Source
r/simracing•
proxyedditor

The thing about simracing and money

First off, this is not in any way an attempt to support iRacing's business model so please don't start a flamewar about it. This is a question/discussion about simracers in general.

Simply put, I've seen many people say iRacing is 'too pricey'. Is it true? It is indeed more expensive than other options available, though they do provide an overall product no one else is trying to compete with at the moment. That said, depending on what specific niche you enjoy within simracing, it can be too pricey for what it is to you.

Now, the thing I find a bit funny is why are there so many complaints about it given the nature of the simracing hobby in general? Gamers generally pony up for content and subscription without much fuss or complaint (see your typical MMO, or even F2P with ingame/app purchases). Considering that your average simracer is willing to spend a couple of hundred bucks at least on equipment solely for one genre of gaming, why do we see a rather inordinate amount of bitching regarding a subscription model? Simracers are arguably second only to flight-simmers (another genre I dabble in) when it comes to spending money on their games, and you don't see too many people complaining about having to drop $80 for a single FSX payware plane.

I'm interested to hear thoughts about this apparent phenomenon. Are simracers in general simply more miserly compared to the usual gaming population despite the willingness to spend a lot of money on equipment? Is it because simracers tend to live in a bubble away from the mainstream gaming community? Or is it because we've been massively spoilt by free mods during the mod heyday of the mid-2000s? Or is it just a very vocal minority?

Posted Mar 14, 2014, 8:16 PM UTC · edited

1128
zoomzoom83•

I'm ok with the iRacing pricing model, but I wish they'd offer trials of different cars periodically so I could try a few and decide which one/series to purchase next.

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proxyedditorOP•

me too!

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BillWiskins•

Good question! I don't think we are a 'more miserly' bunch - seems to me that while I have spent much, much more on the equipment I use for racing (wheel) versus the equipment I'd use in any other genre (pad, maybe), I have also bought a lot less software. If you're into FPS type things, or football games, for example, you more or less need to buy the game you like once a year. They are also 'proper' big games from big companies, with price tags to match. I've bought Race 07 (plus expansions), Assetto Corsa and Game Stock Car '13 and the whole lot has set me back less than £60, I reckon.

Considering that your average simracer is willing to spend a couple of hundred bucks at least on equipment solely for one genre of gaming, why do we see a rather inordinate amount of bitching regarding a subscription model?

My angle on that part would be this: "I already spent a couple of hundred bucks just on equipment - I don't want to carry on spending indefinitely for the priviledge of using it." I don't have any real issue with iRacing's pricing model - if you can afford it, great. I can't justify the subscription and the paid content costs, so I'll use my couple hundred bucks' worth of equipment in a sim that I pay for once. I'll also accept the drawbacks that come with that re: iRacing's superior infrastructure, etc., because those things don't come cheap.

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proxyedditorOP•

My angle on that part would be this: "I already spent a couple of hundred bucks just on equipment - I don't want to carry on spending indefinitely for the priviledge of using it." I don't have any real issue with iRacing's pricing model - if you can afford it, great. I can't justify the subscription and the paid content costs

But you could extend this argument further to any subscription model (remember most MMOs require you to buy the game, expansion packs AND pay the subscription). Its a bit like saying "I won't pay for MMOs because I don't want to carry on spending indefinitely for the privilege of using my gaming PC/expensive keyboard+mouse/etc."

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RipVanVVinkleAC | GSC 2013 | GTR2 | Race 07•

But the small difference with your MMO example is the PC I have already has a keyboard and mouse. I don't have to spend an extra $300-$400 for a special controller to play an MMO. Yes you do have to pay extra for expansions but if someone wanted to start a game like WoW they'd still only spend about $60 to get all the current content plus $15/month. I don't have an issue with the $15/month but I think a Simraceway style of approach, where you buy the cars but get the tracks with the game then pay $15/month for the online service might meet with less apprehension from the community.

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proxyedditorOP•

Which brings us back to my other point about flight simmers who also spend a lot of money on controllers. If you have that kind of money to blow, what is a mere $12/mo (seriously does anyone even pay that rate?) with a $60-$70 content purchase once every few years? Why do we not see the same amount of complaining from flight simmers about software costs? I'm not saying iRacing is cheap. Its not. But on the other hand it doesn't cost your kid's university education either the way some people would have you believe.

