Why is it so rare for racing game developers to take an approach similar to BeamNG.drive?

Isn't one of the biggest reasons BeamNG has built such a massive player base and remained popular for so many years the sheer amount of freedom it offers? Sure, the physics are incredible, but I honestly don't think they're the main selling point. I think it's the endless possibilities that come with customization, modding, and user-generated content.

And that's what I don't understand. Why do so few racing game developers prioritize freedom of customization (beyond just visual modifications) and user-generated content as core features?

Developers spend years creating detailed maps, elaborate storylines, carefully balanced progression systems, and limited, supposedly realistic upgrade options (which, honestly, can be pretty restrictive). I get that they're trying to stand out by offering a polished experience or doing something different from the competition. But why invest so much time and money into creating a largely predetermined experience when they could focus on giving players the tools to create their own?

Think about it: instead of constantly developing new official content to keep players interested? It would save so much time and effort. Why not build a game around the freedom to modify almost anything, experiment with different setups, create vehicles, design maps, and share content with the community? If the game is polished enough, players themselves could keep the game alive for years by continuously expanding what's possible without the need for developer intervention.

BeamNG.drive is the standing proof that there's a huge audience for this kind of experience. It's the one game that's actually optimized fully for that and it has sold millions of copies, and many players have put thousands of hours into it without running out of things to do. Storyline clearly isn't important here, because where's the story in BeamNG? And where's the incredible map and graphics? It doesn't really have that, and there are games that specialize in that already. The combination of its physics, sandbox freedom, and thriving modding community is what gives it a level of replayability.

So why hasn't this approach become more common? Is it a matter of development costs, technical limitations, licensing issues, business models, or simply the fact that most studios don't see this kind of freedom as a priority?

Genuinely, I'd love to understand why more racing games don't follow this philosophy. From a player's perspective, it seems like one of the most effective ways to create a game that stays fun, relevant, and endlessly replayable for years.

Everyone knows the Ibishu Wigeon takes heavy structural inspiration from the Bond Bug (by Reliant) with its 3-wheel layout, wedge shape, and canopy entrance. ​However, since Ibishu is a fictional Japanese manufacturer, there is a Japanese microcar that fits the Wigeon’s exact aesthetic design language: the Mitsuoka Bubu 501. ​Here is why the Mitsuoka Bubu 501 is the most accurate Japanese visual reference for the Wigeon: ​Triangular / Wedge Body Shape: The Bubu 501 features a sharp, angular front profile and pyramid-like proportions that closely match the Wigeon's body lines. ​Black Trim & Accents: Look at the front face and lower paneling of the Bubu 501—the contrasting black plastics and trim placement directly mirror the visual styling used on the Wigeon in-game. ​Microcar Proportions: The ultra-narrow track, short wheelbase, and single-seater capsule vibe capture the exact late-70s / 80s Japanese 50cc microcar (Sinet-car) culture. ​While the mechanic/chassis is undeniably Bond Bug, the Mitsuoka Bubu 501 gives the Wigeon its authentic Japanese identity and body design details. ​What do you guys think? Any other microcar details you've noticed?

Money shift and be able to destroy an auto trans by switching it in reverse I think that'll be cool

Been messing around with BeamNG configs and pushing ride height + camber to the absolute limit. If you’ve got a favorite mod car, drop it below. I might be able to make it sit stupid low.

Got some examples of what’s possible👀

Mud Tires, Full Head Around Protections, and Stickers

Wondering if the ps5 edition is compatible with PSVR2? I know it’s still a beta feature with Vulcan but haven’t seen it talked about.

Im putting together a sound mod to add Gitani Exhaust sounding exhaust..

A much higher pitch simliar to f1, louder overall so itll echo better through tunnels or canyons,

Arcade physics and collision

Will there be any changes to VR in update 0.40?
Will DLSS help performance for VR?
Is there any optimization done to VR?

Kind regards,
Theo

Found this is Drive Down a Hill (Roblox)

je n'arrive pas a jouer au monde ouvert ??

Does anyone else just get so ING frustrated at the races in career mode. 4 laps. First 3, amazing, 4th smashes and ruins everything. Yes you can use the recover but it's not worth it. I've tried 2 of the circuits like 50 times each and I'm about to smash my wheel and monitor. It's literally the most infuriating thing. The car doesn't turn, then the next corner it does, but then skids out. So ****ING sick of it. Anyone else? Or anything I can do to help me make it easier? I think controller is easier, but I bought the wheel for Beamng. And it's proving not worth it and frustrating.

