Dear reader,
It is with much trepidation and nervous excitement that I bring to you perhaps the biggest sim racing news from the last century. The echoes and ripples from this earthquake will be felt for years to come.
Sim racerly scholars will pick apart, analyse, critique and attempt to understand the enormity of the seismic chasm that will no doubt appear in our world following the announcement of this news.
[Insert additional paragraph hamming up how this news is enormous]
Read below for full details, the end will shock you.
So go grab a coffee and read history…
Tom Bunten, Traxion.gg
Possibly the biggest news in Sim Racing history
And here it is:
The Traxion Control newsletter, currently sent on Fridays, will now be sent on Tuesdays.
So what does this mean for you, the reader?
Whereas in the past, you would receive this newsletter on a Friday, now and in the future, you will receive it on a Tuesday.
It’s hard to say what knock-on effects readers will face from this sudden change, but you can rest assured that Traxion.gg will be across any and all developments as they present themselves.
Head of newsletters at Traxion.gg gave us this exclusive quote:
“So yeh, the newsletter won’t be coming out on Fridays anymore, we just thought Tuesdays would be better. “
It is rumoured that superstar streamer SuperGT has already made changes to his broadcasting schedule to accommodate for this change whilst Fanatec are reportedly moving all future product launches to days other than Tuesday.
I reached out to some industry veterans to get their take on the news:
“We confirm that moving forward, we will be posting our review videos 2 hours prior to the release of the Traxion Control newsletter to ensure viewers have enough time to finish watching our video before the newsletter drops.”
Whilst not confirmed, iRacing is allegedly considering changing their weekly racing schedule so that official series change track on a Wednesday rather than on a Tuesday, so as not to clash with the excitement of the newsletter’s release.
As one can imagine, streamers are being hit particularly hard by this switch up. YouTube levies a hefty fine on those streamers who don’t record regularly. I checked in on a few streamers to make sure they were handling the news okay:
"I think it is important to change all my schedules from now on to accommodate this highly important change for the Traxion Control Newsletter release, in past usually Tuesdays were important streams such as ACC/AC/LMU Updates and big Esports races but we will be covering them now on Wednesdays and I hope developers will work around it as well and we will stop making any money on Esports because I like to read."
“This has just thrown my schedule into turmoil. Tuesdays were my Monday, a full reset for the week of Sim Racing ahead of me. Now that the Traxion Control newsletter switched days, it means that Friday's are now my Tuesday, so I've no idea where my week starts and ends. Do I even now have a Monday? It's all very confusing for me right now, I need to go and have a lie down.”
Seemingly, no corner of the sim racing world is immune from the effects of this transitional period in our history. I asked Williams F1 Team’s Gaming Manager, Wil Green, how changing the time of their post-newsletter team debrief would affect their drivers’ training schedule. We received this official response:
"We have post newsletter debriefs?"
Traxion’s Tuesday Turmoil, as it is now being called by some commentators, is likely to hinder production timelines and product launches for major brands throughout the industry, Heusinkveld, whose new button box we recently featured has torn up their manufacturing schedule, sending us this statement:
“When we received this message, we were in shock! Full-throttle panic mode engaged. So, naturally, we reviewed all our processes and made adjustments where needed.
Tuesdays are now fully optimized so everyone has prime time to read the newsletter and our test machines will be put in ‘pit lane pause mode’.”
Disclaimer: no assembly lines or test machines were actually harmed or paused in the reading of this newsletter
Traxion has set up an emergency helpline for anyone adversely affected by this change. If you’ve been affected by this news, and need to talk, please email me at [email protected]
In other news
Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ll by now be aware that last night Forza Horizon 6 showcased a significant chunk of gameplay for its title releasing on 6th May this year.
The whole team at Traxion worked through the night last night to bring you all the analysis from the footage.
I caught up with Editor-In-Chief Tom this morning, to see what he thought:
“Make no mistake - Forza Horizon 6 is the most important release this year. You may only care for Mario Kart World Tour, or you may only drive serious simulations like iRacing and Le Mans Ultimate. Either way, do not dismiss Microsoft’s juggernaut.
It will help more people get into racing games, and, long-term, sim racing. But, it should also be a fun addition to the landscape, even if you only compete virtually in a rig.
Now, do I know it will be good off the bat? No. The Horizon series has been feeling a little stale of late. But imagine if this is ‘just’ Horizon 5 with a sprinkling of new features, this environment should be worth investigation alone.
I remain sceptical about the Tokyo city area - the roads look too wide to me, so far, and traffic too sparse - but everything else seems to be genre-defining. There’s talk about driving games lacking a ‘big’ title to spur on growth of late. This is that title. Bring on 19th May!”
More about this next week, ON TUESDAY (see headline story for more details).
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News Highlights This Week from Traxion.gg
Our AI Pledge
If you’ve ever read a Traxion.gg article, you’ll know that the writers over here all have very distinct voices and opinions. It’s this character and sound that I think makes Traxion special.
Human creation is becoming a rare commodity with which the media seem to trade less and less. But not at Traxion. We don’t use AI to write our articles on the website, and I pledge to you, that I will never use AI to write this newsletter.
Which day is best?
Last week’s poll results
This was a surprising result. Given we’re writing newsletters to the most committed of sim racing fans, I thought when I asked “Are sim racing titles becoming less fun?”, the answer suggesting that realism is more important than fun would win outright.
But I was wrong. 64.2% of the votes suggested that sim racing titles were becoming less fun, and that sacrificing realism for gameplay would make sense… interesting!
Community Spotlight
I’d like to showcase the best of our community’s projects and success stories each week. So if you have anything you’d like me to showcase here, please let me know by email: [email protected]
I don’t have favourites of course… but if I did, this week’s community spotlight would be my favourite.
It’s not often that my two great loves in life, the sitcom Peep Show and the art of Sim Racing, crossover. But this week they did. In the comments section of our YouTube video on new game MONOsim, user LuminalSpoon dropped the best comment I’ve ever read, referring to the fact that the new MONOsim title so far boasts only one car and four tracks.
For those of you who don’t get the reference, have a watch here.
Fantastic work, LuminalSpoon. Feel free to drop your own Peep Show comments below our video here 👇
Want to get involved with Traxion Control?
Got a question for our editorial team? Perhaps a point you’d like to make? Maybe even you’ve spotted a mistake in this issue?
Send your submissions by email to [email protected] and we’ll include them at the bottom of each edition.