I don't realy get what all the fuzz is all about... I see it like this. Everyone have some kind of hobby, something they throw money on. Some people like clubbing dancing going to parties..etc.. Throw away tonz of money and the only thing they take home is the memory that said they didn't drink to much... And many of you have probably done that too. Was it this much fuzz about that too. Some have cars as hobby so did I and compared from racing, exhibitions for real and all around that I am happy for RRRE it cut my expence in car hobby too nothing and I don't even need to go out a stormy day if I don't want to, but I still can race. And as a former smoker I had no problem burning up my money and nothing left but bad helth, luckly I quit in time and got back in good health and saved money and my health. I read so many post about games are expencive jada,jada,jada... it is expencive and time consuming to make them and they are expencive when you don't have money. I agree! But you always have to make sacrifice for what you like, that's how life is. But you all, already know that. I say! Skip your cola,candy,beer,chips or what ever you know you throw money one that you realy don't need, skip it for 3,6,9 month a year or maby for ever. I know most of you never complain when you realy want something and can aford it, it is probably the last you think of, you just buy it and have fun with it. And a BIG YES! I know even that can be hard for some (saving up a buck or twoo) but then we're back to the thing caled life, life is not fair I know, but every one can't win the race it is just how it is. Some come in second, third and there always have to be some one that come in last.. :/ What I wish many of you did, is to read what you are about to post and read it a couple times, you will probably refraze parts of it, thinking cant I do this better or maby even figgure out. Hey! do I realy need to post this! So, Why this post? Well think about it, you might figgure it out eventualy. (And I am NOT talking about spelling ok )
As some of us mentioned in the last couple pages, it's not so much the actual price of the content as it is the confusing way in which it's presented. Is it clear to a newcomer that you only have to buy one car in a class to race in that class? No. Is it clear to a newcomer that there are a number of ways to get discounts on the content? No. Is it clear to a newcomer that if you purchased a previous Experience you'll get a discount on the new Experience? No. Is it clear to a newcomer that you can buy bulk VRP at a discounted rate? No. Is it clear to a newcomer why they use VRP instead of real currency? No. All this makes it difficult for someone uneducated in the ways of the R3E store to understand what's going on and also makes it look even more expensive than it actually is. Your points are all logical, but unfortunately a lot of consumers don't use logic when making a purchasing decision, they take a quick look and think "this is confusing and looks expensive, I'm going to move on to the next sim". Now that I (mostly) understand how this all works I have no problem with the business model itself, in fact I see some benefits to it over the standard "flat fee + DLC" model, but it took some time and research for me to understand it and unfortunately a lot of people won't be willing to put that kind of effort into it. If you want to sell your product to as many people as possible, you need to make it as easy to understand as possible.
Well I was more or less pointing out that, if you want something realy bad you realy dont give a flying F* about a business modle or price. I understand exactly what you are saying and agree for that is exactly how I interpred R3E att first glance sadly, but when I realized I could race for free I tryed it out. The free track and cars.. this looks to be litle to expencive, but it didn't take me long to figgure out I want this, acouple hours free driving I didn't give a F* if it was expencive or not anymore I just wanted the game all of it. So I saved up for the packs by reducing cost to anything I realy didn't need on a day to day bases and bought it all and will go on doing so now that I figgured out how I could save money for the game. But what is the learning from that... it doesn't matter if I had it all or just the free stuff, I had fun in the game, I wanted it, In the end isn't that what it's all about, go with it, take it for what it is. Enjoy life enjoy what you have insted of dwelling over what you don't have. Spending time thinking about a gamemakers business modle, and whining about it when not asked for it, isn't that like refueling your car when it's already full. Pointless. If I hade spent time wobbling my thought about how the heck this works and if it's expencive or not. Insted of just play the game what I got for free and make a dessition, if the rest of the game is this good or even better. Do I want it? Then your done. So insted of doing the whining and complaining, without coming up with a better selution that is perfect. I just figgure out a way that I could save enough money so that I could by anything in the game I wanted, if I hadn't I would probably still be siting and wobbling, whining my thoughs about if it's expencive or not. What is important is, do you like it enough to buy it all if you had the money to spare for it or not? Yes, is probably the answer for most who play this game. If so start using the head and make it happen, then it doesn't matter any more. Right!?
