Does anybody know the cost it is to license a real life track such as Daytona or Monaco and for that matter real life body styles like the generation 6 body styles of nascar cars or the new indy cars like they have in Iracing. How would you even get their permission would you have to call Daytona, Florida and ask them?
Figures I have heard in the past were $10,000 for a race track. Add another zero for a really well know circuit. And then add another zero for an iconic track. But this may have come down as the tracks have realised it is good publicity to be seen in popular racing games.
You should contact the tracks, organising bodies, and manufacturers that you need. But they might already have exclusive deals with existing games.
Thanks, so basically you need a successful game before you can make a successful game (._.)
You need money 
Even if you would get the licenses for free, someone would have to model and texture those tracks.
The vast majority of successful games don’t contain virtual copies of real life race tracks, too. Or real life body styles. Or cars at all, really.
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You don’t need to licence anything if you don’t recreate real things. You don’t need to recreate real things to make a successful game.
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Yah chances are a majority of players won’t even notice or care that it isn’t a perfect representation of the real thing… unless they are a really tight niche of experts/enthusiasts. Can you not take some elements of the popular tracks and morph them into some kind of variation that isn’t exact?
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5 years already, but i have similar question like last comment, how when we make same layout of real track with different style?
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We are all lawyers on this forum with hundreds of thousands of years of experience, so we can for sure advise you.
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You don’t recreate a real thing at all. You look at a real thing, identify the elements that make it good, and then create your own thing with inspiration from those elements.
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Step 1: Le Mans track layout
Step 2: on Mars
Step 3: with Mlon Eusk as a selectable commentator
Step 4: and participants being humanoid rats on tricked out motorcycles.
Step 5: Doing matrix bullet dodging maneuvers to avoid lawsuits.
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LOL dude.
Interesting. Now why does that name, sound so familiar. 
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Road, closed loop, maybe some bleachers. That’s about it. Make up everything else. Done.
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yeah thank you all for the reply, i researching about this and come to conclusion i learn how real track is build and how important elements created and evolved by years, like the strow bariers, to the tire barriers etc, its really fun to learn
When you are using a licensed track, you are also using it’s “draw” - like Daytona being a legendary track. It draws attention.
Here is a good example of just making a track if you like that track and not just the name, for decades Fire Pro Wrestling used wrestlers from Hulk Hogan, to Stone Cold Steve Austin - and just renamed them and changed the color of their shorts or whatever. There is noooo way in hell they could afford using the actual names or paying out royalties. They still played like that wrestler. The Nintendo 64 WCW games, also had copies of Japanese wrestlers, with different names (because they didn’t acquire the licenses).
I live in North Carolina which has the NASCAR Hall of Fame building/museum or whatever, so we have guys here that develop games and visuals for the NASCAR games. Those licenses have to be hefty. I’m sure the prices and legal terminology vary if you are also talking international tracks. I doubt NASCAR would license their drivers or tracks to game developers outside of who is already working with them… which at this point is 704 Games (the area code of Charlotte and some guys I know). The big draw is using their iconic tracks.
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