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RipVanVVinkleAC | GSC 2013 | GTR2 | Race 07•

I'm not going to pretend I know the flight sim community or market as I'm not involved with it. I think there may be more amateur and professional pilots who find greater use of flight sim content. Correct me if I'm wrong but can't pilots even count "X" amount of time in a simulator as training time?

I think it would be interesting to try and look into the demographics of the two. Perhaps guys who are involved in flight sims are a little older and have a little more money to spend. Perhaps the opposite is true for sim racers? Maybe they're a little younger and have less expendable income? We don't know without having some data to look at though. Very interesting topic though!

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teh_cheat•

The pc/mouse/kb/etc has a lot more uses than a steering wheel, though.

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proxyedditorOP•

My point remains. iRacing isn't the only sim on the market, and in a way it is to the simracing genre what World of Warcraft is to the RPG genre (say, NWN2)

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ruiviterboAssetto Corsa - rFactor2 - RBR - GSC2013•

I think that you could look at two different ways of looking at things:

In one hand, you could say that, it really is expensive the way iRacing is working. You need to pay for all the cars, and all the tracks you want, so you can say that it is expensive.

On other hand, although you pay for cars and tracks, the good thing about iRacing is the way online works, and there´s no other options in simracing as good as iRacing for online races... If some simracers love online, with generaly other simracers that respect each others, then iRacing is not so expensive because it gives to you something that it's not avaiable anywhere else .... But if you're not so serious about it, then it surely is ...

We don't know how Assetto Corsa will implement online play , but i can assure you that if they implement it in a good way, you'll see people quitting iRacing and join groups of people to play AC instead of iRacing ...

So it's expensive or not ?? It really depends the way you look at things ...

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proxyedditorOP•

We don't know how Assetto Corsa will implement online play

From what we've seen and heard from the devs, it will be no different from what we are used to in boxed titles (ie rFactor). It will be up to the community to keep it alive. If you were hoping they would implement an infrastructure/service ala iRacing, that is definitely NOT happening. What we don't actually know is how good the netcode will be given Kunos poor track record at that (as well as Casillos' admission it is extremely difficult)

In one hand, you could say that, it really is expensive the way iRacing is working

However, it is not an uncommon pricing model at all as seen with these massively popular MMOs (remember you have to buy the base game + expansion packs AND pay subscription in a lot of those). Its also in line with the fact that iRacing is pretty much the MMO of racing sims.

To put my main question more concisely, why is there so much complaining from simracers (who usually already are willing to spend more than your average gamer) about a common pricing model which has been widely accepted by the more mainstream gamer (who are arguably less spendy) as witnessed by the immense popularity of MMOs?

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ruiviterboAssetto Corsa - rFactor2 - RBR - GSC2013•

is not an uncommon pricing model at all as seen with these massively popular MMOs (remember you have to buy the base game + expansion packs AND pay subscription in a lot of those). Its also in line with the fact that iRacing is pretty much the MMO of racing sims.

I don't disagree with you, maybe i can't express myself . What i mean is that, if you're serious about simracing, iRacing is your only truly choice, but if you want something just to relax after a day of work, or spend some time in a track, you probably find iRacing not your cup of tea because is expensive to do only that ... I'm not saying that Assetto Corsa will be the next amazing thing or even be at the same level as iRacing, what i'm trying to say is that some people like to simracing but they are not so serious, they just want to relax after a hard day at work....

If, like you've said, kunos could deliver a good netcode, that kind of people who don't want nothing very serious, could join in a "not so serious sim title" and have fun for cheaper than iRacing ...

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sixtnyne•

What about car collisions? How are those handled? Gotta pay to repair? Buy another car? Errrrr.....?

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royboh•

You only pay for a car once. That get's you into the car's series if your Safety rating is high enough. Improve your safety rating by driving clean to get higher 'licenses'. Drive sloppily or cause a lot of wrecks and you'll get demoted.

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skgoa•

I don't agree with your argument regarding MMO games at all. The only MMO to make this system work is World of Warcraft and they only bring out an expansion once a year or even less frequently. And many people are not playing that game anymore because they feel it's too pricey for what it does. I am one of those. One day I literally just didn't renew my subscribtion because I couldn't justify paying that much each month for the amount of fun I got. WoW is pricey.

