I came across Project Cars earlier today and I am intrigued by what I have seen so far. It is a game being developed by Slightly Mad Studios, those guys behind the Need for Speed: Shift series and is part of their World of Mass Development (WMD for short) development process. Hit the jump for some more details.

The idea behind WMD, and I am putting this in the context set out by Project Cars is that developers submit game ideas to the WMD community and receive constant feedback through a unique pricing structure. If you are interested in a game being shown on WMD, you can purchase a Tool Pack for anything from a few Euros, to a few thousand Euros. The basic levels give you access to project specific forums and monthly or weekly game builds while the top tier Senior Manager packs, costing €25,000 get massive access to the latest game builds and the opportunity to get your business advertised in the game.

If you contribute to the development of the game through purchasing one of these packs, you will receive a slice of the profit that the game makes. Of course, this slice will vary depending on the number of sales the game makes, the number of people who have purchased packs and such like.

It is a very, very interesting concept, one that has immediately caught my interest, I have bought the Team Member pack for €25 which will give me access to weekly builds of Project Cars.

The game itself will be primarily Free to Play on the PC, but from looking around the website, it is clear that the final aim is for retail releases on the PC and home consoles. On track the game is described as being a simulation racer and will have a branching career mode where you start in Karting and work your way through the ranks into Touring Car, Rally, Open Wheel Formula and finally Le Mans Prototypes.

This is a very exciting project, and one that I am definitely going to take a closer look at soon.