Sim Racing: The Big Mid Season Review - Part 1

[Radu Oros]

I always laugh at everyone slamming RF2's pricing model, it is the model, 12 bucks a year, your either in or out. No decision to be made on which car or track is most popular. Just in or out.

So they aren't fracturing the player base by not integrating online by default and instead they charge 12 bucks a year or 50 for lifetime if you buy the whole version at start?
I'm not saying that AC's method isn't fracturing part of the player base, but there are enough people on both sides to play against each other and even mixed. Because if you take a look at AC's server list you'll find populated servers that use dlc content and populated servers that use base content. And in these base content servers you can find people that own and don't own dlcs. This online fracturing in AC doesn't impact anything much. Those who don't have any dlcs, already have several types of servers to play in with others, or just aren't as active players as those who have bought them along the way.

 

[JeffL]

Well, that's a different (and kinda dumb) issue. You already pay for the same track in different sims anyway in their base (which rises the price of it)

I am not catchin' the point could your makin' could you further explain.

 

[JeffL]

So they aren't fracturing the player base by not integrating online by default and instead they charge 12 bucks a year or 50 for lifetime if you buy the whole version at start?

You are mixing up 2 things, The inherit fracturing of online vs offline will always exist, I'm talking online multiplayer.

 

[Radu Oros]

If that's inherit fracturing, then AC's fracturing by dlc is also inherit. You either buy and use the content (racing against cars is also using those cars) or you don't.
But AC's fracturing lets everyone who bought the game to play online, which means people who bought dlcs can play with people who didn't buy any at all. And there are populated servers which just use default cars and tracks.
Even iracing has fracturing.. you either buy content for a series or you don't. Which makes less players base to race against.

 

[JeffL]

AC's fracturing by dlc is also inherit

Strangely enough you just made my point, shrug.

Iracing is in a different league. I can look at the numbers and statistics of the most popular series and make a pinpoint financial decision. Know my costs and relatively sure what the participation will be. Therefore make a decision whether it is worth it to me. With all these sandbox dlc's its a crapshoot.

 

[P*Funk]

So what conclusion can I take from your post, that AC shouldn't charge for cars or tracks?

No, how could you possibly take that conclusion from what I've said? I never once damned them for selling DLC in and of itself.

Can you propose a solution which benefits both devs investment in producing dlcs and those who don't buy the dlcs to be fair for them in terms of online fracturing?

Yes, sell them what they want without manipulating them into buying things they don't want. If the devs investment cannot be shown to be worthwhile without manipulating people into buying content they will never use then that content is not viable.

Manipulating people to make it viable is not acceptable and shows cynicism and contempt for your customers.

(racing against cars is also using those cars)

No it isn't. That's absurd. Its a shell to me and my simulation. The important calculations are done on another computer. Many many games have DLC where you can see it but can't use it.

This contention is just silly.

 

[Radu Oros]

Strangely enough you just made my point, shrug.

Iracing is in a different league. I can look at the numbers and statistics of the most popular series and make a pinpoint financial decision. Know my costs and relatively sure what the participation will be. Therefore make a decision whether it is worth it to me. With all these sandbox dlc's its a crapshoot.

I never said that there isn't any fracturing in AC. In fact there is in many sim racing games. But I also said in one of the previous posts that Kunos may have already thought this out and didn't think it justifies to take on the project of rewriting a part of the software to allow you to race against cars you didn't buy, especially if that can open up space for hacking that lets you select cars you don't own but they are already installed.
But AC's and Iracing's fracturing isn't really impacting the active player base because they all can still race online and even against people who own and don't own the extra paid content. But games that entirely fracture the player base between who can or can't access the online platform is a much worse method for the game's health.

 

[JeffL]

But AC's and Iracing's fracturing isn't really impacting the active player base because they all can still race online and even against people who own and don't own the extra paid content

Confusing statement. Iracing and AC have 2 different models, AC you can't race against cars you don't own, Iracing you can. And saying that fracturing isn't really impacting the active player base is double speak.

 

[Radu Oros]

No, how could you possibly take that conclusion from what I've said? I never once damned them for selling DLC in and of itself.



Yes, sell them what they want without manipulating them into buying things they don't want. I the devs investment cannot be shown to be worthwhile without manipulating people into buying content they will never use then that content is not viable.

Manipulating people to make it viable is not acceptable and shown cynicism and contempt for your customers.



No it isn't. That's absurd. Its a shell to me and my simulation. The important calculations are done on another computer. Many many games have DLC where you can see it but can't use it.

