Chastain: Upcoming NASCAR game good tool for attracting young fans

Grab a gear, floor it and throw the brake pedal out the window.

Anyone who has ever played a racing video game has probably tried this move to see what would happen.

Few have done it for real.

Ross Chastain has.

NASCARs unofficial Video Game Move driver tried the Hail Melon maneuver to great success at Martinsville Speedway in 2022, rocketing around the turns 3 and 4 wall and gaining enough points to advance to the championship race of that years Cup Series playoffs.

Afterward, he cited his inspiration as playing EA Sports NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup on the Nintendo GameCube with his brother, Chad, who also has a few NASCAR starts under his belt.

Back then, NASCAR fans could reliably count on a new NASCAR game every year from EA Sports, which published a title annually from 1997 to 2008.

Papyrus Racing Games also developed eight highly acclaimed computer simulation entries between 1994 and 2003, serving as the forerunner to todays iRacing platform.

But now, its been nearly four years since virtual racers saw the release of a fully new NASCAR console video game.

After EA Sports gave up its exclusive license to make the games following NASCAR 09, a couple other publishers put out about 10 new console titles between 2011 and 2021, but some of the games were poorly received and the deal ended after NASCAR 21: Ignition, leaving racing gamers in the cold.

Thats about to change.

Bolstered by development from iRacing Studios, a new stock car video game finally will be released on Oct.

14 when NASCAR 25 becomes available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, along with Windows via Steam on Nov.

11.

Some of the features that have fans excited are the presence of all four NASCAR national series (Cup, Xfinity, Craftsman Truck and ARCA Menards), a career mode, 40-driver multiplayer and a soundtrack created in part by Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Chastain, who will be featured on the games Xfinity and Truck rosters in addition to Cup, remembers how much he enjoyed playing NASCAR games as a kid and said its critical to have a new video game as a tool for the sport as it strives to draw in younger fans and keep them around for a long time.

Its important, Chastain said.

Thats what sets the big sports apart is that youve got somebody in a group creating games.

Its what I played as a kid.

I played all the games along the way.

For the next generation of kids, they need to be playing that.

They need to be immersing themselves in the sport that way and then watching on the weekends and playing during the week.

I can remember having the race on and racing on my video game at the same time, you know? So, yeah, its definitely cool and iRacing is the one to do it, I think.

Annually, the NFL has the Madden franchise, NBA has its 2K titles, MLB has The Show and the NHL has its own series.

Finally, NASCAR is returning to those ranks.

Theres a good chance that turns out to be a plus for the sport.

"I think it's pretty self-evident that the major sports leagues see great benefit in having annualized gaming franchises, said Brian Shea, executive editor for Game Informer, a publisher of video game news and reviews online and in magazine form.

For years, it's been kicked around by communities that maybe franchises like Madden should do a platform approach, where they release a game every few years and just provide seasonal content updates every few months, but reporting seems to indicate that these leagues want an annual entry on the store shelves.

It's difficult to quantify, but I believe these leagues and their licensing teams look at these sports video game franchises as a gateway into becoming a more active fan of the real thing.

Just as Chastain remembers how important racing games were to him as a young fan and future racer, Shea recalled the impact baseball video games had on his development as a fan and future gaming writer.

It's anecdotal at best, but I remember MLB video games greatly enhancing my fandom of the sport in the '90s, taking me from a somewhat casual watcher to a super-hardcore baseball fan, Shea said.

I would be extremely surprised if I'm alone in that.

NASCAR already has a massive built-in audience, but as long as the games are good, I don't think there's a downside for the sport's relevance and popularity to having an official video game.

The role of iRacing in creating NASCAR 25 certainly would seem to be a plus.

The brands online simulation racing platform claimed more than 160,000 active subscribers as of 2020 and has a significant role in the sport as a tool for drivers.

It needs to be quality, as well, Chastain said.

We use iRacing to train.

However they bake that into a console game, Im here for it.

Come Oct.

14, though, there is no guarantee that NASCAR 25 will receive any checkered flags in terms of its reception.

And there are a few cautionary tales in the sports video game genre.

A really bad game can be damaging to the brand, Shea said.

Look no further than the WWE 2K franchise.

Following an entry in the early 2020s that received terrible reviews and became the subject of online ridicule, 2K and WWE decided to take some time off to improve the product, and when it came back in much-improved form, it turned out to once again be an extremely effective way for fans to enjoy their product outside of just watching the live shows.

It seems every IP wants a multimedia empire these days, and since gaming is the highest-grossing entertainment medium on the planet, it makes sense for these leagues and promotions to invest in licensed video games." As hopes for NASCAR 25 are high in both the grandstands and the garage, at least one of NASCARs stars plans to start his virtual engine when the game is released next month.

Oh, yeah, Chastain said.

Maybe hell find a way to smash a virtual watermelon the first time he grabs a win..

This article has been shared from the original article on timesnews, here is the link to the original article.