No demo = they can suck my balls.
At least with rFactor you could try it out and then get a refund.

I wonder if it will appear in 'the usual places'

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

To be fair you can't judge by those small pictures, but here is a huge one. I think the comment about it looking exactly the same as Nascar 2003 is a fair one. Most of the GPL mods I am having to download again look twice as good.

So far we've seen pics like this that imo are probably rendered (alot of games pics are, even if the games actually look quite good), but nothing like a video to show it off...

I'm tempted to get the trial to take some screenshots/videos, but i'm even more tempted to acquire my "free" demo from ISOHunt.

EDIT - From their FAQ...

"06. How expensive will this be?
Pricing has not been set, but it is our goal that no one with real interest in simracing will be excluded."

Erm, i have a "real" interest in sim-racing but after a £150 G25 and a decent PC, i doubt I could afford £80 a year for the almost 3 years of entertainment LFS has given me for £24, rather than a mind-boggling £220...!

Judging by the way they've been proceeding so far it seems like they have a set business plan. I'd be slightly curious to know what that'd be because from the looks of it it seems like an attempt to make a niche-within-a-niche market.

So far, IMO, the model LFS follows is the best I've seen to date in terms of "effort" required by the user to get licensed, online and playing plus the set and clear deal of what you get for your spent monetary units.

This isnt aimed at the casual gamer and never was. I laugh whenever people say the graphics look realistic. If you think thats what real life looks like you really need to get out more...
But in saying that the graphics arent that bad just nothing amazing.

I would put money on it having an extremely realistic driving model just not $13 a month

I got this email this morning too.

I'd just like to know exactly what they think the subscription is paying for. Unless they have a load of paid moderators trolling through every server 24/7 there is no need for a subscription model.

So far there's been no public testing and no ETA of any demo, so do they seriously expect all potential users to shell out $20 for a single month's trial without any unbiased opinions? I know it's not exactly a lot of money, but seriously.
Unless (and I seriously doubt this) they're going down the Motor City Online router, with randomly generated upgrade parts and the ability to earn game cash to spend on parts.

The only opinions on the site so far are those of sponsors and developers, and they are going to say what they can to sell the product. They'll have some serious work to do if they want anyone to actually pick up a copy.

Cracking never seemed so justifiable...

Sorry, but there's no way I will ever pay rental to someone who wants to occupy my hard drive space with a niche product. You've got to give me a whole lot more than a few tracks and a (largely) US-centric selection of vehicles. Doesn't matter how accurate the driving model, the business model is something I'll just laugh at.

and here's me thinkin rockband was expensive lol

I gotta say $12 a month I COULD manage if I absolutely loved it to death. However, I play LFS periodically (that is 2-3 weeks period of playing and then a 2 month pause... 2-3 weeks period of playing and then a 2 month pause... etc). I cant imagine paying the yearly subscription and then playing it 3-4 months total... I feel like someone is trying to rob me... And then I have to pay extra for additional content!?!? Which I don't get to use after my subscription ends!?!? $15 for an additional car and $15-$25 for a track??? If they charged me $1 per car which I get to race for ever, then I would do it... But $15!?!? Whole games cost that much!!!! pffffff....

EDIT: Oh yeah, and good luck trying to get a community together at those prices. Everybody's not as rich as USA, Norway etc... U'll get maybe zero to a single racer from Estonia I would think.

Ridiculous pricing, especially since there is no free demo to try out. 20 bucks for a month to even check if it´s worthwile is ridiculous.
I hate subscription based gaming anyway, I´ll never give into it. I want to buy a game/sim and be able to play and use all of it´s features and be done with it.
I have a hard time believing they will be able to build a community this way, especially since it already is a niche market.

I suppose with the pricing thing it would get rid of a lot of the "lets drive like lindsey lohan on crack" driver's from the servers tho.

Quote from super_hoops1967 :

I suppose with the pricing thing it would get rid of a lot of the "lets drive like lindsey lohan on crack" driver's from the servers tho.

:something:something:something

Quote from nihil :

Sorry, but there's no way I will ever pay rental to someone who wants to occupy my hard drive space with a niche product.

"Niche product" - key phrase. Subscription games might work when they're mass-appeal drudgefests, but when your market is as limited as this one I don't see how it will work.

It would have to be the mother of all racing sims, but I don't think it will be. I think they're gambling on the added value of "career" stats recording to be their USP. I can live without that and keep my beer money, and I would imagine most other people feel the same.

We'll find a way to try it, just a matter of time.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

All they need to do is release a free demo that limits you to 30 minutes, with one car on one track.

Worst idea ever. If LFS, GPL or Nscar2003 had such free trial I wouldn't have bought any of those. You need more than "30minutes" to get used to the sim and learn the details. Time based demo of anything is imho worst of all demo options, ever.

Imho, 100€ per year (plus the entry fee of one month) doesn't sound bad at all. But for that money I want a sim, not something that is marginally better than rf and LFS combined. And from what I've learned from nkpro, I will never ever ever preorder anything anymore .

I hope there is free demo, but if there isn't one I'll probably pay and play then.

But seriously, 100€ per year is the base price for all subscription based games. Actually it is less than the norm! And for a sim it doesn't sound too much. The real question is what you get for that money .

