Why Cost is Not a Reason Not to Play R3E

[Paul Jeffrey]

I have recently been made aware of an interesting post from one of our members here on RaceDepartment which I thought would be interesting to share with all of you loyal readers. The post in question addresses RaceRoom Racing Experience and its potentially prohibitive pricing structure for those new to the simulation.

Speaking from first hand experience and as someone who used to run the R3E Racing Club here on RD, I personally think this sim is one of the most impressive overall packages available today for fans of virtual racing cars to enjoy, with wonderfully reproduced sounds and car / track models accompanied by a number of extremely interesting licences for various real world series, which is exclusive to the game.

Arguably one of the most complete all round 'packages' available on the market today, it always jars me somewhat to constantly see the same sort of comments on forums across the internet questioning the pricing model and costs of becoming involved in this sim as a newcomer to the game. Yes, the pricing model isn't ideal and yes it can be annoying, confusing or awkward to navigate to the best deals but this should not be something that puts off those new to the simulation. Having seen this excellent post by RD member Alx^ I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you his findings, in the hope that you too can find a suitable financial solution that helps you join in with one of the most underrated and enjoyable simulations available today.

edited post below:

".... if anyone's on the fence about it because of the way the store works etc, here is what I did... maybe someone could use it as a loose guide, obviously accounting for their own tastes when purchasing I don't know if it's the most optimal way, but it worked well for me. Bare in mind I only ever bought 1 pack at a time, and completed the purchase. That way, the system sees that you already own that content, and applies the relevant discounts to other packs it affects thereafter, as has been covered already at the start of this thread.

I got the 10k vRP voucher from the Raceroom shop. This is €64.99 which is a touch under £46 UKGBP (virtually the same as the AC+DLC 1+2 bundle on steam, fyi). You can find out your own currency conversion by searching in google with "€64.99 in GBP" or whatever your currency happens to be.

Then I bought, in roughly this order:

• ADAC GT Masters Experience 2014 (contains several tracks which discount other packs below)
• ADAC GT Masters 2013 (wanted the cars and liveries, cheaper as you already have the tracks)
• European Track Pack (cheaper than buying the missing tracks separately, cheaper due to ^
• DTM Experience 2015 (cheaper because you have the tracks ^)
• Hillclimb
• Group 5 (cheaper because you own a car already from Hillclimb)
• 1x car from WTCC 2014
• American Track Pack (already had 2 of these from a sale the first time I tried this, but it's cheap anyway)

And I have some vRP left. Buying the Hillclimb pack means you get the track, and also 2 of the cars which are included in the Touring Classics Pack, which I believe is often run alongside DTM 1992, so therefore you would have a choice of 2 cars to race in that. When it comes to completing a pack that you own part of, for example, I have 2 of the cars from the Touring Classics Pack now, it is slightly cheaper to get those missing cars on their own, with only 1 livery each, than it is to buy the now-discounted Pack which you already own part of. The extra cost of the pack seems to be in the multiple liveries you get with it. But it depends on whether you want a choice of livery or not.

I hope that's of use to someone somewhere. Not as expensive as I had thought it was in the past to be honest. It feels better than it did when I first tried it. Maybe that's just me, or maybe their patches have changed things for the better! Have to say, if and when the devs get a rating system into this, and maybe scheduling/calendar of some kind for events... in my opinion it really does have the potential to be an iRacing beater for online stuff. The online-ness of it, web integration, leaderboards and competitions, highlighting the pro's times on the competitions, it's very compelling, and the sound and ffb makes it very immersive..."

Once you have this substantial amount of content you are also more than likely to be able to pick up the missing items you may fancy on one of the many sales offered by RaceRoom, and of course you also have the opportunity to test any of the vehicles available in game for free to help you decide what additional content you may wish to pickup down the line.

To compliment your new purchase(s) RaceDepartment runs a popular online racing club for Premium members to enjoy, featuring various cars and tracks in a friendly environment for you to get your racing kicks alongside your offline play.

