iRacing - Help me understand charges

M

Motley

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 29, 2005
Messages
2,497
Geeeezus christ. So I sign up for iRacing, plan to race in some Nascar leagues.

The fees are ridiculous! Its says the membership comes with 14 tracks, including Phoenix Intl Raceway.

Well not so much. I just found out there are two versions of Phoenix, and I need to purchase it in on order to race in a new league I just joined.

Total scam, bait and switch.

They fee ya to death.

Monthey Membership fees
Track fees
Car fees
Hosted racing fees.

Congratulations, they just made the first $600 PC game, that is if you want to play it.
 
Yep, god forbid they charge money for what they make, and the daily organization and maintenance of online racing systems. As well as the thousands of man hours that goes into laser scanning and modeling a single track.
 
Motley said:
Geeeezus christ. So I sign up for iRacing, plan to race in some Nascar leagues.

The fees are ridiculous! Its says the membership comes with 14 tracks, including Phoenix Intl Raceway.

Well not so much. I just found out there are two versions of Phoenix, and I need to purchase it in on order to race in a new league I just joined.

Total scam, bait and switch.

They fee ya to death.

Monthey Membership fees
Track fees
Car fees
Hosted racing fees.

Congratulations, they just made the first $600 PC game, that is if you want to play it.
Click to expand...

It's not fair to call iRacing a "scam" or "bait and switch". If you did a little research on their website it's all spelled out before you join.

They charge for the cars and tracks because guess what? a lot of work goes into making them. If you want their quality content then you have to pay for it.

The first $600 PC game is also a huge exaggeration as well because there are a lot of multiplayer games that have DLC and cash shops these days that players spend thousands on

iRacing is very expensive if you want all of the cars and tracks. Plus think about all of the "cockpit" peripherals you could purchase add up to thousands.

I haven't played in a few years but I used to concentrate on one or two divisions at a time and I didn't run the full season. I purchased a few tracks I was interested in and only ran on those weeks. It's very time consuming working on making your car faster and working on your line/setup anyway.

iRacing / simracing is a very costly game/hobby in both time and $$.
 
Another thing to realize is that iRacing is NOT your typical racing game, where you might buy a DLC with 10 cars in it or whatever. In iRacing, a single cars will take you dozens of hours to learn, especially from track to track. It's not the type of game where you get the 9 course meal going through each type of racing in single events. It's meant to be a sim where you focus on one car and racing series for a while, practice and get experience so you can be competitive. Totally different mindset and online focus compared to PCars, AC, Forza etc etc.

To put it simply, iRacing is all about RACING and not collecting cars and tracks.
 
OP sound like my mom, when something is too expensive in her mind she'll call it a scam as an automatic reaction.
 
All the cars and tracks in iRacing are individually and meticulously modeled to their real life specifications. Real drivers are known to race in an iRacing league for preparation of their real racing events. iRacing is a serious platform for online racing competition, not just another racing game. It's not going to be for everybody, and it's obviously not for you. You might be happier with Project CARS or Assetto Corsa.
 
You're not understanding my complaint. I look at the membership site, it says "14 tracks included". So I see the list of tracks included with a new subscription. I see "Phoenix" track listed.

So I sign up for this league, and next weeks race is at Phoenix. Great! I already have that track! But wait, there are two different versions of the same track. So if I want to race in the league next week, I have to purchase the SAME track I already have with my new subs.

Does that make ANY sense at all? Why two different versions of the same track? Why is one free, and the other need to pay for?
 
The configuration included in the base membership was before the overhaul to the track in 2011. The track you need to buy is different than the one in the base game. The banking on the new configuration is progressive, the dogleg on the back straight is different, and the track is now overall wider.
 
Depending on how aggressive you get, any of the "free" games from Wargamming.net can easily be FAR more expensive than iRacing.
 
Motley said:
You're not understanding my complaint. I look at the membership site, it says "14 tracks included". So I see the list of tracks included with a new subscription. I see "Phoenix" track listed.

So I sign up for this league, and next weeks race is at Phoenix. Great! I already have that track! But wait, there are two different versions of the same track. So if I want to race in the league next week, I have to purchase the SAME track I already have with my new subs.

