Is iRacing worth it?

I have rfactor 2 and AC i am thinking of getting iracing just for the open wheelers is it worth it just for that?
If so how much would it be for 1 year membership and the open wheelers?
 
All depends what you expect. My membership expired last year as I do not have much time to race, so I thought I save the money. Result, I only hotlap in AC.

iRacing might not be the best sim on earth, I think AC is doing better here, but iRacing is about the online experience, if you ask me, that's difficult to beat. But in case you have the time and opportunity to be a league racer, rF2 might be the better and cheaper option. I hate rF2 just for its UI. But if you check out the club here at RD, I do not see full grids a lot in the sign ups.
 
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You can try it one month for free. I did some calculations when I had my trial and to buy all the tracks for a season I liked plus 1-2 cars(for the big discount) plus 1 year membership for 50% (which is the only option that is worth it imo) it went up to 200$ dollars.
And I considered things like the 4-7$(20$ in a year) that you get for racing a full season or the other "loyal" promo for 1 year of subscription)

And the best part is that the next season there will be a track rotation!!!
(very important and I never saw anyone mentioning it, nice mechanism to keep you spending all the time)
which means some of the tracks I bought will not be used and I will have to buy more.

The fact that I need 100$ and upwards only for the tracks and the fact that if I stop paying I don't have access to all my content was a huge no no for me.

Some people find it ok, others find it cheap, but there is no denying all these mechanisms that are tied together with the "chains" of cars, tracks, licenses are intended to keep you spending.

Imo iracing would be a huge success if you only had to pay for content or the subscription like in all other mmo's (yes I consider iracing an mmo)

But both.. boy some people are greedy.

Just my 0.02$
 
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The subscription really feels like nothing next to the price of the content. If they halved the cost of individual items then it would be a lot more user friendlier, but well. At least people who invest that ammount of money into a game are bound to take it serious at least one bit.
 
The subscription really IS next to nothing. $10 per season for racing 1 race-per-week in 2 series = $40 credits given per year. Thats around the price of a year's membership in the 1/2 price Black Friday deal.

Funny how some people will quite happily pay $50+ for an arcadey F1 game that gets outdated each year, with the multiplayer experience consisting of kids forming roadblocks and questioning your mother's freetime activities..!

In iRacing you can protest someone for swearing on mic - that is where your money goes. Bargain.
 
Totally agree Mark.

Wait for the Black Friday promo @50% off and you get a year of guaranteed scheduled online racing against other drivers for less than the price of a new videogame. The restrictions about what you can race and where, at first, feel too constraining but you will quickly rise - or fall - to your own level of (in)competence.

Check out a car and schedule you want to run and you can space out your purchases accordingly. Once you get out of Rookie - the options open up. I am really enjoying the Skip Barber and Spec Ford Racer cars and have learned a lot about car control and racing awareness from iRacing.

I putter around as time permits during the week and race on weekends. As I gain experience and familiarity with the tracks, I'll be able to race during the week too.
 
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yep, i play about an hour a day on average in the evening to relax after work, so probably sth. like 350h a year since i play no other video games at all.
i always buy into the 50% off programme and keep all other sales to three items at one time, taking 10% off the fearsome single item prices. This I did for two years at the start of each new season. after my second season i started being able to get the full-season credits for two or more series.
so the numbers are roughly like this: 50$ a year + 4 times 3 items of ~13$ each (39$) minus 10% (35$) equals 190$. minus 4 times 10$ participation bonus comes up to 150$ a year. divided by about 350 hours of play I pay about 43c or 35€cents for an hour of iRacing each evening. I honestly do not consider this an expensive pastime.
One has to be a little strict, though, bundling sales, only buying stuff when you know the new schedules and finishing the series you started to get the benefit.
 
i will be limited to the time i can use it because of work i wonder if i can get my moneys worth.
Only way to really know is to try it. I find iRacing more valuable when I have little time because I know I can put in ~30 minutes of practice and jump in the scheduled race and have a pretty decent time (nobody driving backwards, most everyone able to keep their car on track). It's more costly, but I don't have the time to devote to a 'free' alternative like a league, so it does become better value for money. YMMV, of course.
And the best part is that the next season there will be a track rotation!!!
(very important and I never saw anyone mentioning it, nice mechanism to keep you spending all the time)
which means some of the tracks I bought will not be used and I will have to buy more.
Before you place all the blame on the business side, I think you should look at the users. Back when we voted on schedules and iRacing did whatever the poll results were, tracks changed as frequently (or more often!) than currently. Some people want more change because otherwise they get 'bored' racing the same tracks each season.