I hope this little article helps those of you who are still sat on the fence with R3E, it really is an outstanding sim and deserves to achieve the numbers of users of other more mainstream titles available on the market.

Please let us know in the comments section below if you found this information useful and share your experiences with R3E purchasing and of course enjoying the driving!

 

[Serj]

• "Why terrible graphics and even worse sounds are not a reason not to play GSCE."

• "Why crappy netcode and a lack of features are not a reason not to play Assetto Corsa."

• "Why cost is not a reason not to play iRacing" (iRacing is substantially more expensive than R3E and yet it's got one of the largest user bases on the market).

• "Why an online pass system is not a reason not to play rFactor 2."

You try to tell us that reason is same but not, IMO. Dont know about GSCE, not playing at all, but Corsa, iR.... are you kidding, playing forhours online and no problem with Corsa. iR has a laserscanned tracks all SCANNED it costs little more if you know))), also they have clear vision graphics, excellent optimizations, 24 hour online help, broadcast, driver ranking, at last they have good service overall.
IMo R3E is something about wrong way, for more than two years we are dont have option save settings of car for every track 2 or three, no tire compounds, dx9 game with lags)) and some other reasons that can stop new user to play it after some time. But yeees, instead of this we have DTM 3 seasons cars, adac 2 seasons, wtcc 2 seasons......Personally I dont need such quantity of identical cars that drive fast only for some km/h with new season pack that odd for me. R3E only have 2 cars for GT1 and more than 10 cars for GT3)), they forget about GTR-X, they do what they need to do.
WTCC14 pack available for already year, but its odd physics. U know that if you put 35 minute race with normal fuel consumtion, no one car from WTCC14 reaches the finish line tryed on Nurburgring GP, but devs not fixed, they better release DTM15 and who care....thats a cool strategy)))

 

[Ghoults]

I think the common mistake is to look at raceroom as free2play title. I don't think it has ever been free2play. It is a demo with tons of paid DLCs. If raceroom is free2play then so is live for speed. Both come with free demo and you can buy addon packs that add more cars and tracks. I don't think the raceroom devs have even ever claimed that raceroom is free2play. (And yes you can make microtransactions in lfs as well...)

You can say the same thing about any game though. It doesn't make the article any less legitimate:

• "Why terrible graphics and even worse sounds are not a reason not to play GSCE."
• "Why crappy netcode and a lack of features are not a reason not to play Assetto Corsa."
• "Why cost is not a reason not to play iRacing" (iRacing is substantially more expensive than R3E and yet it's got one of the largest user bases on the market).
• "Why an online pass system is not a reason not to play rFactor 2."

Etc. etc.

All valid points individually.

Yet the point is I think that the logic of the article fails apart if you just look at the numbers. If he would have looked at the price vs amount of content he should have come to the conclusion that cost is indeed a reason not to play. Or at least admit that it is not cheap by any means, Instead the article just list all the packs he bought with loads of money at discount and then goes on about how he is enjoying the game while avoiding to address the cost issues altogether.

After reading the title I would have expected some kind of justification for the title ("raceroom is not expensive). Some kind of fact checking or even reasoning to prove the claim he made in the title. But he doesn't do any of that.

The article is a bit like saying ac doesn't have crappy netcode and doesn't suffer from lack of features because "it is fun to drive and I like it a lot. And the ac devs are planning to do this and that in the future".

Or. iRacing isn't expensive if you compare it to real racing. Plus money is not an issue because I like it a lot and this and that is planned by the devs in future...

Or. The online pass in rf2 is not an issue because it is just 11€ per year and I like it a lot and the devs are planning to add this and that in the future.

"I like it a lot" doesn't really fill my criteria of why raceroom is not expensive. If he had made the argument that the high price is justified by the quality of the content I could understand his point. Not agree with it but understand it - there is a difference.

