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Used to drive iRacing, but quickly realized how expensive it gets if you want to race even one series each season. Combine that with the sterile feel of the driving and it was just super easy to jump over to ACC and never look back. It blows my mind how this pricing model still allows them to keep the player base they have, but each to their own I suppose. On top of the absolute money you lose, the thing that really cracked the camels back was the subscription model. Subscribing for a month at a time is super expensive, while committing to a year just gets super stressful when you don't feel like driving. Having a subscription run on the background while you go out in the summer time keeps it always on the back of your mind and truthfully takes away from whatever else you want to do. I suppose I'm just not committed enough.
If it was just the 100 and something euros each year, I'd say "alright, a bit overpriced, but it does give you quality content and I'm willing to spend some on my hobby". However, then also needing to pay each track and car, to a price which other sims offer a whole pack of 3 to 4 cars PLUS a track for, is just not reasonable imo. I also don't just wanna drive the same 2 cars over the next 3 years.
Probabaly you need to put that into perspective: 1) Don't Rate Software Prices by other Software's Prices. The Development-Cost differs very much by a quite large margin. 2) In my Opinion considered iRacing is actively developed for so long already and still shows no signs of being shutdown, its not that expensive. 3) Most people are upset by software prices as they feel they dont get anything for it. On the other hand, most Hardware is massively overpriced (Especially Rigs). But somehow most ppl. tend to spend 2-5k for their Hardware, but aren't event willing to spend $500 for their software to run the hardware. Considered Software is just that much harder to build than any Hardware could ever be, thats pretty rude to say "its so expensive". 4) in my opinion, software-prices decreased more and more, so that most games arent even able to run off their sales prices. Therefore games prices are not a good reference for price in general, as the competition is just way tighter, than anywhere else.
@i.am.revolve 1) if you costs are twice or x3 as high as the competition, while the product is not better the same amount, you are doing something wrong. 2) I'll give you that, and then take back the subscription alone is not too expensive, which still leaves all the bonus costs for other content. 3) one wrong doesn't justify the other, and at least you permanently own hardware and can resell it once you don't need it anymore 4) kinda what I said in 1) At the end it's just your and my opinion. Too expensive for me, alright for you and thats okay
@@ghosto_o797 Yeah sure, all fine :) Its just a thing you hear all day as a software developer, so as its my job i just want to remind people that software costs around millions while hardware is pretty cheap to develop ^^
@@i.am.revolve hardware costs the company per item, while software you "develop it" once and sell copies of it( or as being done in iracing just a permit to use a copy of it for some time), and if you count the power used to run the servers as a running cost, then the factories also need power to continue operating.
@@justagermangamer101 mate my w**d habit costs more a year than this does lol, people moan that it’s expensive and then are out at the weekend doing blow and h***ers
Yea and most have spend 5 times that amount on their depreciating rig already. So it is not that expensive when you consider the fact that you are getting the singular best online racing sim.
@@jasonsitu It's pretty much a scam tho. I got ledenon and it was used in 2 races or something the first season ? Like in a gt4 / falken. next season it was NOWHERE to be found. Literally not a single race. The season after (6 months after release) made it free with no refunds :) 15 USD + taxes rip off.
@@Kpaxlol I see your point. Paying for a low usage track and have it go free stings. But relative to all other grown up hobbies, IRacing is very cheap. I don't play golf but went out with my coworker once. I spent 200+ dollars for 4 hours of fun. I have 10s of hours of fun for every track I spent money on and it is only 12 bucks. The online aspect of IRacing is bar none and I'm willing to put up with some BS because I do believe they put the funds to good use.
So pick a car that you don't like and pray that there is a race available when you do feel like driving while the subscription keeps on running, gotcha. Kinda just kidding, but I do think you need to be super invested (or rich) for the model to make any sense.
I'm new to iracing - built a new PC almost specifically for it. I was expecting expensive but I'm pretty pissed off at the 'wasted' money involved. I bought 3x tracks and 3x cars for my first purchase, picked some of my favourite cars and tracks. So far, only of those tracks I've been able to drive, and the car combo I picked changed the next day, and I've not been able to use it. So it turns out, I can't even do test drives using my bought track/car combos? that content alone, was the price of a standalone AAA game. The racing is of course fantastic but such a paywall of choice.
