iRacing=Not Grassroots Friendly

So I recently purchased iRacing and a 3-month membership. It is quite addicting and somewhat fun, not worth the money in my own opinion though, especially for what you get. For any membership you only get 2 cars and six tracks to start out with. Then if you want any additional content it is $15-25 for any one thing extra. Want a new track pay $15-25, want a new car $15-25, etc. I priced everything out if you wanted everything available plus a year membership and it is $631......WTF. GTR, GTR2, rFactor, Race, Forza2, Gran Turismo games, etc. Way better bang for the buck. Plus for all those PC based games you can download all those same cars and tracks for free! After only spending $20 at the most on the game. $631 for a video game, that's over a quarter of my $2009 budget....

Oh well maybe you can save some money, you get $10 credits for signing up, and more if you sign someone else up, plus you get 10-20% off if you buy stuff in packs...whoopty do.....I feel like I've been sucked into something like a pyramid scheme.

Live For Speed is as good as IRacing, if not better, and is light years ahead of any of the ISI (rFactor, GTR2) based "sims" as far as realism goes.The only downside is a lack of real tracks, but the ones the developers have come up with are a hoot.

Meh, you people are too berkeleying hung up on "cheap = grassroots"

I agree..the quality is best I've seen..and the fact that I can practice on 'real tracks' makes it a winner.

It's a lot cheaper than track time.

And consider this... I got Guitar Hero for Christmas. 50 for the game/50 for a guitar controller. Gonna need another guitar, and I'm definitely going to tap out the 70 songs on the game I got in no time.. by next Christmas, I'll have 300 bucks in this game, easy.. Pretty much enough to buy that Gretsch Corvette I've been eyeballing. And I guarantee GH won't make me a better guitar player.

In those terms, iRacing starts looking a bit more reasonable.

You are paying for what you get though. It's not like other sims where they refer to GPS for modeling the track (which took all of maybe a few minutes to obtain the data), and refers to simple physics and driver input to design the handling characteristics of each car. Where these methods can yield very good simulation, they are light years behind what I-Racing has done.

I-Racing models each track with a LIDAR scanner, each scanner costs over $150,000, plus the cost for a crew to go to the site and spend a few days scanning at each track. Then you have to pay to borrow a car, for the equipment to analyze and measure it's characteristics, and the track time data to aid in modeling the physics of each car individually. The cost of developing this sim is very likely in the millions of dollars. And that's what you pay for, and that's why each car and each track is priced like so. Because unlike other games, adding another car or another track isn't that simple.

It is the most accurate simulation, some may feel better than I-Racing simply because you aren't used to a video game having those characteristics. But there are no other racing sims that have put this much effort into accurate reproduction.

The only thing I did not like with IRacing (free month from SCCA) was the feedback was very vague and couldn't get a really good feel for it. I had a DFP at the time, and have since gotten a G25, maybe it feels better?

And consider this... I got Guitar Hero for Christmas. 50 for the game/50 for a guitar controller. Gonna need another guitar, and I'm definitely going to tap out the 70 songs on the game I got in no time.. by next Christmas, I'll have 300 bucks in this game, easy..

Dude, you don't have Rock Band? Weak.

blaze86vic wrote: You are paying for what you get though. It's not like other sims where they refer to GPS for modeling the track (which took all of maybe a few minutes to obtain the data), and refers to simple physics and driver input to design the handling characteristics of each car. Where these methods can yield very good simulation, they are light years behind what I-Racing has done. I-Racing models each track with a LIDAR scanner, each scanner costs over $150,000, plus the cost for a crew to go to the site and spend a few days scanning at each track. Then you have to pay to borrow a car, for the equipment to analyze and measure it's characteristics, and the track time data to aid in modeling the physics of each car individually. The cost of developing this sim is very likely in the millions of dollars. And that's what you pay for, and that's why each car and each track is priced like so. Because unlike other games, adding another car or another track isn't that simple. It is the most accurate simulation, some may feel better than I-Racing simply because you aren't used to a video game having those characteristics. But there are no other racing sims that have put this much effort into accurate reproduction.

I am afraid that while they might have the best sim on the market, the market for the best sim isn't large enough at price they ask for it when there are plenty of "good enough" alternatives for a whole order of magnitude less money. I suspect a price restructuring is on the horizon - or they will disappear.

I like the idea of laser mapped tracks and accurate car modeling much in the same way I like the idea of a 100" plasma screen TV.... I make due with 42" and for better clarity... I go outside and look at real stuff. 9 mos out of the year I drive Summit for real... in the winter I drive an rFactor historic 911 RSR because its good enough for me and isn't $250 a year.

I drive sports car GT. A very old game but it fills the need for track time. The graphics are terrible but I put forth that I really want the "feel" of driving and you dont need the best graphics to do that. In fact when on the track I dont actually see much other than what is down the track. What Is important is the feel of the car. In essence you have to imagine the g's and the only way that this is going to happen is if the feedback through the wheel and the visual ques work together. Does this make sense?

The other reason why I like Sports car GT is that it uses real tracks. I would be willing to pay for regional packages. In essence divide the country into the regions that say SCCA uses or you could put together a EMRA package. That would be both useful and fun!. I would pay for that.

Anything but Excite Bike and Pole Position are not grassroots.