Overall, the D-class series use at least 3 free tracks per season (I wish they used more, but again iRacing tried to do this and the users pushed back) to help costs. And for the most part you can pick out the most used tracks for the series you're looking to run and have solid selection every week. My suggestion is not to aim for every track a series runs, but having tracks to complete 8 weeks (for points and credit) in several series each season. It's more cost effective, if that's a concern.

But I agree that the rookie experience and costs are the two biggest areas for improvement for iRacing. I feel like I've gotten my moneys worth now (and pretty much my entire time subscribing), but the costs are mostly upfront. Personally, I wish iRacing did more with microtransactions to push the costs to the hardcore longtime members (who are most willing to pay more), but again that's not a popular suggestion among members...
 
Its 2014, we havent all figured out that iRacing is not worth it physics wise becuase it is the probably the worst per dollar available?

Competition wise it is worth it, sort of. It has a structure but to call it any cleaner than Xbox Live is misguided. You cant count on the protest system to be consistent or unbiased unfortunately.
 
Its 2014, we havent all figured out that iRacing is not worth it physics wise becuase it is the probably the worst per dollar available?

Competition wise it is worth it, sort of. It has a structure but to call it any cleaner than Xbox Live is misguided. You cant count on the protest system to be consistent or unbiased unfortunately.

WOW you are clueless...in my opinion
So much hate towards iracing, we are lucky to have many good sim car games.
Yes iracing is so worth it, you get what you pay for.
And ac is worth it to, great sim.
 
I play iRacing for 2 weeks now and i,m hooked....
If you drive with your brain and not trying to win the race in the 1st lap the race's are very good.
The physics are good , remembers me of NR2003 , gpl etc .
The main thing of iracing is the online race expirience and thats very good.
After the rookie race's the racing gets better and better , but the rookie race's where also nice to drive (again , if you have patience to wait for mistakes from other 1 lap fast drivers)
Just qualify for a race and most wreckers are behind you.
I'm glad i did buy a year , 50% off , money well spend :)
I bought a few tracks that are used in more series so i can race in another serie when there's a track on scedule i don't have . ( i race for racing and not for championship)
So my advice , give it a try and enjoy racing

gr Ro
 
I tried iRacing.

Initially I was hooked, then came the realisation of the true cost of it. Added to the fact that if you don't pay for the subscription then you have no access to anything.

Works for some, but for me, I cannot justify the cost of the cars/tracks.
 
Two very important things to know about iRacing:
1. It's not cheap!

2. There is a world of pain to push through in the "lower" ranks before the racing becomes epic. Rookie and Class D has a disappointing level of skill from drivers, understandably. But that improves as you stick with it and by the time you get to Class C and above -- particularly B and above - it is a fantastic experience.

Elsewhere, MP is the very best in a racing simulation. Huge grids quite often and bullt-proof stability.

Graphics I think are great and the New Tyre Model Version 5 - which is now on many of the cars - is fantastic. Not all cars have it yet but it has made a major difference. Cars feels planted and they don't lose grip ridiculously.

Tracks are fantastic - whole plethora of fully laser-scanned versions from top end racing. COTA and Monza due this year plus an important update to Silverstone.

Only bugbear is the lack of environmental realism. Fixed lighting is tedious (although you can set foggy conditions before race) in a race but this is set to change with the introduction of DX11 at some point. The sim is already on 64-bit for future-proofing.

Fully enabled driver-swaps for long endurance races are also due this year which will push interest in iRacing up another whole notch. Been in the works for a couple of years but considering the amount of work to do will no doubt be very very good.

One final point, nothing happens quickly in iRacing in terms of adding new simulation features (adding content is a different matter and happens quite frequently) so you need to be in it for the long haul.

But, in short, iRacing is a vital addition to the simulation armoury.
 
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Rookie and Class D has a disappointing level of skill from drivers

A guy I introduced to iRacing got out of 'Rookie' in a couple of days by using his head.You include 'D' Licence as disappointing. I couldn't disagree more. Although I have raced nearly every car on the service I have gone back to the 'D' Skip Barber purely for the quality of wheel-to-wheel racing. My videos in the video section will back me up.
 

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