Live for Speed Forum - LFS Interview auf Racesimcentral

BigBen - Ben Jones, RSC writer & reviewer
Victor - Victor van Vlaardingen, LFS Developer
hat Folgendes geschrieben

Victor on the History of LFS

BigBen: So, how long has LFS been consuming your lives?
Victor: Work started about 3 years ago, full time all the time, often 6 days a week.

BigBen: Could you describe what your major responsibilities have been in building LFS?
Victor: I started out doing music mostly. Gradually, as Scawen coded facilities for sound effects I added those as well. Then after the demo became known, the need for a decent website arose quite quickly - which of course someone had to make and that someone would be me... But soon I started to get the hang of it and learned php to create the necessary systems to start creating a userbase. I'm still doing webstuff these days, but also all tech@liveforspeed.net emails arrive on my computer and doing some other background things.

BigBen: What made you attempt a project of this magnitude?
Victor: The basic thought was to just make a racing game according to our ideas. There never was or is a masterplan or anything. It's more like 'we want to make a game we like'. I don't think any of us expected it would be welcomed as much as it has.

BigBen: When you started, did you have a clear goal of releasing a marketable project, or were you just going to see what happened?
Victor: I guess the previous answer answered that already. So, nope. We were pretty sure that we wanted to stay independent, which meant that we wouldn't have big marketing budgets and that we had to think of other ways to promote LFS. But really, most things became clear quite in a natural way. Promotion of LFS appeared to mainly go by word of mouth, which is basically how most people learned about LFS.

Victor: We grew along with LFS and arranged what we thought had to be arranged. Online sales for example seemed -the- way to go for us. So we did some research and came up with a solution. We keep growing to the needs of LFS and during the process, the future becomes more clear making it easier to make decisions along the way.

BigBen: Did you ever come close to giving up? If so, what caused it, and what motivated you to carry on?
Victor: Nothing that I can remember. Of course every now and then you have your casual set-backs, but nothing seriously demotivating ever happened. Especially ever since the demo was made public and after S1, our motivation level has only gone upwards.

BigBen: Was there a magical moment at which you said to yourselves, "This is going to be a groundbreaking product"? If so, what prompted the epiphany?
Victor: I think what applies more is the perception of how LFS was received by the community. When you work on something for quite a while without any real feedback from others, you can't really tell anymore if what you're doing is good or not. Or at least, you may know it's decent, but you get used to what you have and lose perspective. When the demo was released, the feedback was so enormously positive, that we were assured that what we had been doing all the time was going in the right direction and something good could come from it. I think ever since, our confidence in LFS has grown as we took our place on many people's hard drives. Add to that the reviews and feedback we got after S1, and it's one big magical moment :)

Victor on S1

BigBen: If you had paid yourselves $10 US per hour, how much would you think the development of S1 would have "cost"?
Victor: Tough one that. I guess you could sum 10 hours a day, 6 days a week and that for 3 years, time 10$. Now grab your calculator :) BigBen: (whips out calculator) Yikes!

BigBen: How did you feel the day S1 was released?
Victor: Euphoria! Total madness! :) Victor: It was a hectic time and we worked out butts off (yes also after the release), but at the same time we were smiling all the way. It's just the best thing in the world to create something and get a positive response from people. There's not much that can surpass that.

BigBen: Very few releases go exactly as planned. What surprised you about the release of S1?
Victor: Hmm. Of course there were unexpected things like our unlock system overloading and ehm, ... , actually I can't think of any special occurring during the release of S1. Because LFS was so thoroughly tested in it's beta-demo season, there weren't many bugs or unexpected things happening. It was just like continuing the beta demo, only with more content and a few added systems. We had to correct some minor issues, but that's all not really worth mentioning (I can't even remember).

BigBen: What has most surprised you about the Simracing community, and its reaction to S1?
Victor: Besides the obvious one that they all came and stayed - I remember we were stunned that people were so very serious about sim racing. We thought: "It's a fun game, with which you can have a good time racing against each other online and oh people, it's not finished yet". But they really dove into every aspect of car-physics and tested them in LFS. From that day on at least I take sim racing much more serious. ('I' because I had not been into sim racing before and a whole new world opened up for me. Scawen and especially Eric already knew more about all that)

BigBen: Were you really surprised that folks sought out LFS, and stayed once they'd tried it?
Victor: hmm, how to say it... We definitely were surprised, but come to think of it, maybe the way how the demo was discovered added to the experience. It was like, one day I came back to my computer after some hours, checked my email and all of a sudden there was this whole list of emails from people that found the demo - the word spread so quickly that soon many people were playing the game and we were totally surprised, because the moment was unexpected, unplanned and all of a sudden all these people were playing our game that we had been working on all this time.

BigBen: What's made you the most proud of your work?
Victor: This is a hard one to answer, but I'll try to explain. For me personally, it's the ever growing relation with our community. We have been accepted by them because we accepted them. The result is having a huge backbone to fall back on if we need advice or help, or just to talk about anything and if they have problems they can fall back on us. This makes a community much stronger, when there is a mutual benefit and general commonality amongst people. This is one of the strengths of LFS.

