This thread is huge and didn’t read all pages, but there are two points on Intrepid's post below that I couldn’t disagree more…
In my opinion if iRacing is successful, and I have no doubts it will be, Simracing won’t be in trouble at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. iRacing will start by gaining critical mass amongst simracers, but then will appeal to different markets and bring many new persons to our hobby, indirectly benefiting LFS. Of course, that is assuming LFS keeps developing, but as someone who’s around since version 0.1, I have big faith in Scavier. Scawen is a very smart man and I think he knows what needs to be done.
I agree that it’s inevitable that a portion of the most serious simracers jump from their current sims to iRacing, but simultaneously there will be an influx of new blood to the genre. As iRacing grows, showing its qualities and financial muscle, many more will be open to the idea of racing sims. Most of the younger persons don’t know, but in the early 90’s racing sims were big. Nowadays we have no airtime, but for instance F1GP was a hit; I remember magazines having previews, reviews, cover honours, and even TV shows showing it side by side with other top-sellers. There’s no real reason for our genre to be a niche.
Well, except one… profitability. And this is one of the things I’m more excited about. Hopefully iRacing will help change mentalities and make other developers sell their work at a more reasonable price. I said it many times before, and will keep doing so: LFS price is ridiculously low. Simracing stopped being attractive to the bigger developers because a sim can provide many hundreds of hours of entertainment, unlike most games, and that lead us to a swamp where the revenues were small.
It can be argued iRacing prices are high, but 8 euros per month is, what, 2 packs of cigarettes? A few beers? I look to my brother and he buys FIFA and Pro Evo every year, with a quite high price tag, and I sure drive more hours than he plays football. Paying for extra cars and tracks can be considered steep, and personally I’d prefer to pay a higher subscription than buying separate, but when I think it’s a one-time-payment, it’s reasonable. At least I won’t be paying for the same stadiums and players over and over, year after year. And well, I'm so slow I'm not even sure if I'd need to spend my 60 dollars bonus. lol
The service was designed to be noob friendly. While not simple to understand everything in a few hours, it’s easy to start. I’m actually very happy there’s no demo. We all know how the LFS demo is. Most persons trying it probably don’t have a great feeling about what we do. Demo’ing a service where the focus is on mutual respect and serious competition would be even more absurd. To try it for a few hours would only show the qualities (or lack of) of the sim, not of the service as a whole.
Regarding numbers, dunno what are iRacing expectations except their obsession with providing top quality in every field, but I’m happy the growth is programmed to be gradual. The last thing I want is to see wreckers ruining my experience. For that, only a very careful scrutiny of who is doing what works, and a typical launch would be a disaster. Hope LFS by S3 gets a stricter policy regarding that. Cruisers and drifters are bad enough already even when restricted to their servers, but wreckers deserve a very special place in Hell. I’d help carrying the wood to keep them warm.
In my opinion if iRacing is successful, and I have no doubts it will be, Simracing won’t be in trouble at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. iRacing will start by gaining critical mass amongst simracers, but then will appeal to different markets and bring many new persons to our hobby, indirectly benefiting LFS. Of course, that is assuming LFS keeps developing, but as someone who’s around since version 0.1, I have big faith in Scavier. Scawen is a very smart man and I think he knows what needs to be done.
I agree that it’s inevitable that a portion of the most serious simracers jump from their current sims to iRacing, but simultaneously there will be an influx of new blood to the genre. As iRacing grows, showing its qualities and financial muscle, many more will be open to the idea of racing sims. Most of the younger persons don’t know, but in the early 90’s racing sims were big. Nowadays we have no airtime, but for instance F1GP was a hit; I remember magazines having previews, reviews, cover honours, and even TV shows showing it side by side with other top-sellers. There’s no real reason for our genre to be a niche.
Well, except one… profitability. And this is one of the things I’m more excited about. Hopefully iRacing will help change mentalities and make other developers sell their work at a more reasonable price. I said it many times before, and will keep doing so: LFS price is ridiculously low. Simracing stopped being attractive to the bigger developers because a sim can provide many hundreds of hours of entertainment, unlike most games, and that lead us to a swamp where the revenues were small.
It can be argued iRacing prices are high, but 8 euros per month is, what, 2 packs of cigarettes? A few beers? I look to my brother and he buys FIFA and Pro Evo every year, with a quite high price tag, and I sure drive more hours than he plays football. Paying for extra cars and tracks can be considered steep, and personally I’d prefer to pay a higher subscription than buying separate, but when I think it’s a one-time-payment, it’s reasonable. At least I won’t be paying for the same stadiums and players over and over, year after year. And well, I'm so slow I'm not even sure if I'd need to spend my 60 dollars bonus. lol
The service was designed to be noob friendly. While not simple to understand everything in a few hours, it’s easy to start. I’m actually very happy there’s no demo. We all know how the LFS demo is. Most persons trying it probably don’t have a great feeling about what we do. Demo’ing a service where the focus is on mutual respect and serious competition would be even more absurd. To try it for a few hours would only show the qualities (or lack of) of the sim, not of the service as a whole.
Regarding numbers, dunno what are iRacing expectations except their obsession with providing top quality in every field, but I’m happy the growth is programmed to be gradual. The last thing I want is to see wreckers ruining my experience. For that, only a very careful scrutiny of who is doing what works, and a typical launch would be a disaster. Hope LFS by S3 gets a stricter policy regarding that. Cruisers and drifters are bad enough already even when restricted to their servers, but wreckers deserve a very special place in Hell. I’d help carrying the wood to keep them warm.
