Sim racers are an easy target

[Rob Every]

Now bear with me here, this is going to wind a few of you up.

I just added up the RRP of everything for this game on Steam, no offers, and it adds up to £85.

I am guessing most of you think that is good value, but I beg to differ.

It is only good value because a lot of you maybe compare it to other games or Iracing, but in general terms let's compare it to other games.

I am currently playing God of War, that has no DLC, and retail sets you back about 40 quid. Full game, no addons, Some games I imagine cost far more or are similar price wise.

Sim comparison F1 2020 say, all content 64 quid. Automobilista season pass is 80 quid. I cant work out DR 2.0 but I think if you bought everything from release full price it was over 100. The basics games gives you a few cars and tracks for 40 odd quid, now that is a total rip off if you ask me and its because the game was about a third of a game on release.

Why is it that sim racers are so easy to exploit? I know we are not alone here, most games do it now, but with Dirt Rally 2.0 really showed what exploiting a tiny population can rake in if you di it. Literally selling old content as new. You are so easy to manipulate, new physics, tyres, Oh yes we'll pay 40 quid for 8 tracks and about 10 cars! Bless.

Fair enough this game is new, it feels new, and the content is good and you can get it on sale as you can now for cheaper.

But the fact remains sim developers really do exploit sim gamers, and why? Because on the whole most of you are desperate or dumb enough to just forget what games ought to cost. And pay whatever they want you to pay. Just like SKY, Amazon, Disney, Netflix etc.

Now that's a harsh comment I know, but take a look here, if you always do it, guess what happens, that cost keeps on rising, more DLC keeps coming and they market it as unmissable and you MUST have it, but really is it such a good idea? Eventually a game with all content will be 200 quid plus and you are making companies vast profits who in the past would have to work harder for their money, you make it easier and easier for them to exploit you.

Kunos announced recently they had made 100 million recently, couldn't they just release a bit more with the game from new instead of basically releasing half a game? Wouldn't that be refreshing?

 

[RasmusP]

What would happen for instance if say books or albums suddenly got to the point where you paid a tenner for them online, but only got half the content.

You mean CDs that went from 20 songs for 10€ to 8 songs for 20€?
Or buying a hardcover book for 20€ and when you would like to switch to your ebook reader, you have to buy it again?

Go the the cinema, they tell you to leave halfway through the film and come back next week for the same price again

Oh you mean paying extra for blockbusters, then paying extra for 3D that you didn't ask for only to have the not-distorted/clipping audio in the better room that costs another extra?
And then paying 10€ for water because you're not allowed to take your own water with you?
And let's not forget to pay extra for the higher framerate it was originally shot in so it isn't stuttering and blurry in the 3D you (again) didn't ask for

I agree the product is good, but you don't suddenly pay 35 grand for a 20 grand car do you, what's the matter with you lol!

Oh you mean like the Volkswagen Polo that my mom buys every 15-20 years?
Don't have the exact prices on hand but in general it went from about 6k to 13k to 24k...

I agree with you on dirt rally 2.0. That pricing Roadmap got a massive amount of hate though. I think over 20 pages in the corresponding RD articles!

AC and acc bring new content every now and then. Sometimes for free, sometimes not.
For both games I think the famous bang for the buck is okay!
Rf2 is a bit different with a track costing 10€+ and the cars being kinda expensive too.
The details are worse than for ac or acc so it's not that great.
Still, I doubt the developers are all rich boiiis.

Maybe the heads of developer teams are, but not the hard working employees.

So now my post ends with: it's a chain reaction and it's getting worse like a lot of things over time.

But to be honest I couldn't care less about some simracing titles costing 20 or 80 bucks when I'm using them for more than 300 hours.

What I do care about is that I got screwed by life and only really start to get a good job at the age of 30.
Doing the calculation, without some little "wonder" we won't be able to buy a house anywhere near our city we grew up in. (my fiancé is working since she graduated and is earning more than the local average)

We're unhappy with our current rental apartment and there's no alternative.

So we gonna need to find a new place to get happy and start a family and then gonna pay the rates until we die. Or maybe our kids will have to pay the rest of the rates, who knows.

That's the things where all this "everything becomes more expensive" becomes important. Not some increasing game prices that are actually good value compared to the time we spend with them.

 

[GeekyDeaks]

The replies in this thread are the very definition of "Stockholm syndrome".

it's not got quite as bad as some of the threads I have seen around here. I think if the topic can be constrained to the business practice of the developer/publisher and not degrade into insults of the consumers, things tend to remain a bit more sane and civil

 

[GeekyDeaks]

And then paying 10€ for water because you're not allowed to take your own water with you?

