It is really a saying. This time yes or this time no, this is not like that virus and the facemasks, which starts or ends all in a minute prefixed by a man or a woman from a government palace. This is more a feeling that we, the users of this simulator, have been suffering for a long time.
iRacing is not the only one that suffers the wear and tear, as it is something widespread in this little universe. No one knows how to face the next step of evolution and they only know how to finance themselves by continuously releasing cars and tracks. The North American title is our protagonist, but it could be Raceroom, Automobilista 2 , Assetto Corsa Competizione or even rFactor 2. All of them release new content frequently, but the price that the ones from Massachusetts have in theirs is starting to be abusive. Why now and not before? Let’s see, since 2008 when these people started working hard with the backing of a blank check, the methods of working, data collection, licensing, scanning and implementation have changed enormously. To the naked eye many of them have fallen by half. Times have been accelerated and if we used to be able to receive a track and a car every 3 to 6 months, now we are seeing new tracks every three months accompanied by a couple of cars.
I don’t know about you, but my days are still 24 hours which I dedicate to getting a healthy minimum of sleep. I even work sometimes so I can buy cookies and other groceries at the supermarket. Mastering one car at a competitive level takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. Mastering several is already something worth mentioning, so when the supply far exceeds the demand, users have a lot of competitions and dead rides that we have barely driven with that feeling of haste and with the consequent bad taste of having thrown the investment in the trash.
In just a few months we are receiving: the Toyota GR86, the Clio Cup, the Formula 1600, the Mercedes-AMG W13 E Performance, the BMW M Hybrid V8, together with the update of the FR500, as well as many other new circuits. All at the price of the super exclusive luxury product set in 2008 prepared for only a few thousand users, which has been increasing based on taxes and reducing discounts. Right now there are cars that have lasted us a year, with an increasing rotation in which those who do not last a season already have marked. A glut of series, most of them with laughable lengths full of people whose driving experience is reduced to GTA and are a real circus are not doing the user experience any better either.
So I’m not very clear about what my demand would be, because a reduction in prices would help to populate series and bring together all the users who are increasingly lost and more scattered with all this offer. Another would be to slow down the pace of content updates and address the myriad improvements it needs in terms of contacts, network code, performance or penalties. But it seems that subscriptions are not enough and that we will continue to buy throwaway cars excited by the novelty and ignoring empty series while looking for a real home to settle down in.
Well said, Gonzalo. iRacing definitely lends itself to mastering one, maybe two cars. We don’t need to keep throwing cars at the problem, at least in terms of creating more and more series. Would be nice to update some of the GT3 cars for example, but that’s effectively giving an existing series with strong participation a new lick of paint.
I do think new tracks help keep things from feeling stale.
This is why I’ve switched frim iRacing to RaceRoom. No sub and new content costs a fraction of the price charged by iRacing, especially if you pay with vRP.