Also, you can't just go and use "but these other people are happy paying for this different service/product" to argue that your service or product of choice isn't pricey. Let me give you an example. I paid €1300 for my PC and I paid €50 for my DFGT. I pay €100 each month for broadband and mobile internet access and hundreds for rent. Also taxes, insurance and all that. I would call none of that overpriced for what I'm getting in return. But if my local supermarket were to start selling milk at €5, I wouldn't buy it. Why? Because I wouldn't feel that the price and my own notion of the product's value match. iracing is pricey, there is no way around that basic fact. It will set you back anywhere from €100 to €300 in the first year, if you want to experience it fully. (Even WoW sits at the lower end of that range.) Whether the price is justified or not is a much harder question to answer. Everyone will have to make that value judgement themselves. Lot's of people will look at the €1000+ they spend on wheel, pedals, buttkickers etc. and say "iracing really doesn't add that much to the cost of my hobby." And you know what? I am happy for them. But you have to have a very blasé attitude towards money to say that it's not a big stack of cash.

There is however one aspect that I find iracing can be dragged over the coals for justifiably. Lots and lots of hay has been made in recent months about microtransactions in games but the cost of new cars and tracks in iracing aren't microtransactions anymore. Especially when you have to compete in the official leagues (because inofficial leagues cost even more money and you lose the benefit iracing brings in the first place) and they keep changing the tracks all the time, forcing you to buy new tracks to keep experiencing the same level of fun you had paid for already. The "hidden" costs make it seem much cheaper at a glance than it actually is. I was very tempted to buy a subscription only a week ago and started looking into iracing after I saw an ad that promised a month of racing for only €5/month. That would have been an incredible bargain. Full price (€10/month) actually still sounds like an incredible bargain. But putting up ads with that price and making it look on the signup website like it was a realistic notion to have that it will be sufficient to only pay this much and then turning around and asking for at least 10x that, if you actually want to compete with other the way the ad promised you would, is just incredibly shady. Some people call it a scam, but technically iracing did write on the signup website what additional cars and tracks cost. I would just have prefered to get a realistic picture of what it's going to cost me. Instead their website tries to weasel out of it. It's pricey, trying to make it look not pricey to get you hooked is a pretty backhanded business practice. And at least for me personally it made iracing look much more pricey than it is. Because I started thinking "oh, so I will want to buy this, this, this..." I understand why they do it that way. They aren't a charity. But with their pricing structure as it is I just can't bring myself to give that company any money at all.

Not hating on iracing, I love watching videos of other people playing it. Just not a service I'm willing to pay for myself.

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gamermusclevideos•

Spot on

I'd rather i racing just be upfront about there costs , realistically if you are going to use the service properly then its going to cost at least 150-300 in the first year because the moment you move from your default cars and tracks your going to be paying a massive sum for tracks to then race a given series or to make sure you are garentied a solid pick-up race in a faster car every couple of hours.

150-300 might still be good value for some people, but you don't know until you pay it and that's a huge gamble.

The nature of them selling all the content individually I believe also fragments users and reduces participation in many events and race series even for people that love i racing.

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proxyedditorOP•

I'd rather i racing just be upfront about there costs

But the pricing summary on the signup page does clearly detail everything. You are clearly told exactly how much content you get with your base membership in massive yellow lettering. If someone then still thinks they can somehow compete in an entire season with just the base content of 5 road tracks (counting Charlotte roval layout) and 6 ovals, they must have some serious math issues. =P

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gamermusclevideos•

Credit cards with bad interest rates list all the fees on them , shops like bright house clearly show the absurd total price of there products.

That does not mean that by design those companies are extracting value from the consumer though manipulation rather than being as transparent as possible.

i racing is no where near as bad as some credit companies or bright house but you should see the point.

Ultimately you are going to have to spend $200+ to get a good time / optimal service from i racing yet there marketing gives the impression that its not that expensive at all.

Rather than trying so hard to hide the costs It would probably be better if they just offered the service at a fixed monthly cost with all road or all oval cars and tracks unlocked , ultimately they have an entrenched user base of 50+ yr old men who will happily pay 200+ a year for a game that they think of as a "career" / "real racing" and i racing don't want to lose that income stream.

Of course i racing do offer a valid service and as i say what it gives might be good value to some people especially for oval racing and specific types of multi-player racing.