What, you don't sneak them in your Fiancé's hand bag?!? You need to buy her a bigger one. My missus can smuggle in a veritable feast....

 

[RasmusP]

What, you don't sneak them in your Fiancé's hand bag?!? You need to buy her a bigger one. My missus can smuggle in a veritable feast....

Of course we do! Drinks, snacks! I mostly visit the cinema during the colder months and my jackets have a lot of bags... I once sneaked 3x 1L mezzo mix into it in my jacket

But it was about how things "are supposed to be". I mean a lot of people "sneak" games, music, books etc onto their devices

 

[maelstrom]

That point is not the actual price, more the pricing structure and the way the game is released as a base game then with loads of DLC priced to achieve a higher profit.

Whilst I agree with you when looking at some other games. I don't think that you're being fair to ACC. The "base game", as you refer to it, contains everything that's required (cars and tracks) to simulate the original racing series this title was designed, and advertised, for. The subsequent DLC (which are almost like games in their own right) are purely optional and expand the game into areas it wasn't specifically meant to cover. You're not being forced to buy it in order to continue playing the game - you don't need any paid DLC to race in the GT World Challenge (previously Blancpain) series. Patches and major updates/enhancements to the game are released regularly and cost nothing. Again, unlike some other games, you're not being abandoned once Kunos gets your money.

For the price of a single car or track in iRacing (several of which are usually required to race in a particular series), you can get a number of high quality tracks or cars with ACC DLC. More to the point, they're yours to keep after you buy them - you don't have to pay an ongoing subscription on top of the original purchase price to be allowed to continue using them. This is where you should be looking for a an example of a business model designed to separate gamers from their money on a regular basis.

 

[Rob Every]

Iracing is such a different set of rules though, it's not really a fair comparison, you know what you are getting into I hope if you sign up and are made aware of the costs.

I do think gamers can be singled out a little bit though. But we are all selfish in our own ways. If you enjoy something you will pump money into it regardless if you so wish.

I guess my final point would be. If you allow games to get ever more expensive, devs to release ever more low car and vehicle count games, then keep doing what you do, it will only get more and more pricey.

I am in the minority and always will be, you can tell by the comments on here, as if you point out to anyone that them spending their money on something is bad (which it is for costs increased undoubtedly) you will be vilified obviously. People get very protective of "their thing"

I am fine with that, but remember when your game costs over 100 quid next year then 150, then 200 that this is where it started.

And ask yourself one question. Would you as a punter pay that £85 up front for this game when it was released? Without really knowing if there would be 4 lots of DLC. Knowing that you had not tried it, had no idea what it was like? If you would, then I fear for your sanity lol!

 

[GeekyDeaks]

And ask yourself one question. Would you as a punter pay that £85 up front for this game when it was released? Without really knowing if there would be 4 lots of DLC. Knowing that you had not tried it, had no idea what it was like?

Personally no. I actually waited until I could get a discount bundle with the Bathurst DLC included. I can see why people could get grumpy about this though, since Kunos gave out the first updates for free, then last year decided to release several paid DLC in close succession. Slippery slope money grab or balancing development budgets? It only makes me less likely to buy full price and wait

I am in the minority and always will be, you can tell by the comments on here, as if you point out to anyone that them spending their money on something is bad (which it is for costs increased undoubtedly) you will be vilified obviously. People get very protective of "their thing"

It doesn't help when you use inflammatory words to attack the people buying this stuff like 'desperate, dumb, lemmings, and gullible'. You are only likely to get similar responses back and completely derail the topic. It also undermines your own argument since this is a common tactic people use when their argument lacks substance, so you'll get lumped into the same boat

 

[Gunja]

Without reading 3 pages, i'll risk it by writing what someone else probably already did.
When putting a value on a product, it makes a big difference if a studio makes a title that requires all the assets to be licensed or makes RPG with zero licensing fee to pay.

 

[Gevatter]

I am in the minority and always will be, you can tell by the comments on here, as if you point out to anyone that them spending their money on something is bad (which it is for costs increased undoubtedly) you will be vilified obviously. People get very protective of "their thing"

You started this, now don't play the victim. Your point just isn't that strong, since it comes down to criticizing people for spending their own money on a hobby they enjoy, or trying to criticise Kunos for releasing 57€ worth of content over the span of almost two years since release.