That being said I don't think the writer of that post has done anything wrong. I think the mistake was made when that post was made into article. What was once perfectly innocent and fair opinion is turned into poor article due to its complete one sidedness. Price of the raceroom is definitely one of the more talked aspects of the game so if the article wanted to create discussion about this aspect of the game then at least it could have provided forum posts supporting both sides of the argument.

 

[ears]

You're not aware of Com8's and Feels3's work prior to their employment by Simbin? Have a look at their recent work(*) and compare to other sims:

(*) It's worth noting that R3E has an advantage of only needing their tracks to look good in three conditions: morning, midday, and evening. There's no dynamic lighting scenarios, so they're free to fine-tune for only the exact conditions they want.

Ah so you meant that they have the best race track creators IN YOUR OPINION?

 

[ears]

Additional cars, of which there are many, are each $11.95. Each additional track, of which there are many, is between $11.95 and $14.95 depending on the track.

Purchase enough of these to replicate the same amount of content that you'd receive in a $60 game, and you'll have spent several hundred dollars.

For example, a game like Assetto Corsa costs approximately $60 all up with the two DLC dreampacks. In total, the game features approximately 20 tracks and 50 cars. At iRacing's prices, that same number of cars and tracks (assuming each track is the minimum $11.95) equates to $836.50... Yes, you read that right: Eight hundred and thirty six dollars and fifty cents.

And that doesn't include the membership fee.

Thanks Chris - but sorry - it was actually the bit about it having one of the largest user bases that I was wondering about. From the stats I've seen this doesn't necessarily translate to the number of people actually playing online at any one time.

 

[Yapci]

Downloaded this 2 times and unistalled this 2 times.

Happened to me more or less the same as with pcars. FFB is too bad and I don't really understand neither pretend to study how to tweak every parameter when I can run any other game pretty much with standard settings.

Graphics are not that bad for me but nothing better than I have in other games (at least on my system specs).

Only online. Don't like that. I have some connection issues from time to time and like to race anyways.

Too much dlcs and that free2play but real pay4all that I dont really like.

Physics don't do for me. But maybe that's because of the FFB giving weird info.

Conclusion: not cheap, not polyshed, online (you don't have nothing for real), not that great for
value.

 

[Majuh]

(*) It's worth noting that R3E has an advantage of only needing their tracks to look good in three conditions: morning, midday, and evening. There's no dynamic lighting scenarios, so they're free to fine-tune for only the exact conditions they want.

Actually the lighting is dynamic, but they are using only static times of day right now. Look at 0:12 - 0:15 in this video, this is from one of their development builds:

 

[Nox]

You can say the same thing about any game though. It doesn't make the article any less legitimate:

• "Why terrible graphics and even worse sounds are not a reason not to play GSCE."
• "Why crappy netcode and a lack of features are not a reason not to play Assetto Corsa."
• "Why cost is not a reason not to play iRacing" (iRacing is substantially more expensive than R3E and yet it's got one of the largest user bases on the market).
• "Why an online pass system is not a reason not to play rFactor 2."

Etc. etc.

I would agree, but the article title doesn't fit with the actual article which basically admits it is expensive. It says, "It is not costly, all you need to do is spend money!". Which would be the same as an article called, "Why an online pass system is not a reason not to play rFactor 2" saying that all you have to do pay for the online pass system! or "Why crappy netcode and a lack of features are not a reason not to play Assetto Corsa" article saying "all you have to do is put up with the crappy netcode!"

I am quite surprised such a biased (almost sponsored?) article like this even got posted on RD, it is clearly lop-sided opinion. A balanced article would have put both sides across; this feels like one guy abusing a staff role to push his own agenda because he personally likes the game (and cost) and wants more people to race with. (I am not saying that's what happened, or whether the author posted it or another staff member, I am saying that's how it feels, and the article loses credibility)

The article is contradictory. It is saying "Don't let cost put you off, just spend your money like I did!" I'm not saying the game is poor, I am saying it is expensive; the two are not reliant on each other. I play R3E occasionally, and I have had fun. That doesn't make it cheaper.