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proxyedditorOP•

I don't get it. Everything is clearly listed on the sign up site. No one knows how much a person is going to spend. Some ppl will blow it all and get all the content , others like me spent a grand total of $70 for the first two years. Also, you always trot out that $150 to $300 'gamble' number. Why do u think someone has to spend that much at one go to get an idea of the product? You could spend like $50 or even less to dabble in a new D class series which would give you a fair enough idea of it and cut your losses if you don't like it.

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ruiviterboAssetto Corsa - rFactor2 - RBR - GSC2013•

In other words, that's my opinion too ...

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proxyedditorOP•

The only MMO to make this system work is World of Warcraft and they only bring out an expansion once a year or even less frequently.

There's also FFXIV which is chugging along pretty nicely. I believe Elder Scrolls online may be taking this route too but thats unproven yet obviously.

iracing is pricey, there is no way around that basic fact

I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just wondering about the seeming discrepancy in the amount of whining from simracers we see compared to (a) the acceptance of such a price model in the mainstream gamer, (b) the lack of such whining about software costs among the flight sim community who are arguably the most similar gamer demographic to simracers when it comes to genre passion and time plus money commitment.

But you have to have a very blasé attitude towards money to say that it's not a big stack of cash.

Not necessarily, it depends on your gaming habits. For me, I always renew at Black Friday for $50/year, and I tend to buy $60-$70 worth of content every 1.5 years. For what is my main source of videogame entertainment (as it won't leave you much time for other things if you actually want to play all the stuff you bought), I think thats in the ballpark with the average gamer who would buy yearly Madden/FIFA and CoD releases. Less even. Heck, among my many friends who are semi-into videogames, I daresay I'm very close to (if not at) the bottom in terms of software expenditure year in year out. Maybe it is still a big stack of cash to some, but its not really out of the ordinary in the grand scheme of things among videogamers.

There is however one aspect that I find iracing can be dragged over the coals for justifiably.

Honestly, I took a look at the website and I disagree with this whole paragraph completely. There is nothing at all on the membership sign up page which tries to 'weasel' out of it so to speak. Its clearly noted exactly what you get, and what else is available. There's even a pricing summary which clearly discusses how the whole thing works. I honestly can't find anything on the site which gives the feeling that they are trying to hide something. Granted, I haven't seen the exact ad you speak about.

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ozLebowski•

What mostly turned me off was a subsciption model PLUS paying for content.. if it was one or the other I think it would be more acceptable to many people. (e.g. paying a monthly fee with access to all content, or no monthly fee with content that can be purchased)

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proxyedditorOP•

What mostly turned me off was a subsciption model PLUS paying for content.

But like I mentioned, its not an uncommon pricing model. With many MMOs you pay the subscription PLUS content. I'm not saying your sentiment is unjustified, it just looks like iRacing is being singled out for this when it isn't mentioned that you wouldn't accept it in your typical MMO either.

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AR-47Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Dirt Rally, pCars•

The issue isn't that iRacing is more expensive than other sims IMO. It's that it is way more expensive. I got Dirt 3 for free, paid $7.49 for F1 2012, $30 for Assetto Corsa, you get the idea. I wouldn't complain if iRacing set me back $50 for a year and I could get by with cars costing maybe $4-$5. It's quality is massively ahead of other gamed, and this would be fair to spend. Instead I have to spend nearly $100 for a year of racing and am forced to spend $10-$15 for each car and track if I want to expand beyond the Miata. If I dedicated some serious time to iRacing, I would probably drop $200-$300 in a single year. It's just crazy.

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proxyedditorOP•

It is possible to get the sub for $50 a year. Cars cost $12 and honestly if you blew $200 to $300 on tracks that will last you a long time. And that's not including bulk discounts (if we are to compare the sales prices you quoted). There isn't actually enough content to reasonably spend and utilize $200 to $300 year in year out.

But again, the absolute cost of IRacing isn't the point of this thread. See my point about mainstream gaming and flight simmers. Because if it does come down to absolute prices, then it's logical to conclude that sim racers are a miserly bunch. Haha

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kevko5212•

I do not care enough to verify for sure, as it doesn't cost an arm and a leg as some would have you believe, but it is my impression that iracing is not making a huge amount of profit from the current model. If this is the model that is required to provide the high quality service that it does, then so be it.

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