I am fine with that, but remember when your game costs over 100 quid next year then 150, then 200 that this is where it started.

Oh and the finger wagging. Where does this notion even come from? ACC was 25€ in beta, and 45€ on release. the first paid DLC was released 9 months after that and war 15€ for four tracks.

 

[Gergo Panker]

 

[RasmusP]

I am fine with that, but remember when your game costs over 100 quid next year then 150, then 200 that this is where it started.

This is easy. Then I'll just continue racing in AC, ACC and rF2 with the content I already have. Or buy one or two DLCs for 5-15€ instead of throwing money at a greedy developer that thinks I'd pay 200€ for their game

 

[Rob Every]

The point being that I would guess if Kunos asked punters for £85 straight up as it costs for everything right now on Steam I doubt they would sell anywhere near as many copies. yet I bet a far higher percentage will pay over time, its the same amount of money, just over time.

it is not the price as I have stated more than once, it is the way the game is designed, released and then extra money squeezed out of people.

Not every game is built this way people, just putting it out there.

And the more you carry on paying over the odds, even if you believe it is value to you, the more it will continue, to the point where even you might question it.

it will NEVER go back, and that to me is a damn shame for gamers all over the world, most of you have been duped, and it's all your own fault!

 

[RasmusP]

The point being that I would guess if Kunos asked punters for £85 straight up as it costs for everything right now on Steam I doubt they would sell anywhere near as many copies. yet I bet a far higher percentage will pay over time, its the same amount of money, just over time.

it is not the price as I have stated more than once, it is the way the game is designed, released and then extra money squeezed out of people.

Not every game is built this way people, just putting it out there.

And the more you carry on paying over the odds, even if you believe it is value to you, the more it will continue, to the point where even you might question it.

it will NEVER go back, and that to me is a damn shame for gamers all over the world, most of you have been duped, and it's all your own fault!

This argument doesn't make much sense with Kunos as an example though.
With ACC they created a complete package. When it wasn't ready, it did cost a lot less than at release.
Yes, the "release date" should have been later but they were under pressure for the season starting etc and publishers want to get the 1.0 out asap.

Anyway when buying the base game you had the full Blancpain world series to race. You need to realise that the content creators are only content creators, not bug fixers or anything else (mostly).
So they need to work on new content while the rest of the team is fixing bugs, working on the next feature update or maybe the next game.

The alternative to releasing content dlc's over time would be to get ACC in 2022 for 85€. Why would anyone want that?
The other alternative would be to see the roadmap of planned DLCs, be able to spend 60€ instead of 25€ and getting the content later.
That's what AMS 2 did afaik.

But there are two problems: the roadmap may change if someone from the real world licensing management decides to not give permission. Then the content needs to change although you already paid for it in advance.
Also as a consumer I would rather spend lower amounts of money over time and see for each DLC independently if I really need it or not.

I might pay a little extra in the end (or not because of sales or bundles) bur I keep my money in my own pocket for longer and can decide when the content gets released.

 

[Serge.M]

I think the OP has misunderstood the business models of game development. The one he is focusing on is a studio making a game, releasing it but after that they go on to make the next game and release it as quick as possible. In this model they don’t build on the original game as there is never any plan to add anything to it, anything new will be reserved for the next game, thus making the first release “complete”. The biggest offender here is of course the F1 games with a new game every year. But God of War is no different, they still release completely new games every couple of years. Same as Polyphony with GT series, Last of us and Last of us part 2, the Drake collection, etc. Go back far enough and original Mario games were exactly the same, whole new thing every year or two.

The other model and more common in the sim world (unless you are slightly mad) is release a game and then keep adding to it charging a fee there. Kunos could have released ACC IGTC as a standalone game and all the updated year championships as stand alone games year on year adding the new cars and liveries and tracks that appear that year (ACC 2018, ACC 2019, ACC the British GT Championship Game), and each one would be a “complete game” they have just chosen to build on existing rather then create a seperate thing.

The idea that you bought a game back in the day and that was it is simply not true, you just kept buying the next game in whatever franchise it was in a much shorter timeframe which is probably more expensive then paying for expansions.

 

[Ho3n3r]

You forgot to add that the F1 franchise has had 2 releases in the same time ACC has been supported, so that brings it up to 130. ACC has also had relatively major updates compared to the F1 franchise. Also, you don't need to pay for basics in ACC like skins, helmets and gloves

 

[Kenny Paton]

Can I congratulate everyone who has posted in the thread for being polite and not resorting to name calling and all the other baggage that normally accompanies Internet debates.