@@AlexeiWatson on iRacing UI, there's a TEST DRIVE button on the top left. There you can select the car, track and conditions of your race. You can do just test drive or set up a racing.
@@AlexeiWatson Just a tip: choose the series you like the most and see which tracks are most common. E.g: I like GT3 and Porsche cup. At the beginning of each season, I see the tracks for the season and see the last 3 seasons (GT3 and Porsche cup). Sometimes iRacing includes a track that is not often used, like Jerez, Magny Cours etc. but Road Atlanta, Road America, Spa, Sebring, Daytona etc are always racing on those series.
@@oldmanhavefun I’m in the same situation as you. I got the bmw gt4 and 296, so I’d be able to run m power, gt4 fixed, and 296 fixed. Along with the free tracks/cars. Then I used irbg to figure out what the most popular tracks were for the new season. I’d honestly wait on buying a new car or track and stick to rookie series for now. When the new season gets announced then use irbg to figure out what tracks would be used the most on the series that you run the most. I run mx5, pcc, m power, gt4 fixed, and 296 fixed. I bought a lot of the popular tracks this season and hopefully plan to only buy a 2-3 tracks next season.
bro if you compare iracing with the other racing games on the market where it's a one off purchase of, in the case of games like AC literally 5 bucks, iracing is OBJECTIVELY way too expensive, regardless of your opinion the market it is at does NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM require a subscription base system, IN ADDITION to having to purchase each car and track seperately. it's quite literally, factually, way too much money that no one else is asking
@@yurilopes420 I think the subscription model makes sense and allows for live content and continuous improvement. Buying the individual cars and tracks on top of it is just ridiculous.
@jenHry-ng3pw okay that's a very valid argument. as a live service game, that's not supposed to have sequels, yeah, that's a nice strat I wouldn't mind the paying for each, cause like, idk it's like dlc, but fuck me, 15 per?? I'd accept like 1 buck per pack of 3 or something.. 15 per is wild, unacceptable edit: I'm broke, btw 😂 but still
See, thats the thing, if it was that objective, this wouldn't even be a conversation. AC is leaps and bounds more unrealistic in almost every sense than iRacing. Now to the average gamer/racer, that's probably not going to matter a whole lot, but things like accurately laser scanned tracks and cars are something that AC doesn't have, so obviously there's no comparison there to the amount of money iRacing spends to the amount Kunos spent on AC. ACC is where it gets a bit more shaky, but even then, as someone who despises GT racing (i enjoy watching, not driving) what does ACC offer me? Sure, they have laser scanned tracks and cars, but you're stuck with only GT and 22 tracks in total. iRacing has 120+ tracks and every sort of vehicle under the sun that you could think of driving. Factor in that a laser scan of a race track costs on average $3-400k and you can see where only having 22 circuits, over the course of a few years, Kunos can make up that difference in sales. With 120 tracks and more being added all the time, because its live service, iRacing can't rely on "initial sales" to drive the cost of their new content. So yes, I see you're point 120%. To the average consumer, iRacing is an absurd waste of money, and i would legitimately turn anyone away that isn't serious about sim racing. A laser scanned track and car compared to a model isn't going to make or break anything in terms of how the average person feels about the game. iRacing isn't gunning for the average consumer, though. They're clearly aiming for people who take it very seriously, and that's okay, too.
One thing I forgot to mention is that as you see iRacing enter the simcade market, you're seeing the savings from the cost of iRacing being passed on to their other projects. NASCAR 25 will likely cost $70 next year base price, no sub, and because iRacing has done and paid for all of the scans necessary, you aren't going to have to pay for individual content in that game. They will have all the real scans because iRacing already has access to it. I wanna be clear, im not just defending iRacing for charging out the a**, but there's reason behind it and its not just blatant madness.
