Anybody here smoke? Its 2-3 packs of smokes.
Anybody go to the movies? Its about the cost of an movie and a soda.
........you get my point
It is quite a bit more expensive, if you don't think you can afford it or if you think $0.75/a day is too much, then don't pay. If you're not going to pay and in turn, not going to drive, whats left to discuss? If you cannot afford and/or disagree with the price AND are interested in iRacing e-mail them. Pissing and moaning/writing nonconstructive and repetitive posts is fairly annoying and doesn't add anything to the thread's discussion.
A few positives to the payment system:
Monthly renewals: Forces the iRacing staff to give the customer a reason to return. You buy any other sim and thats it, if the demo or reviews convinced you to purchase it, they have no real reason, from a business standpoint, to do anything extra for you. Obviously if there is no support, the word would get out and new customers would be turned away from purchasing the product.
The price pays for a large staff, which does many things for the customer's side of the iRacing. Some of them are:
- Funds to continue research and development on physics, graphics and online code as well as all the other aspects of the software.
- People who are dedicated to specific aspects of the sim (sales,rules,requests,physics,graphics,online code... so on and so forth) make it easier and quicker to fix problems and help the sim racer.
- This software was developed to be a two-function type of product. Made for both the sim racer and also drivers looking for a development tool as well as allowing companies, teams and individuals to use the software and/ or have content created. Because of this, iRacing not only gets feedback continuously from simmers and real-world drivers but also from the teams and companies that design,work on,set-up,own and race the cars and the tracks.
- Theres staff dedicated to the community and competition side of iRacing, something no other sim has.
- Having software that real-drivers use because of the realism, that is NO different from what the regular sim-user has (no notepad "fixes" for grip levels) gives iRacing a very respectable and enticing product for anyone interesting in racing or simming.
No, I don't work for them. Trust me, if you look at it (the driving,racing and community), the price isn't as crazy as some people are saying.
But some people complain about anything new or different, if you don't want iracing then who cares how much it costs...you're not paying for it. After all, the other non-subscription sim's are still around and still going strong, to each their own.