BigBen: It's also something that no developer can buy, no matter what their budget is. What advice would you have for a developer that wanted to establish a bond with their user base like you have with the LFS community?
Victor: In the essence that's so simple: Listen to people and also just as importantly, respond to them. Even when doing helpdesk you can tell by the 'thank you for replying' emails people send, that some companies just don't care and can't be bothered to reply to people's questions or reports.

Victor on Business

BigBen: Did you feel like you were taking a big risk by releasing LFS as an independent venture?
Victor: Yes and no. Yes, because we realized that, as we were unfunded, if LFS failed, we'd have to go back to a 'normal job' (not being self-sustaining). But I don't think we ever had worries that it wouldn't work out. Somehow we retained our faith and as said before, after the demo was made public, confidence kept growing due to the positive feedback from the community.

BigBen: Were you ever approached by a publisher?
Victor: Yes.

BigBen: Was your response to them automatic, or did you consider any offers?
Victor: We've talked with some, but the end result is about the same with all of them and doesn't suit our plans as also explained in the next question

BigBen: Did you consider trying to market LFS as a typical boxed product?
Victor: Yes. However, we stopped thinking about it for several reasons. One is that LFS S1 simply isn't the finished version. Secondly, the reason why we are selling S1, is to allow ourselves to continue development of the final product. We're not in immediate need to retail S1. I assume you were thinking about retailing when you asked this question. We could also sell a boxed version via our website, but we'd have to start a packaging and dispatching company then :) Or we could have someone else do it, but that's all not what we want. Retailing will be more interesting after S3.

BigBen: What affected your decision to release LFS independently?
Victor: Mostly the experience with the usual developers and publishers. We want to do things the way we want to and that is not possible when being contracted to a publisher or a big development house. They've got time limits, deadlines, demands from the publisher, etc. We just want to take our time to create something we like and not be bound by limits.

BigBen: What's is your impression of the amount of media coverage LFS has received? Were there any surprises for you, pleasant or unpleasant?
Victor: There's been quite a lot of publicity, certainly for a game that's not even available in the shops. Most mags have a rule not to review non-retailed games, but several made an exception this time!

Victor: Also considering this, we were very happy about some reviews, like PC Gamer US, from which we got a 95% score! This is madness considering the small scale of our development and the niche-nature of simulations in general :)

Victor: Media attention can still grow. Not many tv-shows have talked about LFS for example and there are many more mags that can write reviews. Also if we'd go for retailing after S3, there would be a marketing budget coming from the publisher. But with LFS S1 only being the first part (yet very playable of course) we are happy with how things have gone and are going at the moment. More media will come in time and with the next releases.

BigBen: Do you have plans in place for getting more people exposed to LFS?
Victor: We don't have active marketing plans for now. People still are discovering LFS either because of word of mouth, or accidental finds on the internet. And again, because LFS itself is still growing, we don't have a big need to actively attract more people. That's all for a later time.

BigBen: The LFS team has certainly encountered challenges that are rare in the computer gaming industry. If you could give another independent developer one piece of business advice, what would it be?
Victor: Of course there's not just one thing that is the key to overcome challenges, but I think some good advice is, get your priorities straight. Think carefully about how you build your product. What to start with and things to do next. We think it's best to start with the true basics of an idea. Make a decent foundation where you can build upon. LFS for example was nearly just as drivable in the early days as it is now. This way you've got something concrete in your hands and things can be developed in a natural way. A tree doesn't start off growing it's leaves and (beautiful) blossoms first - it needs roots and a trunk. Then branches grow that can produce the leaves, until finally the tree can blossom.

BigBen: Do you think LFS will change the gaming industry with respect to the way that games are released in the future?
Victor: Probably not, but never say never. Maybe publishers will allow developers more time and creativity in the future. But time is money... and next to freedom, that's one of the reasons for us to remain a small team. It costs less.

BigBen: Is LFS now supporting you full time?
Victor: Yes and we are supporting LFS full time too :)

Victor on the community

BigBen: It's notoriously difficult to glean good business advice from a large group of fans. How much effect does the input from the LFS community influence the decisions you make?
Victor: Quite a lot. People can mention all their ideas and problems at our forum. We read most of that and use it to finalize our own ideas of what should happen next. That way people's opinions are taken into consideration and we try to create a good mid-way so that everyone's happy.

BigBen: Are there ways the community can help in the development of LFS?
Victor: Yep. People are being a big help in testing patches for example. Before a patch has been released it has gone through extensive testing by forum visitors. People mention every bug they find or may have additional requests, after which a decent official patch can be released.

Victor: Besides that, the community is THE reason to continue working. There are several leagues organized, people create movies, skins for cars, texture packs, etc. The addition of all this user-created content maybe isn't directly related to LFS development, but it can definitely be seen as the growth of the game itself.

BigBen: In what ways has the community been most helpful to you so far?
Victor: Being there and responding.

