tl;dr It comes down to hourly races, any day, any time, competitive, ranked, pickup multiplayer, series racing. Other sims and services need to understand that this is why we're all stuck to iRacing and nothing else really catches on, even if those sims are technically better.
I just dropped a bunch of cash on iRacing, a two year renewal, and two cars at $12 a pop, that I likely won't drive them enough to make it worth it.
Why in 2020 am I still giving money to iRacing without even the hope of ever owning what I paid for?
I admit, this time around, I sat on it for a few weeks when their 25% sale came on (it's on right now until December). My account expires in January but I knew the 25% deal has only come very rarely in recent years.
But I also thought about their recent improvements, a new tire model (which I just learned in physically modeled, like rFactor 2, not empirically modeled), surreal lighting improvements, 24h day/night cycles, dynamic skies and clouds (clouds morph, and they block out the sun as they pass between), continuous and noticeable improvements to ffb, some of the best AI I've ever experienced.
And I thought about what's to come. Rain, flat-spotting, maybe other weather like snow, and they've proven reliable on continuous improvements to tire model, ffb, AI, graphics, etc. And they also seem to produce a complete solution - not something half-baked. Not perfect, mind you, but not half-baked either.
I finally convinced myself it was a good enough deal and I don't regret renewing. I've certainly regretted one-time purchases of other sims.
But what really seals the deal is their implementation of multiplayer infrastructure: Series-based, recurring Hourly or Bi-hourly, ranked races, and usually with a full grid (of between 12 and 30 normally) . What this means in practice is that almost any time of the day you just load up iRacing and you can find a race that starts in the next few minutes, no exaggeration.
I do not understand how this is not understood by the other sims and multiplayer services like SRS and Simracing.gp. Maybe it is understood and they want to do their own thing, anyway. I get there are costs and logistics of spinning up that much compute power.
But from what I can see that way of racing is dying.
The next alternative to iRacing that implements the minimum viable featureset of iRacing multiplayer, among the proper sims, will have a massive market advantage against the other sims.
And if SRS or Simracing.gp were to bring hourly racing to multiple sims?
That's the dream.
PS. It occurred to me I should have been clear that the key to iRacing's hourly/bi-hourly schedule is that each and every series repeats on the hour or every other hour. This allows you to get into your favourite series any time of the day. For example, I might like MX-5, 488 GT3, and Radical SR8s, but I might not like and not ever really race other series. Users should be able to find their series at any hour of the day.
I just dropped a bunch of cash on iRacing, a two year renewal, and two cars at $12 a pop, that I likely won't drive them enough to make it worth it.
Why in 2020 am I still giving money to iRacing without even the hope of ever owning what I paid for?
I admit, this time around, I sat on it for a few weeks when their 25% sale came on (it's on right now until December). My account expires in January but I knew the 25% deal has only come very rarely in recent years.
But I also thought about their recent improvements, a new tire model (which I just learned in physically modeled, like rFactor 2, not empirically modeled), surreal lighting improvements, 24h day/night cycles, dynamic skies and clouds (clouds morph, and they block out the sun as they pass between), continuous and noticeable improvements to ffb, some of the best AI I've ever experienced.
And I thought about what's to come. Rain, flat-spotting, maybe other weather like snow, and they've proven reliable on continuous improvements to tire model, ffb, AI, graphics, etc. And they also seem to produce a complete solution - not something half-baked. Not perfect, mind you, but not half-baked either.
I finally convinced myself it was a good enough deal and I don't regret renewing. I've certainly regretted one-time purchases of other sims.
But what really seals the deal is their implementation of multiplayer infrastructure: Series-based, recurring Hourly or Bi-hourly, ranked races, and usually with a full grid (of between 12 and 30 normally) . What this means in practice is that almost any time of the day you just load up iRacing and you can find a race that starts in the next few minutes, no exaggeration.
I do not understand how this is not understood by the other sims and multiplayer services like SRS and Simracing.gp. Maybe it is understood and they want to do their own thing, anyway. I get there are costs and logistics of spinning up that much compute power.
But from what I can see that way of racing is dying.
The next alternative to iRacing that implements the minimum viable featureset of iRacing multiplayer, among the proper sims, will have a massive market advantage against the other sims.
And if SRS or Simracing.gp were to bring hourly racing to multiple sims?
That's the dream.
PS. It occurred to me I should have been clear that the key to iRacing's hourly/bi-hourly schedule is that each and every series repeats on the hour or every other hour. This allows you to get into your favourite series any time of the day. For example, I might like MX-5, 488 GT3, and Radical SR8s, but I might not like and not ever really race other series. Users should be able to find their series at any hour of the day.
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