Forza did a damn good job of replicating real world tracks that are pretty damn accurate, that game comes with all kinds of cars and tracks and it's only $30 now. Plus you can mod your car, design your own paint scheme, and allows you to completely set cars up the way you like, not by 2 degree increments on camber, toe, caster, ect like in iRacing. The Microsoft wheel is craaaaapp compared to any of the logitechs I own, but I bought my Xbox for $300, Forza2 for $30, Xbox wheel for $90, and I get all of what iRacing has and more for less than everything in that game....well throw in an extra $50 for a year of Xbox Live that I can use for any other game. Plus you have to have a computer system and a wheel to run it so add those costs in as well, over the course of a couple of years with new membership fees maybe some new cars and tracks that are out, you are looking at spending over $1000 on a VIDEO GAME lol.

Guitar Hero on computer for the win...d/l free songs instead of paying. You can't use iRacing to play other video games either, you can play other games with your Xbox.

Like the Civic we used for the $2008 Challenge, I can go get some seat time with it at an autox or whatnot, and still drive it to go get groceries if needed, can't do that with your Solstice in iRacing.

Not saying it isn't a great game, I am just stating that there are CHEAPER options out there that are just as good if not better....which is the whole point of GRASSROOTS correct? Having something that is just as good if not better for cheaper.

I'm not sure that the sims that you mention are better, however.

Driving in forza isin't anything like driving a racing sim on a PC.

D/l porn, and giving your self a quickie isn't seat time for the real thing. You can be a master at the game and get on the same track and be horrible. You say it's cheaper than seat time, but you don't get the same experience playing the game as you do when you are actually in a car driving around the track itself. In the end it's still a simulation.

If I simply had to pay $156 a year and could download all the extra content I wanted to then great, I wouldn't be making a fuss. But when I saw $25 to download Daytona and another $25 for Sebring, a brick was almost shat by I.

Per Schroeder wrote: I'm not sure that the sims that you mention are better, however.

I understand you have to promote the game as they are advertising on the site and you work for GRM, but give me a break dude.

Those sims are not really comparable to iRacing because they lack the element of realism that makes iRacing unique. It's a simulation, yes, but a damn good one. Perhaps the best.

A cheaper alternative would be Live for Speed, as Monkeywrench mentioned. It offers similarly realistic physics but no real tracks or cars. The demo is free, and the full version costs about $35.

http://www.lfs.net/

DirtyBird222 wrote:

Per Schroeder wrote: I'm not sure that the sims that you mention are better, however.

I understand you have to promote the game as they are advertising on the site and you work for GRM, but give me a break dude.

Yeah... GTR2, rFactor, LFS... all have a better physics engine than the underpinnings of iRacing. I am sure they improved it but in reality the story of iRacing is a guy who loved sims lost his shirt on Nascar 2003 and is trying a new deal to get his money back. I hear it is really great - but not from seasoned gamers, from new guys who haven't played a lot of sims. The existing sims are pretty good - maybe not for learning intricate details of a real course but for competing against buddies online over a few beers on a Saturday night... good enough and cheap. Lord knows... the real race car eats enough money.

This reminds me of another from year's past...

Ferrari F355 Challenge by SEGA was pretty damn good as a sim. A bit dated, but whenever I go to Dave and Buster's I always spend at least a few bucks on it. You think 2 cars and 6 tracks is frugal? How about one car and four (if I remember correctly) tracks?

Luke wrote: A cheaper alternative would be Live for Speed, as Monkeywrench mentioned. It offers similarly realistic physics but no real tracks or cars.

...and in the full version the editor lets you set up autocross courses in the parking lot. I used it after my EVO class to set up a sim of what I did that day.

I think I purchased LFS like six years ago, paid 20 British Pounds for it lol. That was after one of the main Sports Car GT websites went down for the count.

Put me in a Solstice at Limerock, let me run 20 laps, then I'll go play iRacing for three strait months, put me back in the same car and see if my lap times improve and I mean I can run laps at a consistent time. Then I'll be satisfied for the price I've paid jking

Unless you're racing in traffic, you're missing a huge part of what makes iRacing so good. That said, I agree that I'd like a little more variety in the car selection, but the race experience is second to none IMHO.

There are plenty of games that look good and are fun to play. I got tired of playing on imaginary tracks with unrealistic physics and getting crashed out by other drivers; iRacing differentiates itself by forcing people to drive (more) like they would in real life. You can't crash out the guy ahead of you without paying a penalty; lots and lots of time with Forza 1 and 2 have made me really appreciate this aspect of the iRacing system.

...at least it did before my super zero-dollar, hand-me-down game rig stopped working. Maybe after tax season I'll be able to put enough coin together to get back on track.

It's not well known - may not have been released in North America - but Rally Championship 2000 is real enough to scare me. It's the British Rally Championship. All of it. All the stages. They're not extra-wide like Colin McRae Rally, they're skinny and rough and if you hit things, you hurt your car. I remember hitting a rock once and seeing my light pod fly off the car, leaving me to finish the stage with flickering main headlights. Oh, and since they're real stages, they'll take you 20 minutes to finish.

No traffic, of course, other than the odd pass by/of another car. But that's rallying.

Trying to thread your way down a narrow logging road, knowing that you have to go faster in order to stay ahead of the other guy, but trying not to crash or beat up the car too much - it's fantastic.

Maybe you guys are missing the point of what I was trying to say. For what you get and the money you pay....Just like I said to one of the dudes at the PRI show with a top dollar racing sim rig, I just purchased a brand new car for less than that....and with a few modifications and a SCCA license I could run in Showroom stock.