopefully the Devs can at least give us a clue as to what is happening here as this is going to potentially upset quite a few people that have put big money into pCARS.

"Ian Bell said:
Give it a rest. We haven't licensed the engine to anyone.

Regardless, it is our engine, we've been working on it for 7 years and no one has been duped. We could license it to half the world if we wanted to. If that doesn't sit well with you then leave.

"Ian Bell said:
Again, we could license our engine to anyone, WMD members don't own it, we do. But we haven't.

"Ian Bell said:
I'll make a short statement here for now.

This company is using our engine and assets without our permission and without a contract with SMS. We're pursuing things via the normal legal channels.

"Ian Bell said:
We were in negotiations with Automaniax and the head of Porsche marketing some time back with a view to us creating a product for them. We delivered some work to them. The contracts were not signed, the agreed funds were not received and we stopped the work.

We're stunned here to see our work appear there.

pCARS left | AM right

-- OLD IMAGE REMOVED (imageshack) --

Automaniax Porsche Online in Legal Trouble? Sim Racing News

---------- Post added at 09:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:18 AM ----------

Here's a webpage for pCARS and Shift 2 developer Darren White showing some of his work:

Darren White // Art Director // Reel 2011

Now let's play spot the difference:

So they've also ripped off Shift 2 content. :fp:

Destroyer-GT · July 20, 2012

Wow, just... wow x)

CLR-GTR · July 20, 2012

Makes me curious if they actually are working together with Porsche or not x)

Still though, they can calmly release this game, NFS5 still stands lonely at the top after 12 years and will continue to do so. YAY FOR NFS5!

Ryzza5 · August 28, 2012

They've got a new trailer up on their website now which is again allowing registration. Video doesn't look as good now that they're using their own footage. They now have nothing to do with SMS as far as tech goes and are basically an elaborate rFactor 1 mod.

automaniax.com - Home

pascallll · August 28, 2012

"CLR-GTR said:
Makes me curious if they actually are working together with Porsche or not x)

They do say that Porsche is one of their partners. Don't know if it's an active partnership, or just a licence.

OT: Looks interesting. Might even sign up if I get bored with my other games :p

Ryzza5 · September 6, 2012

There are now hints that Automaniax are playing dirty and using their lawyers to target other established rFactor modders using Porsches.

Right now the sim community in general really doesn't like Automaniax right now, plus after they ripped of SMS content. Doubt they will have many playing their sim even if it is free.

"Kyle Williams said:
Dear Automaniax, you are a laughing stock amongst the sim racing community and no amount of legal threats to mod teams is going to change that.

"Remco Van Dijk said:
WAT? Did we miss something?

"Kyle Williams said:
No this is where i meant to post it, just wanted to get a rant off my chest after the news i received this evening.

"Alejandro Gorgal said:
What news? Spill the beans!

"Benjamin Weisenfeld said:
Well, just take a look at his sig ;) The first picture you'll see is a couple of Porsches.

Could someone be that bad? Steal a mod, use it for a commercial project and sue the people who made it? I mean stealing something in the first place is a really bad thing but this really goes off the scale!

"Alejandro Gorgal said:
They used SMS's footage to promote their game, and screwed them over thousands of dollars, would that really surprise you?

"Benjamin Weisenfeld said:
No, actually it wouldn't. That's the sad part. It's getting worse and worse though and I can't believe they still have the Porsche license.

"Rob Prange said:
Oh dear, I have a hunch of what this might be about, I hope I'm wrong.

"Mark Silcock said:
I am guessing they don't want a rival Porsche Series mod being released about the same time as theirs so they have sent the mod team a message, maybe even got Porsche's lawyers involved. Dirty tactics and I hope I am wrong.

wizza said:
Well i gotta say i would choose the En******** mods over this any day of the week...Do they really think they are going to get simracers to actually try their product carrying on like this attacking longstanding modders/members of the community.