In reply to another comment I saw in this thread, spreading out payments over weeks/months doesn't change how much total is spent, it just has less impact at a single time. That's why micro-transactions work. Whether you spend 65 bucks in one go or over 6 months for the same thing , they are the same total cost.

 

[Chris]

I would agree, but the article title doesn't fit with the actual article which basically admits it is expensive. It says, "It is not costly, all you need to do is spend money!". Which would be the same as an article called, "Why an online pass system is not a reason not to play rFactor 2" saying that all you have to do pay for the online pass system! or "Why crappy netcode and a lack of features are not a reason not to play Assetto Corsa" article saying "all you have to do is put up with the crappy netcode!"

I am quite surprised such a biased (almost sponsored?) article like this even got posted on RD, it is clearly lop-sided opinion. A balanced article would have put both sides across; this feels like one guy abusing a staff role to push his own agenda because he personally likes the game (and cost) and wants more people to race with. (I am not saying that's what happened, or whether the author posted it or another staff member, I am saying that's how it feels, and the article loses credibility)

The article is contradictory. It is saying "Don't let cost put you off, just spend your money like I did!" I'm not saying the game is poor, I am saying it is expensive; the two are not reliant on each other. I play R3E occasionally, and I have had fun. That doesn't make it cheaper.

In reply to another comment I saw in this thread, spreading out payments over weeks/months doesn't change how much total is spent, it just has less impact at a single time. That's why micro-transactions work. Whether you spend 65 bucks in one go or over 6 months for the same thing , they are the same total cost.

I think that's a very valid point mate, and I would agree that this article is perhaps a bit too glowing of R3E, however it wasn't really intended to be a review or anything. I know Paul loves himself some RaceRoom , it's a good game. I'm not a fan of its pricing model personally, but I think this article was more just to give some helpful and useful advice to those who are looking to get into R3E but are unsure of it due to such a pricing model, and how to maximize it.

It's also generated some good, mature discussion, which in the sim racing world is rare, especially with a somewhat touchy subject such as a pricing model. So that's great to see

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I am quite surprised such a biased (almost sponsored?) article like this even got posted on RD, it is clearly lop-sided opinion. A balanced article would have put both sides across; this feels like one guy abusing a staff role to push his own agenda because he personally likes the game (and cost) and wants more people to race with. (I am not saying that's what happened, or whether the author posted it or another staff member, I am saying that's how it feels, and the article loses credibility)

First off let's make something abundantly clear, staff on RD are not paid employees of a corporation with any liability to be 100% fair and objective in their articles. News items are written by members of the community who volunteer to work for free to create content for all of us to consume, whether a staff member has a bias towards a particular sim and it shows in his articles is seriously a non-issue imo.

Second, if this article was equally "biased and lop-sided" in favor of your favorite sim, would you be equally critical towards it?

Third, I read this article as a reach out to the community to try increase awareness about the sim, it's qualities and to try counter the seemingly neverending arguments about how expensive it is to be a R3E customer, backed up by (imo) a completely fair comparison to the actual cost of other sims like AC. The fact that you are locked out from most AC public servers and club races unless you own the latest DLC alone is something worth mentioning when considering the cost of AC vs R3E, because that seems to be lost on people when they compare the pricing of the two.

Call me biased, but I enjoy R3E tons, and it's annoying to see that this in my opinion brilliant sim suffer in numbers on the multiplayer side, cos I wan't bigger grids and frequent races.
I also enjoy AC, and rF2, on a regular basis, and they for sure both have strong points that outshine R3E, but put head to head I think R3E stands very well on its own and I wish more people would dive in and give the sim the attention it deserves.

The business model ain't perfect, but it's neither extremely expensive nor a massive barrier to getting ingame and having a real blast with it.
If you have other reasons not to play (FFB, always online, steam only etc) that's fine, I just don't think that cost is a truly valid reason for most of us.

 

[vee10]

The article to me comes across as a paid piece to get more people to buy content. I am surprised RD published it. I have seen these type of arguments over and over again in a actual thread or forum but not actually as a article on the front page. Poor showing for me peeps.

