I’ve thought about it for a while now, and I’ve come to the decision that Slightly Mad Studios aren’t just slightly mad, they are, well, completely mad.
Slightly Mad Studios, the developers behind Project CARS, recently announced Project CARS 2 – not even a full 2 months after the first game’s launch. Here’s why Project CARS 2 should not exist, at least yet.
Let’s start from the “review day” for Project CARS. The game was dubbed the “Forza killer” by a number of large gaming websites (the publisher’s handling of review copies wasn’t overly great) and met with great reviews all around the board – I even spotted one reviewer say that Project CARS, a video game, was better than Top Gear, a television show.
These reviews only enlarged the overall “hype” meter for Project CARS, as many racing fans were led to believe that Project CARS was to be the best racing game so far in this generation of gaming.
Fast forward to the launch day, and many players begin to post their impressions of the game on social media. Some impressions are good, praising the game for it’s overall realism, but the majority of players are left disappointed.
The official Project CARS Twitter account shares the players stating that the game is fantastic, but ignores the tweets being sent to them from many gamers saying that they have encountered some major bugs – their steering wheel accessories either not working as intended or not working at all, “revolutionary” physics causing their car to spin out and land on the side of the road and a list of other bugs that is just too long to list.
The video above shows only some of the bugs that players were experiencing at Project CARS’ launch. Other issues included the “replay” feature crashing the game on the Xbox One, as well as multiplayer being close to unplayable as players would slowly disconnect one by one from the session.
Since players were not getting a single response from either Slightly Mad Studios or Bandai Namco Games (the publisher) on Twitter about these bugs that plagued Project CARS, racing fans took to the Project CARS forums to get a response. They finally got a response, but…maybe not the one they wanted.
Yes, that is Slightly Mad Studios’ Studio Head, Ian Bell, telling someone to “Shut up” and following up by calling them an “idiot”. This is coming from a man who once said “I spend my time on here because I respect our customers”
Project CARS was crowdfunded by gamers through WMD Portal, and Slightly Mad Studios have labelled the first game as a “huge success.”
Let’s take a trip to under two months after Project CARS’ initial launch, and Slightly Mad Studios are at it again. Project CARS 2 is announced, and once again, Slightly Mad Studios wish to crowdfund the game through WMD Portal.
But surely if the first game was such a huge success, then Slightly Mad Studios now have enough money to fund their own game?
But it doesn’t end there. There are crowdfunding bonuses. You can pay 10,000 dollars – no, you didn’t misread, 10,000 dollars – to have lunch with the developers, drive the Studio Head’s “reasonably” priced car, get some shirts that essentially say “I spent 10,000 dollars on funding a video game” and get your name in the game. All that for a measly 10,000 dollars! Incredible value.
Obviously I’m not being serious. It’s not at all incredible value, it’s not even reasonable value.
Ever since Project CARS 2’s announcement, the game has been mocked with several fanmade “parody” trailers. (like this one below from YouTuber Boostedofficial)
Let’s not forget the fact that Project CARS is still riddled with bugs that Slightly Mad Studios refuse to bother to fix, while asking for money to fund the second game.
The community has done a brilliant job of being vocal towards Slightly Mad Studios, but their constant disrespect to players and their attitude towards fixing bugs shows how little they really care about their customers. Project CARS 2 should not exist, at least yet, because Project CARS is still completely broken and riddled with bugs.
If Slightly Mad Studios really wishes for Project CARS 2 to be successful, they really need to step up in the way they talk to the community.
^Cam @CameronMines
Cam was a regular ICXM contributor in 2015, publishing 30 articles across opinion pieces, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One’s first full year of post-launch coverage, including the early days of Backwards Compatibility and Windows 10 gaming. They post on X as @CameronMines.