True. But I was referring to the price vs entertainment value. Sorry for not specify that. Compare a typical shooter and LFS. Since 2002 I enjoyed maybe 50 times more hours with LFS than with any shooter I've ever played, for the same price.
Someone already made this comparison, but check how much costs a movie ticket, or a meal, or a pretty much everything else with the cost of simracing software.
I believe he was meaning: piracy.
I certainly hope it's not pirated. Just because it doesn't have a demo or is subscription based doesn't mean it should be pirated. Nor because it has a higher price tag. In any case, I doubt it'll be. A service can't be pirated, in the same sense we can't "pirate" our way to ge a spot on a real F1 race.
Anyway, Simracing has an incredibly low price currently, and that's one of the reasons why it became a niche market, with dev studios not having a profit with these products. If it wasn't for the simracing passion of one visionary guy with rich pockets we'd probably wouldn't have this project. And until proven otherwise, choice is a good thing.
In the worst case scenario it'll fail, but at least the average guy (hopefully) will be with his mind more open to pay a decent price for a sim - and no, LFS current price is not decent, it's ridiculous.
If it does work, as I strongly believe it will, it will benefit the whole genre. I never understood the anger towards iRacing, as I don't understand how can so many "experts" give so definitive opinions about something without trying, or even knowing minimally.
Wow, really?
To compare aerial photography and GPS with laser scanning the way iRacing does it is just ridiculous. Their service may flop for many reasons (I doubt it fails - quite the opposite), but lack of accuracy isn't one of them. Who needs accurate models, right?
As LFS supporter I can argue that at least LFS tracks are fantasy, so in that sense they are 100% accurate, but to say that when modelling a real track aerial photography plus GPS are good enough, when at best the end result has a margin of error of meters...
I wonder if you read the previous posts?
Anyway, the argument is: finally someone will start charging a fair amount for an activity most of us (simracers) got used to have as nearly free, and indirectly and in the long run, all simracing products will benefit from this correction in cost.
Or if you prefer to get back to topic, I'm personally very happy that iRacing's lauch is approaching, the price seems adequate if their service meets my expectations, and I have little or no doubt it will be a success, benefiting everyone including LFS.
Of course, how could the devs want their product to develop at a faster pace in graphics, physics, or any other area, with other very skilled programmers working for them? ...
One thing is to be independent, another is have the means to grow at their own pace, but having the possibility to do so if desired. It's a choice, yes, but given the limited budget they know they have, because ppl are so used to have things for almost free.
That's precisely the point. LFS is too cheap. LFS users would have a better product if the devs had the possibility to charge a higher price for so many hundreds or thousands of hours of fun each user had in the last 5 years. In my case 64 months - for... 60$. How can this niche market evolve with ridiculous prices like this one?
Instead of a small 3 people team they would have the chance to hire more persons if considered adequate, and equally important, would be in a better financial position, which is more than fair for developing such great product.
What a sad and simultaneously funny thread. It makes me feel ashamed of being a simracer, and yet can’t help to laugh when reading some or most of the comments here, because they’re really ridiculous.
For the first time in many years a company will ask a decent price for an activity that has been the poor branch of gaming, and what’s the reaction of some?
“Oh, 9 euros per month for something that takes 10, 20 or more hours of my life every month is incredibly expensive! Rip-off!”
Just for the record, can someone mention a cheaper hobby? A simple night watching a 2 hours movie is more expensive.
Of course, it’s true that not all can pay such price as unfortunately everything in life, but if a person has a minimally decent PC AND broadband, 9 euros is not exaggerated IF the service iRacing will offer takes care of the simracer’s needs. And no, the typical product doesn’t, not even LFS in its current form, it simply gives user a more or less sterile environment where to race.
If this service will or not be something worthy of the price no one can say for sure at this point, we just need to wait and see. But let’s face it, the developers behind the project give pretty much 100% guarantee that the quality will be outstanding.
Can’t understand the hate towards iRacing and its business plan, really. I certainly hope they are very successful. It’s great for all current products, including LFS.
For the first time in many years a company will ask a decent price for an activity that has been the poor branch of gaming, and what’s the reaction of some?
“Oh, 9 euros per month for something that takes 10, 20 or more hours of my life every month is incredibly expensive! Rip-off!”
Just for the record, can someone mention a cheaper hobby? A simple night watching a 2 hours movie is more expensive.
Of course, it’s true that not all can pay such price as unfortunately everything in life, but if a person has a minimally decent PC AND broadband, 9 euros is not exaggerated IF the service iRacing will offer takes care of the simracer’s needs. And no, the typical product doesn’t, not even LFS in its current form, it simply gives user a more or less sterile environment where to race.
If this service will or not be something worthy of the price no one can say for sure at this point, we just need to wait and see. But let’s face it, the developers behind the project give pretty much 100% guarantee that the quality will be outstanding.
Can’t understand the hate towards iRacing and its business plan, really. I certainly hope they are very successful. It’s great for all current products, including LFS.
... the time when T1 crashes were almost a blessing, allowing to rest a few minutes from the frantic races.
Great work from the big three Devs.
Congrats.
Congrats.
A bit late, but still in time to give congrats to Vyk and the gang.
Kid is right, but truth is only some make that extra step to push simracing forward.
Kid is right, but truth is only some make that extra step to push simracing forward.
Again, great tool. :up:
Very useful.
Very useful.
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