When a game lifts brand awareness

[WarriusZero]

I'm trying here to draw (or rather anticipate) a comparison between Project CARS and other pivotal titles in gaming history.

The Gran Turismo series are fairly known for making the general (gaming) public aware of the existence of great cars, more often than not Japanese, like to a degree the RX-7 but mainly the Skylines. Before the first GT, these cars may not be as familiar as they then became.

I'm sure other titles brought other cars to the people's hearts. I'm also aware that what struck me may not have had the same impact on others (the RX-7, incidentally, was relatively unknown to some racers in the series in which I participate).

Hoping that it's going to be successful enough to make an impact, is there a car that Project CARS could make a legend? Or could it be a motor sports category, instead? To which car or category is the game's identity going to be linked? Does it need to be a current one (as cars and categories from the past can't easily be resurrected)?

For example, the Group 5 category was discontinued when I was 5 so I never really got to know it, but it's starting to catch my attention already.

Note also that I'm not just talking about front cover cars, like the C7 with GT6 or apparently the new Ford GT with Forza 6. These are marketing opportunities made on the back of already established franchises with a strong identity.

 

[bleeder]

i don't think i'd ever seen a BMW M1 Procar before this game but that thing looks badass.

 

[InSight]

Since it's a racing sim, I'm hoping it would expose some GT and endurance racing to the mainstream. So more people would watch real GT3 and endurance races, because they're really awesome.

 

[FLX1981]

I reckon it will be too early for that. GT1 didnt make any car a legend, it was over the course of its sucessors that reappearing cars became well known and loved go-to cars.

Obvious candidates in pcars would be the fictional LMP1s that were designed by the community members (could become as iconic as the Feisar in wip3out, I hope) or the awesome historic stuff like the Group 5 cars or the Red Pig. Maybe also some nice british cars with SMS being british, like the Ginettas or the Radicals.

 

[sesselpupser]

Gran Turismo as a brand ambassador is unique and can never be beaten in that regard; before the internet was really "a thing" for most people there wasn't really any way for the average person to discover all those Japanese performance cars on that scale, of course some people were importing them back then but it wasn't really a big thing. Then Gran Turismo came along and casually unveiled this huge list of awesome cars that most people had never seen or heard of before, they expressed enough interest in those cars for Japanese manufacturers to start selling them officially in new markets and yeah, thanks to the internet I don't think a game can ever have that much influence ever again.

So I don't think Project CARS will be a big deal in this respect, no more so than, say, Sega GT 2002 - that featured some pretty unusual cars that the average person wasn't aware of, too, like the 131 Abarth, Mazda RX3, Jiotto Caspita and so on - but I do think people will go pretty nuts for the Group 5 cars. The only problem being they've been dead as a concept for so long that I don't really know what good it'll do...

As an English 'car guy' the BAC Mono, Ariels, Ginettas, Caterhams and Radicals aren't news to me (the Palmer Jaguar was, I must admit), I don't know if the average American, European, Japanese or Australian 'car guy' is familiar with them though. Then again, given how widely-viewed Top Gear is throughout the world I'd be surprised if they weren't already fairly common knowledge. Like FLX, I think the historic stuff is really all there is that'll be new to most people. But that's cool because the Group 4 and 5 cars are by far my favourites, the Red Pig is great and the classic Lotus F1 cars are insane.

 

[ElBasque]

Then Gran Turismo came along and casually unveiled this huge list of awesome cars that most people had never seen or heard of before, they expressed enough interest in those cars for Japanese manufacturers to start selling them officially in new markets and yeah, thanks to the internet I don't think a game can ever have that much influence ever again.

Just wait until we start shipping projectCARS 23 to the people on Jupiter before space-internet catches on. Imagine all those RX-19s drifting round Ganymede.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

The game that got me most aware of specific cars and really made me want one of them was NFS Porsche Unleashed. I really wanted a Porsche after playing that game and began taking note of every Porsche I saw around town and on the road at that point.