Well, that's a shame. I think the biggest factor to this decline was the release date. Forza and GT are very popular there, so Both Xbox and PlayStation owners look to be going for their first-party racing game, without giving Pcars 2 much of a chance. Many aspects of the game have trumped both forza and GT (awesome track selection, broad range of dynamic time and weather options, kart racing, great campaign structure, etc)..

Another big factor of PC1 was the publicity of being crowdfunded. Certainly, a lot of people saw it as an opportunity to support a small studio making a game that real racing simulation fans wanted. Plus a lack of Gran Turismo 7 news, Forza 6, while being a good game, still felt lacking in terms of wheel support, which PC1 supposedly did well; and the NFS series wasn't very strong.

Basically, racing games in general, while looking pretty and being feature-rich, weren't giving racing fans what they wanted.

Forza 7 seems to have largely corrected the wheel situation. GT Sport is a thing - though certainly not GT7 in any way shape or form, it finally gives GT fans something. NFS Payback looks okay. '

Also, the reviews I saw for PC2 gave it a so-so verdict. They added a bunch of tracks and cars to PC2, but they lack the polish and customization that I think many people want. Definitely, the market is too saturated right now and PC2 doesn't promise anything special that others aren't already offering this year.

The first game was announced as coming to the Wii U.  While it was coming to PS4 and Xbone, it was always the Wii U version that they gave the most attention, using it to grab headlines, talking up the system's "secret sauce", going on about how great it looked and how awesome the extra features would be and how excited they were to bring it to Wii U and on and on.  Basically, they used the Wii U to dodge competing with Forza and The Crew for the spotlight.  Thing is, the Wii U version was, according to all evidence, a myth.  There's not one screenshot, not one gif, not one video, not even an off screen picture of the game on Wii U.  So 99% chance it never even existed.  They just exploited Nintendo fans to hype their product.

And when they canceled it, they flippantly said basically it didn't matter because Wii U owners only like Mario Kart anyway.  Basically, they manipulated a whole community to hype a game that they never intended to bring to the platform and then spat in their face the moment they moved from being pseudo crowd funded to being published by Bandai Namco. 

As for how much of an impact that had here, not sure.  I will say that without something like the Wii U version of the first game to get hype away from the other big boys, PC2 definitely got lost in the noise.  It's just very generic.  "Sim Racer: The Game".

That's what you get when you hype up your first game for years yet still release it broken and unfinished, which still hasn't been fixed today.

Doesn't help pCARS2 seems to have similar issues being unpolished and unfinished at release. I don't trust these developers anymore besides being a backer of the first game. Will wait until it's fixed it's problems and is available for cheap.

PC2 should release during summer months not xmas, tbh i have it on PC and i always get the annoying game crash to desktop bugive got it uninstalled now its no fun like that

Release dates are pretty terrible this gen. Most games September through early December. I think it would have done better in March through June.

Really? Most reviewers gave this game a better score for being a huge improvement over the first game. They filled the gaping holes of he car roster in the first game. They added dirt and ice tracks, plus a huge suite of dynamic time and weather, letting you mix and match with what seems like an infinite number of options (snowstorm in Dubai desert for the win). Kart racing and special kart tracks are present too. The campaign structure is way better than either GT or forza, and the handling model is drastically improved from Pcars1, especially on console.

People became salty after the cancellation of the original game on Wii U and decided to boycott this new entry. 

Sorry, but the campaign is one of the weakest points as far as I have seen. It's nice one can change the different stages but that's about it.

I never even knew about it until right up to release. It seems like this one came in low-key. And that's not good when it's a market that's already kind of iffy. I look at Driveclub and the Forza games, and their numbers seem to have gotten boosted by being pack-ins with consoles. So, in comparison, this one didn't really stand a chance.

The world of the racing game is kind of rough right now. And is probably getting to the point where it'll be only one or two devs even bothering with it after a while.