Should AC business model be more like iRacing's ?

[Alexandre Guzu]

edit : A great post by Tom Van Put on page 5 that sums my thoughts pretty well :

The best part about iRacing, in my eyes, are the sanctioned races they organise through their servers.

I really hope AC is considering something like that. They just have to make sure it isn't mandatory.

I prefer leagues over racing on public servers. But I don't always find a league that fits my needs or at timeslots that suit me. Racing on open, unsanctioned, servers is just terrible...

So if AC would impliment some sort of organized and sanctioned races with a championship structure this would be a great ad-on.
They don't have to do this for every car but only for some popular series that would apeal to a big audience. eg:

• Le Mans Series
• GT3 races
• Lotus Racing Series
• Historic DTM Racing
• Formula (1) Racing
• Historic Formula racing

Charge a few euros a month for this for those who are interested and other people can just play the game off-line or in leagues.

One thing a lot of people always seem to forget when they are on the internet is that a company needs to make a profit to create new content or new games. You can't get everything for free or at a cheap price and expect the best product/game ever.

so yeah, I agree thoroughly with this post. In my opinion, fixed schedule races are very convenient, people can plan their evening knowing they'll take part of a certain race without wondering what servers/races will be up (which often demotivates me from setting up my rig and launching rfactor/netkar/..). So originally I was thinking about something like this :

- you buy the game 40/50 euros with all the cars and tracks they announced so far. You can buy DLCs packs later.
- you can race AI and people on servers you host.
So far nothing changes.
- (optional) you pay a small monthly fee (5/10 euros) to access high speed servers with iRacing-like services : series, events, licenses and eventually leaderboards. The irating system is awesome too, it keeps people avoiding mistakes and wreckages.

I'm aware many won't agree. But seeing how many sims have failed to keep their customers when iRacing succeeds, I think Kunos shouldn't be afraid to copy their system and services. They're so expensive because they have no competition, and Assetto Corsa's potential is huge. If it becomes a cheaper version of iRacing with better physics and graphics, they get to swim in pools of money, and we get the best racing experience. Win-win.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

The fact that the public RACE07 / GTR2 / rFactor servers are total wreck fests is as much of a fault of the developers as the wreckers themselves.

Backwards reasoning. You can have perfectly fine moderated races on a locked system with a password.

In online racing you should never have to ban anyone as long as the rules are clear.

 

[Ben Lee]

Backwards reasoning. You can have perfectly fine moderated races on a locked system with a password.

In online racing you should never have to ban anyone as long as the rules are clear.

I know that. I have taken part in a few leagues etc over the years. However if you just want to turn on and play a public server, then you have to face being wrecked at any and every corner.

 

[GamerMuscle]

No given that i racing is largely a failure on the road side though i racing is good for oval.

i racing is really lacking in users and the pricing is absurd and there is no real way for i racing to get mass market exposure.

AC has the potential to leverage steam to gain massive sales from people that don't even like driving and people that will buy the game simply because it has a Ferrari in it.

Kunos will likely have to do a 75% off sale though within a year and a half ideally when the game is fairly solid as this will give a massive cash injection and will massively boost user numbers. (http://www.giantbomb.com/steam/3015...l-gives-some-insight-into-steam-sales-482542/)

I believe They need to emulate what Train simulator have done and be the first driving simulator to fully exploit steam I believe this is there only real chance to make real money with AC.

I'm also sure they can use the Ferrari license as leverage, I hope farrier give them permission to widely promote the fact the game has a Ferrari cars in it , and that Ferrari themselves promote AC through there channels.

Sure some aspects of the iracing system are fantastic and i think AC could take advantage of some of those systems and it would greatly improve the product. But the overall business model of i racing is flawed with them now some extent held hostage by there incumbent users.

Also bare in mind how much marketing money i racing have put behind the product and yet its still has comparatively low user numbers.

It depends on the companies goals, obviously kunos are not in game development just for the money and they have a genuine passion for what they do , building a driving simulator is probably the worse way to try and make money from interactive software lol.

I just hope from a selfish stand point that they make a healthy profit and gain traction as based on the TD AC is a game i want to be playing long into the future.

The only real issue with AC is its name, as that alone makes the game hard to Google and will confuse the average consumer. If anything they should change the name of the game to something like "Race car simulator 2013" or something bland along those lines.

Personally I like the name AC (Race setup/Track setup) and it makes sense from the stand point of promoting the Italian heritage of the game and for those in the sim community but from a communication stand point for a wider international market, I don't think its a good name.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I say yes, pretty please do so! As long as they choose one model to use (pay for content per track/car or monthly subscription) and don't start ripping us of charging both like iRacing does then I'm all for it. Whether the offline players suffer from this model I honestly care nothing about, sorry, nothing personal but I'd rather have proper online racing at the expense of poor offline racing than the other way around.
That said I'm curious to see what Bram & co have in store for us after his teaser!