 

[GeekyDeaks]

And the more you carry on paying over the odds, even if you believe it is value to you, the more it will continue, to the point where even you might question it.

I have already hit this threshold in other genre of video games. I just vote with my wallet and spend it on something else I think is better value. But this is hardly something new. In the tech industry Apple have been coining it on this tactic for years now. I quite happily ditched them, but I have friends who are 'invested' shall we say.

I actually think many sim racers are more sensible when it comes to this than you are giving credit for though. If you look at the steam stats for sims (https://simrace247.com/2020/11/09/sim-racing-charts-october-2020-which-sim-is-king-on-steam/ - avoiding the sim vs simcade debate), AC is #2 and ACC is #3, with AC having over double the player base of AC. I think this speaks volumes about the quality and value people are getting out of both games considering their age. I spent £10 on AC with all the DLC and £20 on ACC with the DLC I wanted. I'm really not sure how anyone who likes either game could argue that is not good value for money. I know what you are saying about the list price, but it's well understood that you don't have to pay that. Every time I look on steam it seems there is a sale on.

 

[GeekyDeaks]

I'm now curious to know how many people actually pay full price for this kind of stuff, so I posted a poll

How often do you pay list price for a sim?

There was a discussion on the ACC forum on the rising costs of sims and how you may unknowingly pay rather a lot once you total up all the DLC over a period of time. As I am a complete cheapskate, I very rarely pay list price for any game, so I was wondering if this was something others were a...

www.racedepartment.com

Apologies, it's a little tongue-in-cheek....

 

[Rob Every]

I think the issue with the EA and Codies games is often that what you get as a new game is basically a giant patch for a base game that has existed for years, evolving, it always feels and looks the same. The f1 game every year is just a revamped version of the same thing, as they are tied into a contract, like MotoGP, WRC etc etc. What was sad is the balls up they made with DR2.

AC feels nothing like ACC so to me it is a new game and AC in fairness has carved out a new niche for itself a bit like the much missed and for me never likely to replicated RF.

Acc is based on one series yes, but if you play IR, AC etc it is often the biggest played series in Europe at least, so it was a no brainer.

Again I do not begrudge the money, to most it is worth it. My point is simply that in recent times to pay for all content on a higher and higher number of games is approaching 100 pounds over say a year to 2 years.

Selfishly if this is the only game you play that is fine, but can people not see the danger in relentlessly allowing this in every game format?

When will it end, will every game eventually be a sub based Iracing system, where you pay for each piece of content and subscribe, I hope not as to me that system has always sucked. But I can foresee companies reducing evermore the amount they release as a base game, still charging full amount (PC wise 30-40) and then over 2 years say doing 150 then 200 in extras, then more and more DLC. So a full game will end up costing not 50 as it did 10 years ago, but 100, then 150 then 200, when will it stop?

There is a danger to that, and it is all about the same model that rules sport on tv, it is about the most amount of people, paying the most the tv company can get away with. NOT, the most amount of people overall playing your game or watching your sport and then selling that to advertisers. So in the end, you have smaller and smaller numbers of people prepared to pay more and more for the content. It's like the end of a Black Hole lol!

And that if it happens it is the end of gaming for a lot of people. it will be priced out of reach.

I would love to play DCS, put to play that properly you need probably 3 grands worth of PC++, a few grand in tech and spend probably 500 quid on a bloody game, it's ludicrous, that could probably buy 50 odd bloody hours in a real plane for goodness sake! Yes it looks amazing, but it is a GAME!

But, as I said before, while there are people prepared to pay it, they will be someone prepared to sell it.

 

[Case_]

I am currently playing God of War, that has no DLC, and retail sets you back about 40 quid. Full game, no addons, Some games I imagine cost far more or are similar price wise.

Let's not forget that game is over two years old now, and cost 60 bucks on release. And there were multiple editions with various added "bonuses" that went all the way up to 150 bucks I believe.

I don't really get the point of this thread, or, more importantly, the logic that simracers are somehow easy to exploit, unlike...who exactly? Various pointless deluxe editions and DLC are hardly exclusive to simracing.

And really, it's up to you to vote with your wallet. I have no issues saying I find some piece of DLC overpriced, as I'm sure some might know, but at the same time, the content does not make itself for free (doubly so with the costs of licensing involved in simracing) and the companies have to make money. And...if you think something is too expensive or you are being exploited, then...maybe simply vote with your wallet and don't buy it?

Really don't see an issue worth discussing here, sorry.