Game was launched in 2008. If you subscribed it on todays best value of 100 dollars for 2 years (including 50% discount), and never canceled your subscription, then you have already paid for it 800 dollars of subscription, to race mazda. It would have been cheaper for the players to buy the whole game for 200 dollars every 5 years, and get more cars and tracks on "basic" pack. Can you get it? 200 dollars for a game, when 60 dollars for nowdays AAA seems expencive. And thats the cheap option. Essentially, yearly subscription, is you buying the game again for the AAA price, to get nothing new. And what happens after spending 800 dollars for the past 16 years? Nothing, you cant race your Mazda, because you havent paid them enough for it already. What Iracing does is using the addictive method of "I paid so much already, I cant lose it, so I will keep paying".
I get your point but they do add new cars/tracks if you just pay the subscription. The latest dev log looks like a BMW M2 is coming next year at no extra cost.
@TheDirtyLime how many of them can you actually race on multiplayer? Is getting M2 for 100 dollars subscription considered a good price? They are ludicrously expensive, and they get away with it because they are the only ones doing full racingsim game (ACC is GT only and closer to semisim, rfactor is just dead). Then again, its not the best sim game all around, the netcode is terrible, for the price you should get world leading quality all around, but launching a free car from time to time seems enough to keep the crowd happy. On their webside they say they have 275 000 users worldwide. Its either bullshit or they get 27,5 milion dollars a year on subscription plus each of them propably bought at least a couple of track and cars. You can get to Mars with that budget, but best they can offer is a 15 dollars single car dlc. And maybe tire rework every 10 years.
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Used to drive iRacing, but quickly realized how expensive it gets if you want to race even one series each season. Combine that with the sterile feel of the driving and it was just super easy to jump over to ACC and never look back. It blows my mind how this pricing model still allows them to keep the player base they have, but each to their own I suppose.
On top of the absolute money you lose, the thing that really cracked the camels back was the subscription model. Subscribing for a month at a time is super expensive, while committing to a year just gets super stressful when you don't feel like driving. Having a subscription run on the background while you go out in the summer time keeps it always on the back of your mind and truthfully takes away from whatever else you want to do.
I suppose I'm just not committed enough.
If it was just the 100 and something euros each year, I'd say "alright, a bit overpriced, but it does give you quality content and I'm willing to spend some on my hobby". However, then also needing to pay each track and car, to a price which other sims offer a whole pack of 3 to 4 cars PLUS a track for, is just not reasonable imo. I also don't just wanna drive the same 2 cars over the next 3 years.
Probabaly you need to put that into perspective:
1) Don't Rate Software Prices by other Software's Prices. The Development-Cost differs very much by a quite large margin.
2) In my Opinion considered iRacing is actively developed for so long already and still shows no signs of being shutdown, its not that expensive.
3) Most people are upset by software prices as they feel they dont get anything for it. On the other hand, most Hardware is massively overpriced (Especially Rigs). But somehow most ppl. tend to spend 2-5k for their Hardware, but aren't event willing to spend $500 for their software to run the hardware.
Considered Software is just that much harder to build than any Hardware could ever be, thats pretty rude to say "its so expensive".
4) in my opinion, software-prices decreased more and more, so that most games arent even able to run off their sales prices. Therefore games prices are not a good reference for price in general, as the competition is just way tighter, than anywhere else.
@i.am.revolve
1) if you costs are twice or x3 as high as the competition, while the product is not better the same amount, you are doing something wrong.
2) I'll give you that, and then take back the subscription alone is not too expensive, which still leaves all the bonus costs for other content.
3) one wrong doesn't justify the other, and at least you permanently own hardware and can resell it once you don't need it anymore
4) kinda what I said in 1)
At the end it's just your and my opinion. Too expensive for me, alright for you and thats okay
@@ghosto_o797 Yeah sure, all fine :)
Its just a thing you hear all day as a software developer, so as its my job i just want to remind people that software costs around millions while hardware is pretty cheap to develop ^^
@@ghosto_o797 they run black friday sales at least, ypu can get a year for 55 or 2 years for 100 dollars
@@i.am.revolve hardware costs the company per item, while software you "develop it" once and sell copies of it( or as being done in iracing just a permit to use a copy of it for some time), and if you count the power used to run the servers as a running cost, then the factories also need power to continue operating.
