James Cook said:
It's obvious that the resources required to produce high quality content (in a reasonable timeframe) will have to increase considerably if the genre is to move forward.
No it's not obvious. There are a number of technologies available which can be used and are being used to produce games/content that do not require the investment of millions of euros/dollars. The genre can move forward just by the smart, appropriate application of technologies and people into projects that give users (casuals or the more dedicated ones) what they've been waiting for (and not what companies believe will yield higher financial returns).
If, like me, you're a fan of GT3 racing then you can wait years for a 'free' GT3 mod (of questionable quality) or pay an insubstantial amount of money to enjoy the ADAC GT Masters in R3E - and play it now!
First off, one can be fan of GT3 racing and enjoy the content on several sims we already have. Physics wise, we have people from motorsports (former pilots, race car engineers, data analysts), and people from many different areas (engineers/physicists/programmers/artists) producing high quality work on tracks, cars, shaders, tools and even sounds.
Secondly, you are literally stating modding-based content is not up to whatever standards you believe paid content has. It's obvious you believe "premium content/paid content" to be the
be-all end-all of the today's simracing - curiously something so
frantically voiced by the most vocal investors of pCARS when the ability to mod was being discussed in 2012 (which they viewed as a potential loss of revenue) both here and at NoGrip.
Finally, the simracing community was built upon content of your so-called "questionable quality". For years, the vast majority of simracers were quite appreciative of the modding effort (be it for rF, GTR2, Race07 or even Shift 1&2), all of a sudden investors on one hand and those who don't quite appreciate mods try to change that. Curiously, it's thanks to that "
questionable quality" content that a not-insignificant number of modders/artists are working now or have been working for several development studios (Codies, Eutechnyx, SRW and SIMBIN are just some examples).
Very much to the point: not everyone can spend the amount of money required to buy all the tracks and cars offered by some sims/services (iRacing and SRW are examples) or the never ending stream of DLC's coming out of assembly lines of some powerful studios (PD and T10 come to mind).
The premise I'm-willing-to-pay-more-for-high-quality-content is not for everyone. The genre surely can survive with good, solid and honest content that is accessible to fans without the need to spend a lot of hard earned cash.
My 2 cents.