 

[eobet]

In a word: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

iRacing's subscription model is the reason I can't get a single of my friends to play it. It's not a pricing model for the mainstream (especially with the latest F2P trend).

 

[Arkadiusz Wawrzyniak]

The only reason I am playing iRacing is I got 3 months for free. I have reached C licence and that's it. Can't afford content for C class series. It would cost between 150-200$ for a single racing series! Seriously, who can can afford that? You will tell that I paid more for a graphics card or CPU, but it is for 3 years and a lot of games and programs. But this is just one game which has issues with physics on the road side. This "business" model is the reason they can't get more people and why most of series are almost empty. So I say NO for paying for individual content. DLC are affordable and much better for customers.

 

[Dino Paolini]

With places like RD and many others, I see no reason whatsoever for that.

You have racing clubs and leagues that can give you organized races with a conistent set of rules.
With a large enough userbase you will surely get daily options for races and plenty of additional league options too.
With not so popular timezones though, you have to get a big enough core userbase first.

And all that is even for free most times. And even if the organizers take a small amount of money or if you decide to give some donations once in a while, you still get everything you need online for much less than with the iRacing model.

 

[Alexandre Guzu]

The only reason I am playing iRacing is I got 3 months for free. I have reached C licence and that's it. Can't afford content for C class series. It would cost between 150-200$ for a single racing series! Seriously, who can can afford that? You will tell that I paid more for a graphics card or CPU, but it is for 3 years and a lot of games and programs. But this is just one game which has issues with physics on the road side. This "business" model is the reason they can't get more people and why most of series are almost empty. So I say NO for paying for individual content. DLC are affordable and much better for customers.

Unfortunately you didn't read my first post. I'm far from ever wanting to pay for individual content, I think DLCs is clearly the best way to go. I was talking about the iRacing service that, in my opinion, is worth a few bucks/month. Again, like I stated in another post, the idea would be to make it an optional service.

 

[GamerMuscle]

Unfortunately you didn't read my first post. I'm far from ever wanting to pay for individual content, I think DLCs is clearly the best way to go. I was talking about the iRacing service that, in my opinion, is worth a few bucks/month. Again, like I stated in another post, the idea would be to make it an optional service.

Because of the supposedly open nature of AC I see no reason as to why this cannot be achieved , the most analogous system currently on the market I can think of would be "ESEA" ( http://play.esea.net/welcome.php?referer=http%3A%2F%2Fplay.esea.net%2F )

I wonder if its something kunos would be interesting in funding, if users themselves could fund it or maybe if someone from the community would be interested in outright building it ?

If you were to build it yourself you would probably be looking at a fairly large monthly bill for servers and a prohibitive up front cost ( if you wanted to do it properly) its the sort of thing that would be hard to gain traction with as an individual and ideally would be a full time job for a team of 2-3 people with a chunk of cash in hand to fund the development.

Having said that just having sceduals as found on some private league sites and then just having an open moderated server can actually work very well.

Contrary to what allot of people say, the racing in iracing is often terrible with the grid massively spread out in skill and many people crashing you really need to have 500,000 + users to be able to skill match properly and ensure close fair races in a totally open system.

I think it will always be the case that organized league races will provide the best quality and most enjoyable racing for sim-racers. As for pick-up pub racing a system like that which was found in the LFS Redline Fox servers could work very well.

 

[Stereo]

Contrary to what allot of people say, the racing in iracing is often terrible with the grid massively spread out in skill and many people crashing you really need to have 500,000 + users to be able to skill match properly and ensure close fair races in a totally open system.

The main thing holding back rated systems I've tried in the past is they don't handle single players well. Even on short races (kart racing, 3 laps in <5 minutes) if you only have 3 servers at your skill level, then being the 1st person who is outside the capacity of those 3 servers sucks - and really, 3 full grids is a pretty high activity level. Wait for someone to drop out, or start your own room and hope it'll fill up. By induction, every '1st person' decides to go play something else and there goes the chance of opening a 4th room.

With longer races, an organized league-type environment is necessary to even have a good chance to play. I'm not sure what the best setup is to provide that level of quality for every player, without them seeking it out. Maybe a natural progression where you just see open 'track day' servers you can join/leave at any time from the pits (and with a vote can turn into a grid-start), which with clean+fast driving qualifies you for automated scheduled races, and in turn your ability to show up reliably qualifies you for longer & championship races.

In terms of keeping people interested in the game with lower user levels, don't stick them in a lobby for 15 minutes while they wait for the current race at their skill level to finish. I think ideally you should be able to apply, then go into single player practice or hotlaps until the server's ready to let you join, at which point the game alerts you and you can join up. You can probably learn a lot from the way successful MMOs handle raid/party play.