As for R3E I have bought many pieces of content costing mucho pounderos but as it is, it is currently uninstalled as I could never get the steering to feel right, it was/is a ball ache to setup with unsatisfactory results that always felt like I was steering from a steering column rather than the wheels.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

The article to me comes across as a paid piece to get more people to buy content. I am surprised RD published it. I have seen these type of arguments over and over again in a actual thread or forum but not actually as a article on the front page. Poor showing for me peeps.

As for R3E I have bought many pieces of content costing mucho pounderos but as it is, it is currently uninstalled as I could never get the steering to feel right, it was/is a ball ache to setup with unsatisfactory results that always felt like I was steering from a steering column rather than the wheels.

I can assure you that it is not a paid piece, as a prior R3E club race staff member I bought vRP voucher out of my own pocket thinking I would hand it out to participants in our club races, but RD policies prohibited me from doing so because it could be considered borderline what you're saying.
There's no such thing as paying off RD to favor a sim or product, period.
There is however staff members who gravitate towards certain sims more than others, that are more positive towards some sims than others, see my previous post.
Lastly, I can also inform you that the author of this article is a huge rF2 fan and also enjoys AC, it's ok to be positive towards several sims you know, being positive towards one of them in a single article doesn't have to mean you're not enjoying the others

 

[vee10]

I can assure you that it is not a paid piece, as a prior R3E club race staff member I bought vRP voucher out of my own pocket thinking I would hand it out to participants in our club races, but RD policies prohibited me from doing so because it could be considered borderline what you're saying.
There's no such thing as paying off RD to favor a sim or product, period.
There is however staff members who gravitate towards certain sims more than others, that are more positive towards some sims than others, see my previous post.
Lastly, I can also inform you that the author of this article is a huge rF2 fan and also enjoys AC, it's ok to be positive towards several sims you know, being positive towards one of them in a single article doesn't have to mean you're not enjoying the others

Yeah sorry Kjel, I was not insinuating it was a paid piece just that the article comes across to me at least as one. My problem is the dev's seem more concerned getting paid content out and not fixing issues.

 

[Birddogg66]

And you can buy 1 per month which is not gonna hurt nobody's budget I guess.

I guess you have a point since anyone reading this can afford internet service.

 

[Nox]

@Kjell Eilertsen as a former staff member myself I know they aren't paid. Second, this article isn't 'news' as you call it. And I clearly said "I am not saying that's what happened, or whether the author posted it or another staff member, I am saying that's how it feels, and the article loses credibility." It was backing up my point that it was completely one sided.

You said, "Second, if this article was equally "biased and lop-sided" in favor of your favorite sim, would you be equally critical towards it?"

Yes, whether I agree with an article or not, I am very capable of telling whether it is biased or not. Even if I weren't, that doesn't make my position wrong by default. My point wasn't even about it being biased as much as that it doesn't even do what it says in the title and prove that it isn't costly; the article admits it is. A better title would be "R3E is Expensive, Here's How I Got Around It". You even have a thread here http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/r3e-pricing-discounts-and-tips.107497/ about the exact same thing as this article, so this article is just repeating. This article was probably made with the best intentions, but it was normal thread material, not front page material - as soon as it went front page it stopped being one guys opinion and became an RD article.

I also said that the sim could be amazing, but the discussion was about the cost. Don't confuse the two. You don't have to agree with me about the cost, but lets not pretend this article wasn't one sided, and don't cherry-pick certain parts of my posts and ignore the points I am making. Agree, don't, that's fine, I'm not going to keep repeating myself. I like R3E, when it works, but it is expensive, period... in my opinion....

 

[ears]

The bottom line here is not that most people 'should' it's that most people 'don't'.

Like iRacing the model appears to be we'll take regular money from the minority rather than sporadic money from the masses. If it works for them, great - it has to be said that the Race07 model probably didn't work, as they didn't exactly thrive on it.

