Test Drive series aquired by Bigben Interactive

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Driiven
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Bigben, whose former works include the WRC games, has bought the rights for the Test Drive series from Atari.

"We are more than confident with respect to the quality of this franchise, which is loved by so many players," stated Alain Falc, CEO of Bigben Interactive. "Our teams are very enthusiastic at the idea of being able to work on this license, which has already proven its worth - the game Test Drive Unlimited 2 sold 1.8 million units."

(Source: https://www.videogamer.com/news/test-dr ... nteractive)
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Good news. Thanks for sharing Driiven :2thumbsup:
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Oopsie. I guess I didn't see your thread when I made my TDU3 thread. Sorry gobes!
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grooks10 wrote:Oopsie. I guess I didn't see your thread when I made my TDU3 thread. Sorry gobes!
lol yup, and your topic wins because of click-bait title. :snooty:
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Interesting news, I will be looking forward to hearing more on this as the title progresses. I haven't played a WRC game in years but I have enjoyed them in the past and I recall them having decent physics that were more sim oriented. I can already hear the Hardcore physics crowd shouting now and seeing them angry with the result when the game doesn't cater to the 5% that want hardcore physics in an open world game This should be fun....not really). I would be happy with physics similar to FH3, not sim but not arcade, happy in middle. Seems some people are already skeptical that Bigben is handling this. I see this as positive news, Atari no longer owns the rights and it's now in the hands of an experienced racing game developer, overall this is great news for fans of the series.
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Rallye physics are usually a very good base to work with. I think they can work out decent driving physics, but am more concerned about the artistic side of TDU. And creating an open world game is a different ballgame than making a race game on closed tracks. ;)

The concerns are justifiable, but they wouldn't have started this is if they don't think they can pull it off.

Time to boot up one of my WRC games. :party:
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MadManCK wrote:Rallye physics are usually a very good base to work with. I think they can work out decent driving physics, but am more concerned about the artistic side of TDU. And creating an open world game is a different ballgame than making a race game on closed tracks. ;)

The concerns are justifiable, but they wouldn't have started this is if they don't think they can pull it off.

Time to boot up one of my WRC games. :party:
I think I read somewhere that one of the lead designers from the TDU/TDU2 team is working at KT games, so if that's true, we might not have to worry too much about the artistic direction. All I know is that they need to consult the fans of the series. If they don't get us involved in development, then they may not know how to live up to the expectations set by the previous games.
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grooks10 wrote: All I know is that they need to consult the fans of the series. If they don't get us involved in development, then they may not know how to live up to the expectations set by the previous games.
That is a good point as well.

But too much "feedback" can also distract from finishing a product. You can not please everybody. The good old Atari forum was a good example of that. But Eden never really supported the game after it was released for now known reasons. I really hope BigBen will step up and give similar support as Ivory Tower does.

The "inventor" of TDU, at least for the core of the programming, is Fergus, now lead dev of Ivory Tower.
But Nadal was the boss at Eden and also responsible for the looks, feel and vibe of the TDU games. Something that is clearly missing in The Crew for example. Not to mention the social aspects of the game.
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Looks like we have a new follower on twitter. ;)
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I have been doing some research on the team behind the development of TDU3 because there seems to be some legitimate concern about this game not being developed by Eden Games.

What I found out was far more comforting than I anticipated! Alain Jarniou, whom Grooks was alluding to in his above post, now works for Bigben Interactive. He was the creative director on TDU and TDU2, this is basically the next best thing to having Eden develop this game. This was the man who was a lead programmer and creative director on both games. He's been there and done that before and certainly knows what he is doing. Below is a blurb on Alain's past work.


Alain Jarniou: the man behind two racing game legends!
With a technical education in programming, Alain Jarniou began his career alongside
Frédéric Raynal at No Cliché as Game Programmer on Toy Commander. In 2001 he joined Eden Games and specialised in racing games, becoming Career Mode manager on V-Rally 3, a game many consider to have set the standard for rally games on PlayStation®2. In 2004, he joined the team in charge of the series Test Drive Unlimited, a blend of racing and MMO games which became the first racing MMO game on consoles, and was also creative director for Test Drive Unlimited 2. V-Rally 3, Test Drive Unlimited and Test Drive Unlimited 2 each reached the one million sales mark.

Diego Sartori (formerly of Simbin) is also works at Bigben, he was the Producer on GTR 2, the Game Director on RACE- The Official WTCC Game and the creative director on Race 07 before he left to join Bigben Interactive to work on WRC 5 and now WRC 6. Below is a blurb on Diego's past work.


Diego Sartori: avid motor racing fan.
As an automobile mechanic, Diego began professional life with Citroën in 1992. He then fully assembled a Citroën AX Sport Group A and took part in a few rally sprints in his native Denmark. In 1998, Jason Watt entrusted him with the preparation of his 1966 Ford Mustang for vintage races, in 2002 Jason Watt won the Danish Touring Car Championship with Diego working as a mechanic and driver assistant on his team. He entered the world of video games in 2004 when SimBin hired him to test GTR. From that
point on, Diego’s professionalism and technical expertise ensured rapid progress: he worked on GTR and GT Legends in 2005, Producer on GTR 2 and Game Director on RACE – The Official WTCC Game. In 2007, he became Creative Director at SimBin Studios working on RACE 07 and its expansion packs until 2011. He remained Creative Director and Management Group member at SimBin Studios until 2014, adding RaceRoom Racing Experience and DTM Experience to his portfolio. In 2014 the WRC 5 project caught his eye and he left SimBin to become Creative Director at Kylotonn.
I don't think Bigben Interactive picking up the rights to the Test Drive series was random at all, this was very calculated and most likely pushed by Alain himself. This game appears to be in very good hands. I look forward to seeing and playing Test Drive Unlimited 3.
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