Btw., you guys noticed the iracing dollars thingie? I wonder what those iracing dollars do. I'd like to see an option (like in Eve) to be able to pay the subscription fees with "game money", although I have my doubts that iracing would allow that. Or maybe you could earn those dollar by racing...

Still, 20 bucks for good replicas of Mosport and Infineon for each sounds damn intriguing . If they are available with that price.

It all sounds good so far

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I can live without that and keep my beer money, and I would imagine most other people feel the same.

And despite all the laser tracing, the video of Lime Rock park still looks a lot like the GPL version...

Quote from Hyperactive :

Still, 20 bucks for good replicas of Mosport and Infineon for each sounds damn intriguing . If they are available with that price.

If they are available at all... The links on the site go to the actual circuit's sites. There are only four tracks that show any evidence of completion so far (and one of those, Silverstone, is apparently still being worked on).

I wouldn't hold my breath for the others.

Quote from Hyperactive :

Imho, 100€ per year (plus the entry fee of one month) doesn't sound bad at all.

Funny how it is... A McDonalds sales girl in Finland probably earns more money per month than I do as a financial controller in a quoted company in Estonia...

Imagine if it was 400€. That's how it feels to me at our wages

We all know that LFS is the exception rather than the rule but this is just crazy.

LFS costs me ~36 Euros in 5 years (including demo times + new cars + new tracks + online play + lfs world etc.)

for iRacing it would cost:
just an Example
5 new cars = $15 * 5 = 75$
5 new tracks = 20 * 5 = 100$ (~20$ per track)
5 years of online playing (if you pay for a complete year) = 13$ * 12 * 5 = 780$

All together for 5 years: 955$ = ~658 Euros

ROFL

I would say better spent that amount of money for real life track days or buy LFS another 18 times.

Their marketing analysts must live on the other side of the moon if they really think people will/can pay it or they are not really convinced by their own product and expect only a few people to pay for it.

Reading the article it says that the extra content is bought with your 'free iRacing dollars' if you choose to progress slowly over time and not want it all in one go to begin with. Getting a yearly sub gets you iR$60 free.

I also suspect that there will be local taxes to add on, much like with Steam games.
So another 17.5% to us Brits.

Don't forget that you also have to pay for extra content. The $156 a year will give you 60 "dollars" of credits, which equals 3 cars or tracks... Makes LFS seem like the bargain of the century.

Given the choice of cars and tracks, it's targeted at the North American part of the simracing market. That'll be a "niche inside a niche inside a niche" market.

Say, doesn't the iRacing logo look remarkably like a racer who is being mugged?

The actual cost is irrelevant to me simply because it's a subscription service. Paying for additional content doesn't bother me either (it's the same as paying £12 to upgrade from S1 to S2), but if I lose the right to play the game as soon as I stop paying, I'm not interested.

:chairfall at the price!
I would like an overview of their marketing plan - where do they think they can get a user base at this price level?
Or maybe they anticipated the US$ fall?

Cars on the website also look Disney-ish, not a bad achievement

I also skimmed through their press articles, and came across this major breakthrough in racing simulation:

"Lime Rock is really good," he said, noting that the simulation's accuracy was such that "the downshifts are better when you do a good job of the throttle blip."

Now THAT for sure would be a major sim breakthrough... 10 years ago

Quote from Hyperactive :

Worst idea ever.

Worse than no demo and $20 for a one month trial? I suggested a time limit because they clearly value their product so highly that they wouldn't put up with people playing the demo all the time instead of forking out for the full subscription. Perhaps they have friends in the whitehouse, because Bush just chucked about $1,500 at the average American to cover up printing a load of money for his best mates.

Potenitally the most interesting race sim for years. What a waste.

Considering those viewing this thread are probably the niche they are aiming for I would be pretty concerned about the reaction to the pricing if I was them. It's several times the price of a good sim and it looks like an arcade game.

It'll be a flop with little community to race against. I'm sure they'll change their minds and charge a flat fee in the end though.

Quote from PLAYLIFE :

Funny how it is... A McDonalds sales girl in Finland probably earns more money per month than I do as a financial controller in a quoted company in Estonia...

Imagine if it was 400€. That's how it feels to me at our wages

Obviously I'm personally in one hell of a better situation than some poor blokes in Russia or US. But that's how it is. Like you're in much better situation than some poor Mexican in his teepee smoking pot with Kev. Imho sim racing is still dirt cheap if you compare it to any other hobby.

And I think 10-20€ per track is reasonable, just like it would be for LFS as well: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=15859. Of course, running racing seasons on 10 different locations gets costly quickly just as buying new cars can get. Still, I wouldn't hesitate a bit to throw 50€ for our LFS devs in exchange for 3 new tracks. Provided they are good ones, not some "new configs".

The main thing is how good the sim is. It is based on nascar2003 (?) and if the rumours are true it is not really a revolutionary... But with current sims, you don't need anything revolutionary to be better than anything else. LFS physics, better cars and real tracks would be a killer combo already. Just add some realism features and it is a revolutionary!

No free demo (no matter how limited this demo would be) = fail.

It's one thing to make a questionable decision like making the demo offline only, but no demo at all means that they exclude a large part of their potential customer base by default.