I wouldn't disagree for a second that there's a good game in there - I do own a couple of packs I bought cheap on Steam and once you're in there (and it really does take a long time to get behind the wheel) it's not a bad game. As has been mentioned several times already, and is totally undeniable, the sounds are best in show.

At the moment I feel content is favoured over features, and as the game currently doesn't sport features I consider mandatory now in any racing game (mainly VR, or triple screen support at least) then I'm not interested.

I did buy rFactor2 recently, even though it currently doesn't support VR but I considered that 'one for the future' while it was on offer. That's OK because whatever other features or content appear for it between now and when it does eventually (maybe) get VR support, I'll have access to when I actually start playing it.

The same can't be said for R3E - if I buy content in the sale now, it'll be totally outdated and superceded when / if VR draws me back in.

 

[kedy89]

One thing I'd like to add is that the pricing put me off the first time I had a look in the store, which was way before I bought stuff during this summer sale. If you don't know that the discounts (i.e. difference pack price to original) are always applied, it's easy to think something like "wow, that's pretty expensive if it wasn't for the current discount". That may lead you to think that you have to buy the stuff you want now before prices go up again, and eventually make you buy nothing at all (at least it was like that for me).

It kind of lacks transparency. Take the DTM2015 pack for example, which says original price 7015vRP, which should be a bit more than 50€ I think. Why not put the pack price as original price, and only show discount if there actually is one. I'm not even sure how they calculate the original price, buying cars and tracks separated sums up to ~5000vRP, so the 2000 difference are for the Experience (i.e. rules and liveries)?

 

[Paul Bennett]

Late to the party here only tried out RRe yesterday now with Win 10. I like , an will invest in classic touring or DTM 92, an a track pack as I don't have that type of contant on the PC that's it for now , and I don't have clue what it's gonna cost me.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

It kind of lacks transparency. Take the DTM2015 pack for example, which says original price 7015vRP, which should be a bit more than 50€ I think. Why not put the pack price as original price, and only show discount if there actually is one. I'm not even sure how they calculate the original price, buying cars and tracks separated sums up to ~5000vRP, so the 2000 difference are for the Experience (i.e. rules and liveries)?

I totally agree that the perpetual "discount" for pack prices can be misleading, though getting a bulk discount when you buy more isn't really something specific to R3E is it? Is it as such not a discount?

 

[Keith Joyce]

The micro transactions actually suit me as I spending small amounts over time fits my wife's financial planning strategy...

 

[Brandon Wright]

it doesn't even do what it says in the title and prove that it isn't costly; the article admits it is.

Not trying to start an argument, but that's not what the title says at all. It says that the "cost is not a reason to not play", which implies that despite the cost you shouldn't let that discourage you from playing because there's a lot of good stuff on offer. It doesn't say "cost is not a reason to not play, because it's actually cheap (even though it can be expensive)".

I've been over this a lot on the S3S forums, my opinion is that if you do your research then R3E isn't as expensive as it first seems, it is more expensive than other sims but not as much as it appears and it lets you control your spending. But, it is presented in a very confusing way and unfortunately a lot of people aren't willing to do the research so they will dismiss it and move on to the next sim.

For the people having issues with the FFB, I too was one of you until recently. First, a recent updated has overhauled the physics for GTR3, M1 Procar, DTM '15, Silhouette, and Aquila and they feel very good now with no floatiness at all. I recommend having a go with them (the Silhouette and Aquila are free cars) to see if they better suit your tastes now. Also, all the cars had their default setups changed and it seems to have made a lot of them feel much better now. Also, the only things you really need to tinker with are FFB Intensity, Steering Force Intensity, Vertical Force, Lateral Force, and Understeer, leave everything else at zero, that should make it a bit easier to figure out.

There's a lot of good parts of R3E, some not so good, but it's great fun to drive/race with, the people who race in it are some of the nicest and most mature racers I've encountered, and the S3S team are really great guys who listen to the fans and have made great improvements over the last year.