Yes, and no. Your first sentence is a perfect example, if somebody really wants something they will do what is necessary to acquire it. Problem is, how do they know if they want it, and how can the seller convince them that they want it? Perhaps we let them try some cars and tracks for free in an attempt to lure them in? Good idea! Problem is, until a couple weeks ago the free cars were the worst feeling and hardest to drive in the game. Who would want that? I know a lot of people (myself included) who tried the free cars, decided they felt terrible and that this game wasn't worth the time or money if the cars felt bad to drive. Now two of the free cars feel brilliant, which is a step in the right direction, but until they all feel good the problem will still partially remain. When all the free cars feel good, I'd expect more people to stick with the sim after they have their free sample, regardless of the price. But until all the cars feel as good as the newly updated cars, the problem will still partially remain. As for the whinging and complaining without coming up with a better solution, if you read through this thread you'll see that a lot of us are not just pointlessly whinging but are providing constructive concerns and at times offering suggestions on how things could improve. Obviously since we don't know all the details of how/why the business model is the way it is all we can do is speculate, but that's one of the reasons this forum exists, so we can discuss these things with the hopes that the devs will read our thoughts and concerns and take them into consideration. And on many other subjects it's clear that the devs do listen to us and take our suggestions into consideration, so it's worthwhile to have the discussion. One of my suggestions is to do away with the Experiences and Packs as that's one of the major sources of confusion (though I understand there are/were contractual obligations to structure it that way). Something more along the lines of iRacing where you just buy the cars and tracks one at a time for a flat fee, and then within the game you can select what rule sets you want to use (DTM, ADAC, basic rules, etc.). If they want to continue a type of discount program, have it be based on amount of content owned, so if you own 10 pieces of the content you get a 10% discount on all future content, if you own 20 pieces of the content you get a 15% discount on future purchases......or something along those lines. Or perhaps a flat bulk discount, if you buy 3 pieces of content at once you get a 10% discount on those items, if you buy 6 pieces you get a 15% discount, and so on. This would eliminate most of the confusion and create more stable pricing, with discounts that are easy for everyone to understand and can be spelled out right in the store. I'm not sure if any of that is possible, but it seems more straightforward to me while keeping the basic structure in place. One of the major benefits of the current model is that it partially solves the DLC conundrum that other games have where you can't participate in a race using DLC if you don't own the DLC. With R3E you only have to buy one car or one track to participate in races using that content instead of having to buy the entire DLC pack. So, yes, you still have to buy something, but it's probably only a couple of bucks and you only have to buy what you want. Plus you can buy it right there in the game instead of having to shut the game down, go to Steam, download content, etc. I think this could help minimize the DLC fracture for online racing. So, there ya go. A non-whingy explanation of perceived problems, suggestions on how to address the perceived problems, as well as praise for some of the good parts of the business model, all in one post. I don't think I can be more constructive than that.
I don't think everyone is whining, I implied it's a little too much of it. Insted of like your post ^there^ a perfect summarized explenation, with constructive suggestions how to improve things. Well written I just wished for more people to think litle more along this lines, don't see the problem, try to see the solution and don't make it harder than it have to be.
Yeah, unfortunately that's how things often work in forums, people form a conclusion based on little-to-no facts and then stick to that conclusion (often militantly) regardless of new/contradictory information. Fortunately, there seems to be a lot less of that on these forums than on most other forums, but it still rears its head occasionally. It seems most of the folk here are reasonable, mature, and think before they type.
Also, I think it might be helpful to point out: If Sector3 Studios would ever weigh in on these particular forum discussions, they could help to reduce the frequency. Yes, I respect this studio, the work they've done, the support they provide (was helped myself recently), and the product. However, they do tend to be very quiet when this topic comes up. I understand that might be because of contractual obligations, but it would definitely help (and probably quiet many of us down!) if we knew they were listening. I'm just saying...
Agreed, we are spinning our wheels a bit. I presume that their hands are tied on this by RaceRoom, so they can't do anything about it and therefore it's not worth chiming in on it. If we're stuck with it as is that might make some people unhappy (obviously) so maybe it's better to just keep mum on it and let people wonder.
I'd be very interested to hear from Raceroom regarding the business model but the likelihood of that happening is slim to none, I guess. Probably not something they wish to discuss in any detail re: the success of the product so far and plans for the future.
How many cars/tracks did i use with PCars? Almost only GT in multiplayer mode. That's the answer. I would like to have a PCars "à la carte" as R3E does. I'm not interested by the procar or touring world so why should i have to pay for that? I'm only interested by GTs, DTM, and the WTCC. Now i will check the prices in the store and buy all good opportunities.
Ok, well you got a lot of tracks with your PCars purchase, right? Go to R3E and take the price of your GT, DTM, and WTCC packs and combine it with the cost to buy all of the tracks. I'd wager it's pretty similar to the cost of PCars, but with a lot fewer cars, no weather, no flags, no pit stops, no tire pressure adjustments, and no night racing. One of the positives about R3E is that you can only buy what you want, but that doesn't mean you're necessarily saving any money compared to other sims on a per-piece basis.
Same music, in this case go with forza. I don't care if i have 60 cars and i feel that the physic is strange.