 

[Terry Rock]

In response to the OP....
The objective of Kunos Simulazioni should be to sell as many copies of AC as possible.
It's not to 'police' simracing servers or behavior...so NO, I'd rather not see it take the path of an IRacing model.
While I agree some of your points about wrecks are valid, I believe other methods can be enacted to make the racers more responsible.

 

[Element515]

If they changed to a subscriber model like iRacing, I would have no interest in it any longer. It's just too expensive for me to pay that much for a game. I do through times where I'll play a lot of games for a few days, and then not for a long time. It's nice to just fire up your game and play whenever you want.

 

[Ho3n3r]

I think this is impossible since AC will support mods. Also a subscriber model can scare people to not buy the game at all.

Exactly. This is the only recent sim(since 2002) I have not bought, and it is because of this very reason.

I like to buy stuff once-off, and not let my budget in certain months stop me from playing.

 

[EIF]

Should AC business model be more like iRacing's ?

Hell no!

 

[angelooliveira]

NO NO NO!!!

iRacing has no offline mode (WORST PART), every new track you pay and pay monthly.

Please, don't say that again.

 

[Hannes-Joshua Thor Barthel]

If they changed to a subscriber model like iRacing, I would have no interest in it any longer. It's just too expensive for me to pay that much for a game. I do through times where I'll play a lot of games for a few days, and then not for a long time. It's nice to just fire up your game and play whenever you want.

Well, I am not pro neither contra a subscription model...

but for the "expensive" part.. (not talking about tracks and cars.. just the subscription thing.. so cost for servers etc).. Iracing is not very expensive imo... if you do the 99$ for one year deal it's abit more then 8$ per month.. this time they had a deal 99$ for two years.. so only little bit over 4 $ per month...

I don't think thats very expensive..

ofcourse if you don't play it at all for a very long time.. then I can understand that a bit... but even then it needs quite some time till it reaches an "expansive" region (also if expansive is ofcourse a very subjective thing.. some years ago my expansive threshold also was alot higher then it is now.. so I know the feeling of something is expansive or not is very subjective or even situation depending.)


The points of no offline mode.. or that all is regulated through iracing (like someone called police)...not modable.. is Iracing specific.. AC is another game where these points are handled differend.. which is good.. we don't need an iracing clone if iracing is already out there..

the point of the op is only the thing with subscription based payment for a serverfarm with "official races" and so going on.. if I understood it right..

and for that 4-8 $ a month isn't that much imo..

the payment for additional tracks and cars is also a complete differend point... in both we have a basic stuff... both have / will have DLCs... iracings additional cars and tracks are also DLCs only the price is quite high for it.. but that is a iracing specific thing.. and AC can be and mostly will be a bit differend pricing wise.. but also AC will most likely have DLCs to buy... just in a differend price range...
but that is not the point of the op I think...

it's just about subscription for official serverfarms/races/series ... which is reasonable at least at 4-8 $ per month... even more if it would be optional.. like you don't need to do that... but then you only get the usual mp where you need to setup it all by your self.. or need to organize series/leagues by yourself... and if you do it.. you get kind of iracings online structure...

but like kunos said they won't do such things now... and that the community is able to build such things with the output of AC by itself...

so the thread is just a thought about, would you like a subscription payment for an official online structure which is iracing alike..

and I personally think I would like a combination of it.. where you can.. host your own server.. for the fun races without additional payments.. and a official structure for payment...where you can go if you want a bit more then just the fun thing (without the need of searching for leagues and clubs in the internet)

so I personally would like such a subscription thing... but do not think it would be a very importend thing.. it will also work without it..
but it is a comfortable feature what iracing offer.. you can run a series competively league/championship like.. without the need to be avaible at one specific time.. you can join a race when you have time for it..

 

[LaFail]

TL;DR

The most annoying thing about iRacing is that you RENT the game, once you stop paying you can as well say goodbye to all those tracks and cars. The more you invest, the more you're committed.

 

[Hannes-Joshua Thor Barthel]

TL;DR

The most annoying thing about iRacing is that you RENT the game, once you stop paying you can as well say goodbye to all those tracks and cars. The more you invest, the more you're committed.

Thats the case with all games? if you stop playing them you don't use them longer...

I don't think the iracing account will be deleted if you pause to play it one or two years..will it?

 

[Simon Kaminski]

Thats the case with all games? if you stop playing them you don't use them longer...

I don't think the iracing account will be deleted if you pause to play it one or two years..will it?

But when you pause this game for 5 years or 10 and iRacing ist not available anymore you can't play it at all. They are very small so it's not impossible.

But I can install and play GTR 2 all the time and don't have to pay AGAIN for it.

About the Topic Question: Hell no!

 

[DennS]

Thats the case with all games? if you stop playing them you don't use them longer...

I don't think the iracing account will be deleted if you pause to play it one or two years..will it?

sure it won't be deleted but you can't even hotlap offline which wouldn't hurt anyone to be honest... You paid them loads of money for cars and tracks but you know that before getting an account of course...