Thinking of getting iRacing, need advice.

[JamesU]

Hey guys,

As everyone seems to say iRacing is the best sim out there, i was thinking of grabbing it.

I like to get everything through Steam, and this game is £8.00 p/month on there - but i have stumbled across this:

http://www.g2play.net/category/5623/iracing-com-3-month-membership-with-gen-6-ford-car/

Now, the problem i have is i'm not sure how this works and how to sign up... Would i just create a new account on their site and not use steam, then enter the code and away i go?

Thanks fellas


EDIT: I think i got confused, is the G2Play code just for use with one single car?

 

[CCL71]

You can't compare mainstream games to racing sims. Sim racing is a very niche market, where games like Call of Duty sell millions of copies each year.

Creating a track, the way iRacing does it, costa a number with five zero's. This includes the license, scanning and producing the track.

To me it's simple: if you don't like their business model, don't play it.
Yes, iRacing is more expensive than other racing sims, but in my opinion it's worth each penny. Never I had as much fun as I do now in iRacing and it increased my passion for motorsport itself.

I agree with Niel in that Iracing is not for everyone. I hear people complain about the costs all the time but what always comes to mind is what hobby is cheap? To me, the pricing, saftey ratings and penalties help to ensure that the competitors in Iracing will take the experience serious. I'm not a very fast driver and to be honest, I do more practice sessions than actual races but in that, I have been able to make to a B license. Knowing that if I spin, I could possibly take out other drivers and ruin their races, helps to keep me in check from making moves that I might make with running against the AI in other sims.

As others have mentioned, ther are certainly other sims that have better ffb and physics and for those sims, I tend to play them more in single player instances when I just want to race anything. But in doing so, I have to deal with iratic AI that may cause me to reset my race numerous times because they constantly run me off the road. So in there lies the trade off....If you want to run with like minded people and improve your racecraft, Iracing is a no brainer. If you want better ffb and physics but don't mind the frustrations that come along with playng the AI or if cost is a concern, then yeah, stick to single player sims. OR, sign up for multiplayer races in the sims you have, but I can almost promise you that the racing won't be as clean because there are no real consequences for bad driving.
Just my 2 cents from an admittedly average sim racer that loves racing in different sims.

 

[Slalom823]

Wow, got the triple post there! I agree except I that the club racing or league racing can be quite clean as well.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

yep, but they usually do not come on the hour every hour, or maybe every second hour. that is what makes iR unique.

 

[Slalom823]

Ya, if you want clean racing that is frequently available, then iRacing is the best.

 

[Steve O'Malley]

I understand they emply people and have expenses, so do a ton of other video games that are based on either a subscription charge or a content charge (one or the other, not both).

But the point is they need to achieve a certain amount of revenue so if they made the content free they would need to increase the subscription charges and vice versa.
The thing that is slightly concerning is the "buy a years subscription for half price" offer, which to me means they need to generate income quickly. I am of course assuming that most of the people who took this up would have stayed for a year and paid monthly.

 

[Patrick Moore]

Wow, got the triple post there! I agree except I that the club racing or league racing can be quite clean as well.

Yes, I think that league racing is the best multiplayer experience when you can make it fit into your schedule. I joined a GT5 league for time before jumping over the PC side of sim gaming. I think this is because you race many of the same people every week. Spending a lot of time with the same racers made us all polite and respectful on and off the track. fun times!

 

[Dries Nys]

i've gotten my always 25% discount yesterday. And i've always bought the promotion credits i think it's 75=100$ and 17=25$ or something close to that. Than you can also do one of the always re-occurring $99 for 2 year or $49 for a year subscription.

Is it expensive? HELL YES
Can you just add up everything -listprice- and calculate what "your iracing" would cost? NO,gonna be much less than that.

 

[Kinduci]

Expensive? maybe...

But its the best online racing environment you will get without the need of being in a league etc.

For me as someone that has been subbing for 4 years and owns all the content i wish to own the sim is essentially free as the participation credits, birthday bonus and discounted yearly sub basically means it pays for itself.

For anyone sitting on the fence all i suggest is give it a go, there's many offers out there offering 3 months for price of 1 etc. Give it a go and take a look and make up your own mind.

 

[CCL71]

I'd like to join a league but the problem for me is timing. A lot of leagues i"ve looked into in RaceDepartment are on GMT which doens't always work out for me being in the states. With Iracing, I know there will be a race every other hour. So again, not to beat a dead horse, it really just comes down to what is best your wallet and scheduling. There are certainly pro's and con's on both sides of the fence.

 

[xnorb]

But the point is they need to achieve a certain amount of revenue so if they made the content free they would need to increase the subscription charges and vice versa.

This is ages old, but still:

I'm the last one to request people to work for free, but just compare prices in R3E
or the DLC prices in AC/pC with anything in iRacing.
Without the infrastructure and design that makes iRacing special, they would
drop out of business in no time with the expensive assets they offer.