Ok, I did the maths for you. To buy DTM 2015, ADAC 2014, WTCC 2014 (the only cars you're interested in racing), and the American Track Pack (I believe those four get you most, but not all, of the tracks) would run you about $70 USD. Add in the few of tracks that aren't included in any of those packs and you're probably over $80, which is about 33% more expensive than PCars or Forza, about 100% more than Dirt Rally, and about 150% more than AC , GSCE, FTruck. But you get less with R3E than with any of those sims. $80 is about on par with rF2 (with online membership), but again you're getting less for your money when compared to rF2. Not sure how one can claim that R3E isn't more expensive than other sims.
hm, with those 4 Packs i'm at around 5589vRP - owned content things and so on... with pre-paid vRP (10k vRP-Pack) for 64,99€ (not sure how much in $) I would spend vRP with a value of 36,32€.
I rather there are packs because there are people out there who prefer to buy packs. If the packs like ADAC, DTM, GTR3 and so on are removed, then, I have no interest to buy more content in this game because it will be absurdly expensive to buy all the content while it is no different than having solely microtrasaction in the game. I like to have choice when it comes to livery and I prefer to own all the content in a discipline as each car in the game drives differently. If I had to choose between having 1 car or pay a lot more for owning all the cars, then, I rather not play this game because even with the current packs, this game is comparably more expensive. The separate purchase of cars, liveries and tracks are the main source of the issue because it made the game looked like it is nickel and diming you despite there are much cheaper packs. The price of individual content is also extremely high which is the core problem of R3E being expensive perception. R3E is never a cheap game to begin with as other games tend to go on sale a lot like rFactor 2 recently just had a 40% off sale while quite a huge population of AC community bought it in early access that they didnt even pay $60 for the game which I paid $30 for AC. AC is also the game that goes on sale most frequently and they are still planning to patch the game with free content soon. Project CARS was the only game I bought at $60 which if I waited around for a month or so, I could get it at 30% off in July. For Dirt Rally, I bought it when it first released which it was $30. Lastly, for GSCE, the game was never expensive as I got for $20 while they are doing something interesting soon so it will benefit GSCE owners. If you are patient, other games are generally cheap to access while for R3E, there are methods of buying in cheap but it isnt obvious at all. Along with a confusing business model that is spread out through a separate vRP bundle store, a microtrasaction-like store, and generally high prices of packs, it is hard for new players to pick R3E despite of it's strength over other games. Why new users need to research extensively to get into R3E when the market already have numerous games that offers more or less a buy once and access many content option with clearly mentioned DLCs or even modding support? People are lazy so at the end, they just pick other games over R3E especially seeing other games on sale in a Steam major sale. I do think R3E needs to offer a buy once with many content option for new players while focusing more on selling complete packs as DLC. There could be a $60 value pack with all the current European and American track pack along with M1 Procar, GTR2, GTR3, Touring Cars Classics, Radical Pack and Group 5 in one fixed price. If anyone wants DTM, WTCC, ADAC, Trans Am, GTR1 and so on, they could opt to buy them as expansion packs to the main game. The reason behind a fixed price value pack is, this pack will ease the entry cost into R3E so that players can get into the game easier and will be more incline to buy future packs if they like the game.
I bought the WTCC 2013 pack, the ADAC GT Master 2013 and the American track pack. It cost me 34 euros. As i said, i have more stuff with PCars but i don't use most of the tracks and cars because people don't use them in multiplayer mode and because i have no interest in them and the physic is a little bit strange. So for 34 euros i'm happy with R3E. I planned to buy the Macao track and the Castellet but i'm not sure if i will find online races using these tracks.
you mean Paul Ricard? That is on Discount at the moment and frequently used in MP (not often but frequently). Macao isn't used that often in public MP but more in closed or league-sessions - very difficult racing there.
I was approaching it as a new player who owned no content and was not aware that you could get bulk VRP discounts, which would make it more expensive. The fact that it actually can all be had for considerably less, if you know what you're doing, shows how confusing the system can be. If the cars are left at full retail price, yes it would be. Thing is, you can pay wildly different amounts for the same exact car, from $0.50 to $3-4. In the model I proposed I would suggest setting the base price toward the lower end of the spectrum, in the $1-2 range, which would mean you'd still be paying similar prices per car than what you get in the pack or experience (ADAC would around $10 with that model which isn't really more than we pay now). I would guess that due to sales and discounts S3S rarely gets full retail value for the cars so this shouldn't have too negative of an impact on their bottom line, but with less confusion and slightly lower prices it could attract a lot more players which would improve their bottom line. The tracks could still be sold as packs to help make them more affordable. I'm not claiming this is the perfect solution, just tossing ideas out there for the sake of constructive discussion. We may be spinning our wheels, but it doesn't hurt to talk about it.