Does that make ANY sense at all? Why two different versions of the same track? Why is one free, and the other need to pay for?
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It's NOT the same track. That is the point. It is an entire re-scan and rebuild. Last I heard, it costs approximately $100,000 to do the basic scan of a basic track these days.

Don't get me wrong. I have my issues with iRacing, but cost isn't one of them. Not compared to what you see going on in the gaming world these days.
 
Geeezus, that is so confusing. Then why do they even offer the old version of the track with new subsribtions? Either include the new version of Phoenix in new subscriptions, or take it out entirely. So confusing!
 
Motley said:
Geeezus, that is so confusing. Then why do they even offer the old version of the track with new subsribtions? Either include the new version of Phoenix in new subscriptions, or take it out entirely. So confusing!
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I agree that seems confusing, you might want to send the devs an email about it

You probably would have received a better response if this was your original post along with a better thread title. Because your initial complaint did include bad words for iRacing right in the subject line and a complaint for all of the track, car, and hosted racing costs. I think that's why everyone is trying to explain to you that it's not a PC game, it's simracing and the costs are justified.
 
TechLarry said:
It's NOT the same track. That is the point. It is an entire re-scan and rebuild. Last I heard, it costs approximately $100,000 to do the basic scan of a basic track these days.

Don't get me wrong. I have my issues with iRacing, but cost isn't one of them. Not compared to what you see going on in the gaming world these days.
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Who did you hear that from? I want to work for those people paying 100k for scanning an oval track. No, seriously I'm not joking. I do this for a living. Last time we scanned a track, which was not an oval but a proper race track, we charged about 25k
 
M76 said:
Who did you hear that from? I want to work for those people paying 100k for scanning an oval track. No, seriously I'm not joking. I do this for a living. Last time we scanned a track, which was not an oval but a proper race track, we charged about 25k
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That number came out years ago, so I don't remember the source. it could be very different today.

I know one thing for sure. I wouldn't want the bill for the scan of The Ring :)
 
kledar586 said:
OP sound like my mom, when something is too expensive in her mind she'll call it a scam as an automatic reaction.
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Or every suburban white mom that post about 'scams' on facebook IN ALL CAPS TO MAKE SURE HER VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE GETS ACROSS TO EVERYONE.
 
Wow listen to this. I complained to support about this. And they gave me a $14.95 credit towards buying the new Phoenix track. Very cool of them, I'm happy now.
 
Motley said:
Wow listen to this. I complained to support about this. And they gave me a $14.95 credit towards buying the new Phoenix track. Very cool of them, I'm happy now.
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That's really cool.

Motley said:
Geeezus, that is so confusing. Then why do they even offer the old version of the track with new subsribtions? Either include the new version of Phoenix in new subscriptions, or take it out entirely. So confusing!
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I almost think that you might want to also complain to your league. Tell them (nicely) that they need to be more clear that the Phoenix track they are running is not the included track.

M76 said:
Who did you hear that from? I want to work for those people paying 100k for scanning an oval track. No, seriously I'm not joking. I do this for a living. Last time we scanned a track, which was not an oval but a proper race track, we charged about 25k
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But you just scan it. You don't then take that data and turn it into a playable track for $25k, right? When iRacing gets the track scanned, that's just the very beginning of the process. I'm sure the man hours on going from that scanned data to a useable track are immense.
 
Yippee38 said:
But you just scan it. You don't then take that data and turn it into a playable track for $25k, right? When iRacing gets the track scanned, that's just the very beginning of the process. I'm sure the man hours on going from that scanned data to a useable track are immense.
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The statement was scanning costs 100k, I pointed out that is not true. And the costs involved in modelling are present even if they don't base the track on a pointcloud. So they can't say that's why iracing is so expensive. Assetto Corsa also uses laser scanned tracks, and doesn't cost a fortune to play.
 
Motley said:
Wow listen to this. I complained to support about this. And they gave me a $14.95 credit towards buying the new Phoenix track. Very cool of them, I'm happy now.
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Glad to hear!

I hope to play again one day, I haven't played in a few years because the time commitment and required hardware setup is huge.
 
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