''NASCAR Racing 2003 Season'', or ''NR2003'' for short, is a computer

racing simulator Simulated racing or racing simulation, commonly known as simply sim racing, are the collective terms for racing game software that attempts to accurately simulate auto racing, complete with real-world variables such as fuel usage, damage, tire ...

released in February 2003 by

Papyrus Design Group Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a do ...

for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

. The game was the last to be released by the company before

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" ...

bought the

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...

license exclusively from 2004 to 2009 (parent company Sierra's successor company,

Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Vivendi ...

, reacquired NASCAR rights in 2011, with '' NASCAR The Game: 2011''). The game included all of the 2003 NASCAR season tracks and many of the drivers, including

Dave Blaney David Louis Blaney (born October 24, 1962) is a semi-retired American professional stock car racing driver. Blaney was a successful sprint car driver before he started racing in NASCAR, competing in both the Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Serie ...

, who was absent in

NASCAR Thunder 2004 ''NASCAR Thunder 2004'' is a racing simulator by EA Sports, released on September 16, 2003 and available in separate versions for PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Windows. It features the 2002 champion Tony Stewart on the cover with a scowlin ...

Gameplay

''NASCAR Racing 2003 Season'' contains 40 Winston Cup teams that were anticipated to run throughout the season, with the exception of the cars from

Chip Ganassi Racing Chip Ganassi Racing, LLC (CGR), also sometimes branded as Chip Ganassi Racing Teams, is an American auto racing organization with teams competing in the IndyCar Series, NTT IndyCar Series, International Motor Sports Association, IMSA WeatherTech ...

, as well as 23 Winston Cup series tracks, putting the player behind the wheel of a NASCAR stock car. Players are able to choose between testing sessions, offline single racing, championship, and multiplayer options as well as car setup choices.

Ownership

At the end of March 2004, ''NR2003'' was pulled from shelves when

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

acquired the exclusive NASCAR rights. In May 2004, Papyrus was shut down, and David Kaemmer bought the source code and assets a couple months later for his company FIRST, LLC where it became the base code for

iRacing ''iRacing'' is a subscription-based online racing simulation video game developed and published by iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations in 2008. All in-game sessions are hosted on the publisher's servers. The game simulates real world cars, tr ...

. In 2007, Sierra, the game's publishers, shut down the online servers.

Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews", according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. According to ''

Edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

'', the game sold at least 100,000 copies in the United States, but was beaten by ''

NASCAR Racing 4 ''NASCAR Racing 4'' is a Racing video game, racing vehicle simulation game, simulator produced by Papyrus Design Group, Papyrus and released in February 2001. Gameplay The game was a huge step forward over its predecessor and addressed many requ ...

''s 260,000 sales in the region. Total US sales of ''NASCAR Racing'' computer games released in the 2000s reached 900,000 copies by August 2006. The game won ''

PC Gamer US ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games mag ...

''s 2003 "Best Racing Game" award. The magazine's Andy Mahood wrote that it "established a daunting new standard for PC racing simulations that may take years to eclipse".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nascar Racing 2003 Season 2003 video games NASCAR video games MacOS games Racing video games Papyrus Design Group games Racing simulators Video games developed in the United States Windows games