..Now you’re giving me even more reason to irresponsibly spending my money…
@@justagermangamer101 mate my w**d habit costs more a year than this does lol, people moan that it’s expensive and then are out at the weekend doing blow and h***ers
There is no bang for your buck. You gotta spend $500-ish
Yea and most have spend 5 times that amount on their depreciating rig already. So it is not that expensive when you consider the fact that you are getting the singular best online racing sim.
@@jasonsitu It's pretty much a scam tho. I got ledenon and it was used in 2 races or something the first season ? Like in a gt4 / falken. next season it was NOWHERE to be found. Literally not a single race. The season after (6 months after release) made it free with no refunds :) 15 USD + taxes rip off.
@@Kpaxlol I see your point. Paying for a low usage track and have it go free stings. But relative to all other grown up hobbies, IRacing is very cheap. I don't play golf but went out with my coworker once. I spent 200+ dollars for 4 hours of fun. I have 10s of hours of fun for every track I spent money on and it is only 12 bucks. The online aspect of IRacing is bar none and I'm willing to put up with some BS because I do believe they put the funds to good use.
Good video! Spent way to much on cars and tracks I rarely used
More people need to buy and race the Clio. The 296 is the F4 of sports car. Its like the purge.
Tldr: get the 296 and some popular maps. With 3 available series you will have content with high chance
So pick a car that you don't like and pray that there is a race available when you do feel like driving while the subscription keeps on running, gotcha.
Kinda just kidding, but I do think you need to be super invested (or rich) for the model to make any sense.
@ yeah its too expensive but this is the method if you dont want to spend too much
Poor Clio 😔
They’re so rare, it seems like no one races with them 😔
@ one of my favourite cars, since it’s similar to my IRL car that I currently drive (on dirt) and similar to the one I will drive on asphalt c:
@@TheDirtyLime this is not true. If you can race between 18:00-22:00 GMT the you will get decent Clio races, especially 20:00 Wednesdays.
I'm new to iracing - built a new PC almost specifically for it. I was expecting expensive but I'm pretty pissed off at the 'wasted' money involved.
I bought 3x tracks and 3x cars for my first purchase, picked some of my favourite cars and tracks. So far, only of those tracks I've been able to drive, and the car combo I picked changed the next day, and I've not been able to use it. So it turns out, I can't even do test drives using my bought track/car combos? that content alone, was the price of a standalone AAA game.
The racing is of course fantastic but such a paywall of choice.
@@AlexeiWatson you can do test drive whenever you want, with the content you bought.
@Jehud you can? How? Like I said I'm new to it, but when I had a click around I couldn't see how without hosting a server
@@AlexeiWatson on iRacing UI, there's a TEST DRIVE button on the top left. There you can select the car, track and conditions of your race. You can do just test drive or set up a racing.
@@Jehud that's pretty funny... Well, disregard a lot of my complaint then haha! Thanks :)
@@AlexeiWatson Just a tip: choose the series you like the most and see which tracks are most common. E.g: I like GT3 and Porsche cup. At the beginning of each season, I see the tracks for the season and see the last 3 seasons (GT3 and Porsche cup). Sometimes iRacing includes a track that is not often used, like Jerez, Magny Cours etc. but Road Atlanta, Road America, Spa, Sebring, Daytona etc are always racing on those series.
I agree the Clio is not so popular, but it IS fun af ._.
Hi, I currently in D license roadcar. Could you suggest with car/track must buy? I would like to race nurburgring in future.
I would say the next step is Ferrari Challenge but it is a lot tougher and aggressive to drive than the MX5s.
@@oldmanhavefun I’m in the same situation as you. I got the bmw gt4 and 296, so I’d be able to run m power, gt4 fixed, and 296 fixed. Along with the free tracks/cars. Then I used irbg to figure out what the most popular tracks were for the new season.
I’d honestly wait on buying a new car or track and stick to rookie series for now. When the new season gets announced then use irbg to figure out what tracks would be used the most on the series that you run the most. I run mx5, pcc, m power, gt4 fixed, and 296 fixed. I bought a lot of the popular tracks this season and hopefully plan to only buy a 2-3 tracks next season.
Can you try the cars and tracks before buying them?
