26 replies to this topic

[William Keeling]

Thats the ticket! I love being able to hit grip limits so easily on cheap tires. Plus I find the soft suspension really fun. You can really steer it with the pedals! How much different is that SM suspension? I hear its a little under damped for those springs.

I run RA1s on it 205 up front and 225 in the rear but only get about 3500 mile on the rear.  I am using the VMAXX shocks so yes it is under shocked.  Still fun with 430HP.

[OrangeCrush86]

Interesting. It must be the new tech economy but the thing I’d be least likely to complain about is their pricing, last I looked anyway. The annual fee is certainly cheap and frequently discounted. Adding tracks is less than the cost of a decent lunch and a 1-time expense. And hosting a race is what, $0.50 per hour? No offense to you, but it has long been apparent that people really are getting massively spoiled, first with unlimited free content on the web and more recently 99 cent apps for their phones. Meanwhile, a complete bafflement to me is that they will spend hundreds per month for mostly garbage on cable TV.

 

I'm a programmer, and more than a casual gamer. The business model they have is purely to take advantage of their niche market.

 

I'm fine with a monthly fee and buying in game content, but charging to host a race is just a slap in the face. You can play World of Warcraft for $15 a month and you have access to thousands of hours of content for that price. If WoW added that you also needed to pay $2 every time you want to jump into the game for an hour no one would play it.

[Steve Scheifler]

Not quite a fair comparison, but you got the niche part right, and as with any narrow/specialty market you end up paying more exactly because there are fewer people paying, or you get less.

I’m a programmer too and I am impressed with their product and don’t begrudge them their profit. And I don’t underestimate what is required to VERY accurately reproduce real race tracks, and then update them over time on top of the actual programming. They are constantly updating tracks to keep them accurate, and adding features and functionality. Is there another comparable sim that fully supports the best VR sets? I can tell you they have done an excellent job with it. None of it is cheap and they need to recoup those costs from a relatively small number of users. You can drive all you like in test mode for free, and if you have a small group of 4-5 guys who rotate as hosts the real cost would be what, $0.10/hr? Sorry, I just can’t see throwing a tantrum over that. It might be worth calculating the cost per hour for actual pay TV, or movies if you still go to those, or any number of other forms of entertainment, like real racing.

Anyway, not looking to pick a fight but if you had contemplated a fraction of the number of possible small business ventures as I have over the past 40 odd years, trying in vain to figure how to make enough profit to justify the risk let alone the effort, then you might have a different perspective on things. I’ve got a list of gripes about iRacing but value isn’t one of them.

[OrangeCrush86]

I don't have to contemplate small business ventures, I have a small software company.

 

If they can charge what they do and get away with it that's great for them. I'm just amazed it's working. My subscription lasts another week or two, so if anyone on here is going to race I'll over steer the Global car and give up 5 spots if you don't mind.

[Danica Davison]

I don't have to contemplate small business ventures, I have a small software company.
 
If they can charge what they do and get away with it that's great for them. I'm just amazed it's working. My subscription lasts another week or two, so if anyone on here is going to race I'll over steer the Global car and give up 5 spots if you don't mind.

 

Do you have a facebook?  I am sorry but I have no idea what your name is ... but what pedals/steering wheel do you have? I have a cheap driving force GT, and it blows hard. However, when I go to the local indoor gokart track, they have full simulators rigs ... and it is like driving a real car.  Now, that whole sim rig setup cost like $10k and is way too much money, however, even a nicer set of wheels and pedals without breaking the bank (few hundred bucks) will be a YUUUUUUUUUGE difference.

 

If you have a facebook, I will add you to the Spec Miata iRacing page (its thsuper thsecret) and we go on all the time and guys like Preston Pardus, Justin Hille, John Allen, Michael Carter and way too many other names to count are really good at creating setups on there.  We go on all the time and will hopefully be starting our league up soon!

[Danica Davison]

And as far as the cost goes. It is so miniscule compared to ACTUAL racing. My cost to go to the Runoffs this year, and the last two wrecks I have had in the last 3 months, probably covers me buying every single car/track and hosting 4 hours every day, times three!  The $0.50 per hour is SO cheap to have a customized lobby to do whatever you want with.  I am a firm believer in "You get what you pay for" and I think that the pricing is fair.  Forza is stupid cheap at only a one time cost of $70 (plus new car packs) but you have so many window lickers on there that wreck you in every corner.  

 

You can't compare World of Warcraft to iRacing. World of Warcraft has roughly 5 million active users and is making close to $1 billion a year. iRacing has around 50k subscribers I believe. That is a big difference and must be treated a lot differently.

[Steve Scheifler]

I don't have to contemplate small business ventures, I have a small software company...

OK, technically I’m a small business owner too, I haven’t been an “employee” since 1997, but we are very small and mostly work for ourselves with the occasional sub-contractor. So I don’t really consider myself a business owner so much as being self employed.

But never mind our differences, take John up on his suggestions and offer. I get how frustrating the cars are to drive and I suspect that the longer you have driven a real car aggressively, racing or otherwise, the harder it is to master the sim. I was unable to complete even a slow lap at first and kept thinking it was the calibration of the gear, or crappy software, or something. At slow speeds the cars certainly seem to act in ways that you couldn’t even provoke out of a real one. I still don’t get that, but at speed I think the car dynamics are probably as good as they get. But, I still suck big time. Despite having a very good wheel and pedal set I just don’t enjoy it much so I didn’t put in the time to get better. Then I was sure that the Rift would be THE difference, and it certainly does help the realism and increases the enjoyment, but I still don’t make the time. ¯\_(シ)_/¯ Something tells me retirement won’t change that.

But obviously there are a lot of guys who have mastered it and some very talented racers have made a rapid transition from sim to real. I suspect that it more exposes raw talent in people who might not otherwise have dicovered it, than creating talent from the average joe, but there is no doubt that it and other realistic sims are a valuable training tool.

Sorry to ramble on mostly the obvious but I think there are a lot of people who share your experience and would benefit from sticking with it a bit longer.