This contention is just silly.

Yeah, well, that's just like your opinion, man.

The purpose of dreampacks is to offer varied forms of cars, not just from one class. I don't see any manipulation or contempt here.
Or they could sell you one car for the price of one dlc, if that's the only car most people want. So all prices per piece would be higher and potentially less cars available for the game, compared to selling dlc packs like now.
I hope you didn't think they'd sell one car for 1€ separately.. this would have gone iracing style pretty soon and in the end pay a lot more for less.

Confusing statement. Iracing and AC have 2 different models, AC you can't race against cars you don't own, Iracing you can. And saying that fracturing isn't really impacting the active player base is double speak.

So rf2 game costs by default 80€ because it contains both offline and multiplayer racing? And the 30€ price is a reduced edition of the game? Well.. both who pay 80 or 30 will receive free future content. The only difference is who paid 30 can't race in multiplayer. So the default game costs 50€ extra for multiplayer racing than the reduced edition.
This is a complete fracture of the game because it impacts what your customers can do. Even before customers buy your game, you are already dividing them in two. Which means you're entirely fracturing your potential player base. This impacts your multiplayer base as you're reducing their possibilities of finding other players, specially if your game isn't popular enough to compensate with a lot of people buying the full game version.
AC also impacts the multiplayer base as they're reducing possibilities of finding other players that don't have the same content as you. But it compensates for being a game popular enough and that it allows for who didn't buy dlc to still play multiplayer against people who bought dlc but use base content, and allows who didn't buy dlc to play multiplayer against who also didn't buy dlc.
In this aspect AC and Iracing are similar because in both you can race multiplayer for the whole customer base, although iracing divides them by content series (car class and race track) and AC by piece of content pack.

 

[JeffL]

I am referring to all of simracing in a fairly simple argument, and you are twisting yourself into knots trying to defend AC.

 

[Will Mazeo]

I am referring to all of simracing in a fairly simple argument, and you are twisting yourself into knots trying to defend AC.

That always happen

 

[P*Funk]

The purpose of dreampacks is to offer varied forms of cars, not just from one class. I don't see any manipulation or contempt here.

The manipulation is in realizing that if you do not buy all of these dream packs you will be negatively affected in your ability to participate in online racing. If there's a 488GT3 why would anyone race the 458 instead? I am therefore compelled to own it even if I don't particularly care for it because I know it's popularity will dictate my ability to interact with the online community.

It doesn't even matter if its intentional, the effect is there.

Now I also find your argument here rather strange because on the one hand you were just arguing that its legitimate and fair that Kunos attempt to get people to buy content they wouldn't otherwise because they need to make money from their investment. Now you're trying to argue that isn't even an effect of the DLC model?

You seem to be flip flopping on this, both defending the premise and denying its existence.

Or they could sell you one car for the price of one dlc, if that's the only car most people want. So all prices per piece would be higher and potentially less cars available for the game, compared to selling dlc packs like now.
I hope you didn't think they'd sell one car for 1€ separately.. this would have gone iracing style pretty soon and in the end pay a lot more for less.

The point is about my ability to participate with the wider community when I don't own DLC which mixing them all together causes to be the worst possible scenario for what unowned DLC does to you. If GT3 cars are mixed into all DLC packs nearly then you basically need to own them all to access a server that isn't explicitly catering to vanilla only content if there's a GT3 race going on. It doesn't matter if I can buy all the GT3 cars in one pack or buy them one at a time, th epoint is that no matter how you mix that up as DLC options you are put out when it comes time to connect to the server when you don't own all of them.

It just so happens that the dream pack style ensures the worst case scenario so that even if I wanted to only capture all GT3 cars I have to buy pretty much all the cars Kunos makes nearly to cover the full GT3 field. In the iRacing model its like saying you need to buy a pack with 4 oval cars to get that Holden V8 Supercar you don't drive but half the field does that you drive your Ford V8 Supercar in.

 

[Hash_V8]

You seem to be flip flopping on this, both defending the premise and denying its existence.

Man you not wrong there, you doing some fantastic mental gymnastics there QUF,you should be in Olympics, the solution is very very simple, allow NON dlc owners to race ALONGSIDE cars that they dont own,not tracks, this is neither hard nor revolutionary.

QUF as a consumer and person wanting to see AC succeed and become better, you or anyone else has zero reason what so ever, to be arguing against this, unless you are a dev incapable of doing it, or a main investor worried about the bottom line.