If you have them downloaded, you can try the cars on tracks you own during server maintenance
bro if you compare iracing with the other racing games on the market where it's a one off purchase of, in the case of games like AC literally 5 bucks, iracing is OBJECTIVELY way too expensive, regardless of your opinion
the market it is at does NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM require a subscription base system, IN ADDITION to having to purchase each car and track seperately. it's quite literally, factually, way too much money that no one else is asking
@@yurilopes420 I think the subscription model makes sense and allows for live content and continuous improvement. Buying the individual cars and tracks on top of it is just ridiculous.
@jenHry-ng3pw okay that's a very valid argument. as a live service game, that's not supposed to have sequels, yeah, that's a nice strat
I wouldn't mind the paying for each, cause like, idk it's like dlc, but fuck me, 15 per?? I'd accept like 1 buck per pack of 3 or something.. 15 per is wild, unacceptable
edit: I'm broke, btw 😂 but still
See, thats the thing, if it was that objective, this wouldn't even be a conversation.
AC is leaps and bounds more unrealistic in almost every sense than iRacing. Now to the average gamer/racer, that's probably not going to matter a whole lot, but things like accurately laser scanned tracks and cars are something that AC doesn't have, so obviously there's no comparison there to the amount of money iRacing spends to the amount Kunos spent on AC.
ACC is where it gets a bit more shaky, but even then, as someone who despises GT racing (i enjoy watching, not driving) what does ACC offer me? Sure, they have laser scanned tracks and cars, but you're stuck with only GT and 22 tracks in total.
iRacing has 120+ tracks and every sort of vehicle under the sun that you could think of driving. Factor in that a laser scan of a race track costs on average $3-400k and you can see where only having 22 circuits, over the course of a few years, Kunos can make up that difference in sales. With 120 tracks and more being added all the time, because its live service, iRacing can't rely on "initial sales" to drive the cost of their new content.
So yes, I see you're point 120%. To the average consumer, iRacing is an absurd waste of money, and i would legitimately turn anyone away that isn't serious about sim racing. A laser scanned track and car compared to a model isn't going to make or break anything in terms of how the average person feels about the game. iRacing isn't gunning for the average consumer, though. They're clearly aiming for people who take it very seriously, and that's okay, too.
One thing I forgot to mention is that as you see iRacing enter the simcade market, you're seeing the savings from the cost of iRacing being passed on to their other projects. NASCAR 25 will likely cost $70 next year base price, no sub, and because iRacing has done and paid for all of the scans necessary, you aren't going to have to pay for individual content in that game. They will have all the real scans because iRacing already has access to it.
I wanna be clear, im not just defending iRacing for charging out the a**, but there's reason behind it and its not just blatant madness.
Game was launched in 2008. If you subscribed it on todays best value of 100 dollars for 2 years (including 50% discount), and never canceled your subscription, then you have already paid for it 800 dollars of subscription, to race mazda. It would have been cheaper for the players to buy the whole game for 200 dollars every 5 years, and get more cars and tracks on "basic" pack. Can you get it? 200 dollars for a game, when 60 dollars for nowdays AAA seems expencive. And thats the cheap option. Essentially, yearly subscription, is you buying the game again for the AAA price, to get nothing new. And what happens after spending 800 dollars for the past 16 years? Nothing, you cant race your Mazda, because you havent paid them enough for it already. What Iracing does is using the addictive method of "I paid so much already, I cant lose it, so I will keep paying".
I get your point but they do add new cars/tracks if you just pay the subscription. The latest dev log looks like a BMW M2 is coming next year at no extra cost.
@TheDirtyLime how many of them can you actually race on multiplayer? Is getting M2 for 100 dollars subscription considered a good price? They are ludicrously expensive, and they get away with it because they are the only ones doing full racingsim game (ACC is GT only and closer to semisim, rfactor is just dead). Then again, its not the best sim game all around, the netcode is terrible, for the price you should get world leading quality all around, but launching a free car from time to time seems enough to keep the crowd happy. On their webside they say they have 275 000 users worldwide. Its either bullshit or they get 27,5 milion dollars a year on subscription plus each of them propably bought at least a couple of track and cars. You can get to Mars with that budget, but best they can offer is a 15 dollars single car dlc. And maybe tire rework every 10 years.
Just race spec Miata.