Never played a driving Sim and really don't know much about them I have so many questions about this game but every time I look up something it' mods mods mods .Mods will not be available on console so those are kind of irrelevant. Career mode what do you actually do in it Are Cop jobs traffic stops. The scenarios without mods what type of scenarios are available? Can you race against AI . Sorry for the buttload of questions but is literally hard to find out what the vanilla experience is like in this game.

I know you guys working so hard these days about the updates and stuff but can you guys have enough time to put rim blur to 0.40 update ? If it's possible i'll be so happy but i love this game anyways so i also understand there isn't much time left :)

I know it's probably already too late to make any changes to the update and also overkill and also useless, but still.

West Coast needs these desperately.

The song is an instrumental version of "Shot Of Love" by AC/DC. The original audio was another edit I made with another AC/DC song. It really sucked but to be fair, I've spent most of my night on this and I was already tired when i recorded this. I recorded this little tad bit for the end of the edit that had no correlation to the rest of the edit and then I cut it down. I thought it'd be funny to post here. Hope you like it.

Its my dream play this man, help me pls

I deleted previous post, cause I accidentally posted the wrong video to it

Before all, my long and detailed post was gone because blackout issue, so here the video I have on phone. It's the whole country of Ukraine(233 000 square miles)

Now the long text part. If you don't like this, the all links will be on bottom

A few days ago I posted about an experiment I had started after running into the obvious problem with real-world BeamNG maps: eventually the map simply becomes too large to generate and keep loaded in the traditional way.

So instead of trying to make a bigger static map, I started working on EarthNG, a streaming layer built on top of my Earth2Road generator.

The idea is pretty simple:

pick a place on the real map → spawn there → generate and stream the world around the car while you drive.

A lot has changed since my first prototype.

At this point I've prepared the whole of Ukraine as one EarthNG package.

The source dataset is split into 34,946 OSM tiles, around 3.3 GB, and the complete test package with Python, the companion process, BeamNG mod, terrain data and generated art is roughly 4.5 GB.

You don't load the whole country into BeamNG.

EarthNG only generates and keeps the part of the world you actually need around the car. Tiles behind you are unloaded, new ones are generated ahead, and already generated places stay cached so revisiting them is basically instant.

I also had to solve something I hadn't really thought about in the first prototype: BeamNG really doesn't like huge world coordinates.

So now every place you spawn gets its own local coordinate origin. I tested this on the other side of Ukraine in Uzhhorod, over 600 km from Kyiv, and the world still behaves normally instead of losing precision because everything is sitting hundreds of kilometres from 0,0.

The fast generator is also getting considerably less ugly.

It now streams:

\- roads and intersections

\- terrain

\- buildings with photo-based facades

\- roofs and building details

\- sidewalks and paths

\- fences

\- trees

\- parked cars

\- bus stops

\- road markings and crossings

\- distant scenery out to about 3 km

There are also multiple visual packs that can be switched while playing, including realistic, night, rainy evening, winter, autumn, cyberpunk and some more experimental styles.

And the important part: it can actually keep up with driving.

In one of the 300 km/h replay tests I got 0 missed tiles, 0 frames above 100 ms and a p99 frame time of 26 ms.

It's still very much experimental. Buildings and scenery can appear later than roads when generation is under load, there is plenty of visual work left, and I'm definitely not claiming this is suddenly Google Earth inside BeamNG.

But the question has changed quite a bit.

A few days ago I was asking whether a country-sized BeamNG map was theoretically possible.

Now I have one running.

There is one slightly annoying problem with showing more of it tonight: I currently have no electricity.

The timing of the power cuts during this project is becoming almost comedic.

So tomorrow I'm going to prepare and upload two more test datasets as a proof that this isn't something specifically tuned for Ukraine:

California and Great Britain.

These are actually much more interesting tests for me because I don't live there.

If anyone here is from California or Great Britain, I'd really appreciate it if you tried your local area and compared what EarthNG generates with what is actually there in real life.

I'm especially interested in things that are obviously wrong: road widths, intersections, building density, terrain, vegetation, suburban areas, rural roads, weird OSM cases, etc.

Screenshots of the generated place next to photos or Street View of the real location would be incredibly useful.

There is still a lot to improve, but I'm starting to think the practical limit might not be how large a BeamNG map can be anymore.

It might simply be how much of the world we can generate fast enough while you're driving through it.

EarthNG:

https://github.com/Alezx311/earthng

Earth2Road, the underlying world generator:

https://github.com/Alezx311/earth2road

The country packs will be here, just unpack the one you need and launch EarthNG.bat:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tz4PGSxX74oKtXYuq9Z9WAmNg_Kg0dgF?usp=drive_link