 

[Radu Oros]

So all four of you don't want to buy the dreampacks that have GT3 cars instead of organizing servers to race with mp4-12c gt3, bmw z4 gt3, mercedes sls gt3. You want the benefit to simulate the experience of racing against newer GT3 models without actually wanting to buying the DLCs where these new gt3s are found.
How am I the one wrong here?
You want the same benefit of racing against new GT3 cars as the people who buy the DLCs without yourself buying these packs. Then why should anyone buy the packs if just one person hosting the server can buy them and the rest 23 players in the server don't have to do anything. So the sucker here is the person who bought the dlc and the company who invested to produce this content. The rest 23 players in the server are entitled to race against new content without contributing just because they want to race in the same class as base content they own. Then why don't you make a server with just base content GT3? You want to rob the benefit from those who spent money for new content to race against new content, while you want to race against new content without spending money for it.

 

[JeffL]

Since I don't belong to a cult, I don't feel the need to contribute to the collective so our dear leader can do right by us I'm just a video game player that wants play against other humans without getting involved catch 22 marketing schemes

 

[fortyfivekev]

I have a feeling that if at the start Kunos had any idea how successful AC and especially the DLC packs were going to be they would have done a bunch of things differently probably including how DLC content is handled online. It's just one of those things they probably didn't give much thought to at the time and is now causing trouble a few years later.

Making everything out to be some grand plan to steal our cash is really just something for the tin foil hat brigade.

 

[Radu Oros]

Since I don't belong to a cult, I don't feel the need to contribute to the collective so our dear leader can do right by us I'm just a video game player that wants play against other humans without getting involved catch 22 marketing schemes

So you want to be just an individual, just a player that wants to play against other players. But if another player spends money to buy a dlc and you don't want to buy that dlc, why are you asking to use content you chose not to buy? Using extra content means being part of the experience of simulating a GT3 race with a bigger field, not necessarily actively using it, but having it on a race to simulate a bigger class also means using it. Then why not just use content you own? There are several populated servers that race base game content. Why are you requesting the devs to let you use content you chose not to buy? There's nothing about a cult or collectivism here. You gave the example of individualism, meaning everyone for himself. But you want the same benefit of another individual for free while he pays for it.

 

[JeffL]

These video game dev's don't exist in a historical vacuum. There is no conspiracy, it is a trend with dev's and publishers that include pre product investment (which produces emotional investment), viral marketing (again emotional investment), continuing sandbox improvement (drip, drip) with promise of future greatness that doesn't seem to come, DLC's, mark down sales of prices that were originally inflated (RRE)

People need to wake up and see the trend in our Hobby, try and look around the corner and see where this ends. There is no motivation to create a game the comes to a completed state. The money is made in constant development, real or perceived and cultism (tribalism). I bought AC 2 years ago and haven't really seen anything change, Now the one sim that worked and appealed to people on a limited budget (GSCE) is going the DLC route.

No collectivism? You mean Lord Kunos I was born at night but not last night.

 

[JeffL]

So you want to be just an individual

No I'm just one of many that may have a limited budget, no need to divide us.

 

[Radu Oros]

And how racing cars you own vs cars you don't own solve problems of sim racing game development and completeness? Two separate things.
The companies develop the sims in the direction where the market goes. No matter how much you say a sim 15 years was great, if people nowadays don't want to buy and play such sims, then is a lost business to develop a new one that way.
Making it even more explicit, you want the free benefit of immersion to race against bigger class fields that appear in DLC packs while other individuals pay for those packs. And if devs let everyone race that way without having to buy dlc packs to race against dlc cars, then only a few people have to buy dlcs and the rest don't. This translates in business collapse for a company that invested in producing new cars. As a consequence no more future content, or at least no more GT3 cars cause this isn't exactly a cheap license.
What I'm seeing here is a selfish point of view where the only one to benefit is you as a freeloader while other people pay for dlc and devs pay to produce these new cars.

No I'm just one of many that may have a limited budget, no need to divide us.

This is very ironic. You are one of those who advocate for rf2's model where base game costs 30€ and full game costs 80€. You say this is the best method because you pay 80€ and you can race online. Here you aren't interested in the your limited budget? I'll let you know that in AC you bought the game for 30-40€ (~30 in early access) and you could immediately race against other people. And you can still have servers today to race with other people without having to spend money on further dlc. And you can even create leagues just using base content and race there daily. From this perspective Kunos is quite budget friendly because they let you race in multiplayer for a normal game price.