BigBen: What's the strangest request you've ever received from the community?
Victor: Pfew, euhm, let me think... I really wouldn't know! Someone's asked for the source code once, and some people ask to have the weirdest cars implemented in LFS, but nothing super weird :)

BigBen: Really? I could have sworn I saw some preliminary pics of motorized toilets.....

BigBen: Do you race in S1 under 'shadow' names?
Victor: Yes.

BigBen: If so, is it to find out things that you couldn't if people knew who you were, or are you just trying to have a good time without being blasted with questions?
Victor: The latter. Indeed when we go online, it's for racing. Helping people out is done on many other places already :)

BigBen: What's the funniest thing you've encountered racing online with S1?
Victor: Starting last and being first after the first bend ;) (can't remember much funny things - in-race normally is serious business :)

Victor on the future

BigBen: Do you have a clear vision of what LFS will become after S2 and S3?
Victor: Hard to tell (so that would be a 'no'). One of the main goals is to make LFS a very versatile game, that allows for many track and car types to be raced on and raced with along with a high level of content detail (in the broad meaning of the words 'content detail', not just looks). Whether that will be achieved by the time S3 has been released, we'll have to wait and see

BigBen: What guides your choices when deciding what to implement and when?
Victor: These days we're normally working towards the 'next big improvement'. Last big improvement was of course the release of S1. After that some patches have been released to fix some bugs and add several requested or required options that felt were missing in S1.

Victor: Now that's done and work on the next big thing has started; tyre wear and temperature (and all it's side-effects) and pit stops. This is what we and most people consider to be most wanted at the moment. After that, there will most likely be some patches again, after which work for the next big improvement will start. This should keep on going until we're all done :)

BigBen: Are these going to be patches to S1, or the foundation of S2?
Victor: These will be patch for S1 yes. In fact, even the demo will have it probably, because we want the demo to be a 100% demo of LFS

BigBen: Do you have any hints about what else is on your "to-do" list as far as new features or content?
Victor: Ehh, hehe, that's like a future feature list of LFS :) Which is long one could say.

Victor: We want it all, from road car to super car, from kart to formula, from 4*4 to sand buggy, you name it. Don't forget damage, physical and internal.

Victor: Those are just some big things, half of the time will be spend on all the details to make the big things right and surprisingly, there are always more details than you can think of :) (and which is why the to-do list is -long- :)

BigBen: The focus of LFS currently seems to be non-exotic street legal cars. Is that intentional, or is it just the side of LFS that you've chosen to expose the public to first?
Victor: It's both. The current state of LFS allows for these cars. Some physics-details like slicks haven't been done yet so that excludes most of the real race classes. Also many open wheel cars have open cockpits, so we need to pay attention to the drivers behavior (movements) while driving.

Victor: And on the other hand, the cars in S1 are a perfect test to see how the physics are handling. Almost everyone has experience in driving one or more of the types of cars available in S1, so it's much easier to make comparisons to the real thing than if we would have started with race class cars.

BigBen: Do you see LFS developing into a fundamentally different experience?
Victor: I'm not sure what that would mean exactly, but I guess we do want to make LFS a unique experience. We're doing all we can to improve LFS itself and maintain a healthy community, I'm not sure if you could call the resulting experience fundamentally different though.

Victor: I think we'll have to see what the future will bring and how the community will grow. People will have a great say in the future of LFS also, in the form of support and participation in events and discussions everywhere. It's them who have to create leagues, tournaments, extra content, and have to bring along spirit. We will try to accommodate them to make it all possible.

Victor: Maybe, if we're very lucky, it could be called the best experience. But we're not the first game to have a community and leagues running and extra content being created. So that's why in my opinion it will not be a different experience and we'll have to wait and see what it -will- be.

BigBen: I'm sorry, clumsy phrasing on my part. Do you see LFS developing into something fundamentally different than it is right now?
Victor: Hmm One could say LFS is in it's teens now, having dreams of what it wants to be but still being in search for it's final destination. The foundation of LFS is already there. The experience will keep growing and keep getting better. Take tyre wear/heat and pitstops for example. It will bring LFS a step closer to becoming the full experience, because it will change the way people look at racing in LFS, but it will give more depth, it'll be more interesting.

BigBen: We've already seen that LFS is serving as a serious test application for at least one real life racing team. Do you have plans for LFS beyond 'entertainment' purposes?
Victor: Who knows. But that's something that typically has to be seen in the future, after S3. It's not a topic we consider anymore at the moment. Our main focus is to get LFS on a roll and finished.

BigBen: Fast forward if you can, to three years from now. Are you still working on LFS? Will you have started on a separate new game? Will you have your very own cubicle farm packed with eager little code slingers?
Victor: Again, who knows :) We don't anyway. We're not even sure when we think LFS is finished. Maybe we'll be working on LFS2 :P Or maybe we've split up, all doing something else, or maybe ... a farm .. hmm (not for me, but I know Scawen likes the country :) And Erik has a love for tropical countries.. :D
Victor: And oh, at least someone will still be involved in three years, as some support will always have to remain - can't just quit everything and all web systems ;)

BigBen: Many thanks for taking the time and effort to answer this!
Victor: You're welcome. Thanks for the attention.