For Gamers: NASCAR The Game 2011 Update

Image taken from NASCAR The Game Official Website

Many people hoped and believed that a new NASCAR game would be able to save or help NASCAR tremendously in gaining a younger audience and a younger fan base.

This year, to kick off the 2011 season, the mega gaming company of Activision along with a European company called Eutechnyx released the newest NASCAR video game - NASCAR The Game 2011.

What started out to be something that brought much hope and excitement to many NASCAR fans that were gamers (it had been years since a previous NASCAR video game was produced) turned to be a disappointment rather quickly.

The games, generally speaking for the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, were filled with major bugs and glitches, not to mention very little depth in the career mode and a weak NASCAR experience.

Fans were very displeased, especially since the wait for the new game was quite a long one. However, the developers from Eutechnyx quickly began listening to fan feedback, working on an update called a "patch" for the game. It seemed this would only take a few weeks to produce, but as time progressed, it turned into a very long wait for customers. The major PlayStation hacking saga put a huge delay on much of the process to improve the game for the PlayStation customers, plus there seemed to be little progress made to the XBOX 360 game as well.

Fans became very hostile very quickly towards the developers on Twitter and on the official game forum website as time continued to go without little change. The developers knew they messed up, but continued to stress the fact that these issues would be solved eventually, and that patience would be necessary.

Now, as the the wait heads into the end of July, progress is beginning to be seen. The XBOX 360 update has now been completed and tested, and is just waiting for the final approval for the owner of XBOX, Microsoft. The release of this patch to the public will be in only a few days time, and yet another update is expected immediately after, which will contain all the 2011 cars and paint schemes (the game started with the 2010 data).

The PlayStation 3 updates are still in the final stages of testing, but are expected to be submitted for final approval a week following the XBOX 360 updates, which would also be any day from now.

Regardless of the major attempts to improve the 2011 NASCAR video game, many still say the game will not be very authentic to what NASCAR is. While this may be the case, developers are already working on the 2012 game, and vow to not make the mistakes they made this year, which ultimately destroyed the fan attraction towards it.