 

[Hal Burns]

Just got the cheap 3 month plan this weekend....the way iRacing is setup ( SR, MRP etc. ) is very complicated, but good, to help get you in similar fields and keep the crashers out of the game. It looks to need a fair amount of use to get out of Rookie and then keep up your SR....... be prepared to spend some time at it. The cars drive well and the tracks are good, even though the graphics are sort of Nascar 2003...servicable, if not really great. I've had a couple of good races, trying to keep out of trouble, watching others crash and then chat abuse at each other...people get pretty serious, I think. The costs are high though, so I don't think I'd continue, unless I had a lot of time to spend at it. The racing organization part of it is very good and could be very addictive, with events all day long.......I can see sitting there going, "only one more race, I almost have my C license...."

 

[Dries Nys]

I've had a couple of good races, trying to keep out of trouble, watching others crash and then chat abuse at each other...people get pretty serious, I think.

That's a typical rookie-race. Although the high SOF's are all familiar faces and once you make the step to a "serious" official series, you can have very respectful drivers. Come say hi in the Advanced Mazda cup, you might like it...

And once you have an idea where the clean private leagues are, you pretty much learn to enjoy the battling on itself. At least i do now what i wouldn't even have thought about beforehand; I enjoy a racelong battle with someone i trust more than a lonely win...

I wanted to do the RUFcup starting this season but at the end of last season Tony Gardner decided to make the RUFcup FIXED, not with support from the forum but with track-sales in his mind. And by making it a fixed setup series, he killed the most sharing respectful series on iracing.

But maybe this is a nice way of explaining iracing;
The membersite looks like it's from 1997, there are many many flaws in iracing &mostly Tony Gardner ditched a lot of the things he said he would never do in the early promotional videos / interviews.

Yet, i tried everything else and sadly there's no worthy alternative.
My guestimate is that there are 10.000-15.000 serious simracers all over the world. And sadly they are for the very big majority all iracing. And unless someone finds a way to make them all switch to another sim, iracing is gonna be able to abuse his "monopoly" for a few years to come.

Many guys, like myself, have paid after all a decent amount of money they want to "get out of it".

 

[Hal Burns]

That's a typical rookie-race. Although the high SOF's are all familiar faces and once you make the step to a "serious" official series, you can have very respectful drivers. Come say hi in the Advanced Mazda cup, you might like it...

Well, I am furiously working on my D license and SR, so I am sure the experience will be better once I get to Advanced Rookie and D class.....I like the Mazda.

 

[Hal Burns]

While we are on advice...whats up with the $5 cars...they seem to be for older series. Are there no current racing series for these, so they are sold cheap?

 

[Decenten]

they are not to be used in official series

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

yep, waste of money. rather aim for series / cars where one buy gets you four cars (RUF; two of which are used in official series) or two series, e.g. dallara dw12 (one oval series, one road series)

 

[xnorb]

And unless someone finds a way to make them all switch to another sim, iracing is gonna be able to abuse his "monopoly" for a few years to come.

You don't need all simracers of the world at once to be successful.

I also don't see a requirement for a Safety ranking.
(Nobody is hurt when you spin out, crash or leave track but you as long as you don't ram somebody)
If you want to be fast you need to avoid all that anyways and if you aren't fast, you will not gain ranks and will not be able to join the higher tier races.

Of course there's the problem with contact.
Somebody would have to take a look into that, but in the club races i've been in, it was all fine for me, even with a little contact here and there. And for the really problematic cases you'd have replays that you could send in.

Set up a service running 4 GSCE servers with slimmed down iRacing features and i'm sure this will work out over time.

Of course this is all oversimplified and i have no clue of - from that example - GSCE's abilities to extract race data and use that for a drivers ranking database, but i'm positive one could start something with way less costs and therefore be way more interesting to a broader audience.

 

[Decenten]

You don't need all simracers of the world at once to be successful.

I also don't see a requirement for a Safety ranking.
(Nobody is hurt when you spin out, crash or leave track but you as long as you don't ram somebody)
If you want to be fast you need to avoid all that anyways and if you aren't fast, you will not gain ranks and will not be able to join the higher tier races.

Of course there's the problem with contact.
Somebody would have to take a look into that, but in the club races i've been in, it was all fine for me, even with a little contact here and there. And for the really problematic cases you'd have replays that you could send in.

Set up a service running 4 GSCE servers with slimmed down iRacing features and i'm sure this will work out over time.

Of course this is all oversimplified and i have no clue of - from that example - GSCE's abilities to extract race data and use that for a drivers ranking database, but i'm positive one could start something with way less costs and therefore be way more interesting to a broader audience.

Ever tried joining a AC public server? Ever tried racing in non organised F1 by codies races? This is the racing that would occur if iracing didnt have the safety rating

 

[Steve O'Malley]

No requirement for Safety rating?
People look after their safety rating so they can move to the next license. Without SR iracing would be just another corner cutting shambles.

 

[Jesper Drlicka]

If you don't want the Gen 6 car you can do 3 months + the Ford GT/GT3 for $12. PR-GRIPTV
Make sure to refer somebody