I never understand why people want to bring their selection down to just "the ultimate sim" and only play this game.
I have all games mentioned above installed as well and I enjoy them all. Every sim has something unique and as long as not all dev teams combine the best of their work into one super game I will keep playing and enjoying all of them
GSC is very good, but to request a refund on rF2 is just a bit silly imo as that game will eventually offer a lot that GSC can't offer at the moment (rain, wind, huge selection of vehicles and tracks etc)
Just curious. Asking for a refund is that purely an economical decision?
I understand your perspective as well, let me try to expand on my points and reasoning, and try to answer your questions:
Why "the ultimate sim"?
The best analogy i can think of is learning to play an instrument. I can either learn how to play and get good at playing the drums, the guitar or singing. But not all at the same time. If you are not a gifted person you should probably focus on one at a time. To me it's similar to racing sims. I only have so much time i can devote to my hobby so i want to pick one game and try to get good at it. All of them can be fun, thats for sure, but if you are like me and would like to focus on one at a time, then why not pick the "best" of them for your particular taste? It is *my opinion* that GSC is the best *for me*.
The "best sim for me" at different moments has been: rfactor, iracing, gtr evo, nkpro, ferrari virtual academy, iracing.... Depending on what I am into at the particular moment.
I gave NASCAR & Indycar a try in iRacing.. super fun! but i suck at it... I did 1000 laps at Monaco with nKpro, there was a time i tried day and night to get close to Fernando Alonso's time on FVA, etc etc. But for now GSC is the one. I am a little burned out of online racing, I am tired of the same tracks for the past year... there are a bunch of reasons why I picked this one, and I am sure things will change later on when i upgrade my pc and new games and updates come along.
Regarding the refund for rf2; my PC (core2duo e7500 @ 3.4GHz and an nvidia gtx465) struggled to go above 45FPS on medium settings so things looked crappy to be honest. Poor reflections & shadows, stuttering at parts, force feedback felt horrible over the kerbs, cars looked "cartoony" etc. I fully understand the fault is my pc and not the game, I need a faster pc. So in the meantime why spend hundreds of dollars on gear to get the rf2 beta to run well, when I could just play that other sim that looks better, feels better and gives me more entertainment.. and I already own it and just got a massive update for free? That's why i decided to wait.
I look at it this way: Simbin is the glorious past of the ISI engine, GSC is the present and rF2 is the future, and the future looks great.. but I am not there yet. See what i mean?
Also, my niece was having her 15 birthday this past weekend so i gave the $45 to her for her night out with her friends... seemed money better spent there instead of more video games.