And this thread and some of the responses are the perfect reason why we'll probably never see the business model changed. I've bought everything short of two cars and I am thrilled they're offering this deal. . If it brings 500 new people in than that's amazing. That's 25k that will go towards development and adding stuff in that's been requested along with 500 new online players. I will echo though that a loyalty bonus would be a nice gift or a day one discount on new items. I totally understand that.
50€ would certainly be too lower a price for the whole content, and I agree that some of the reactions here don't take into account that there are people who actually need to make a living out of this. However, there are two sides to this coin - we as customers are not benefactors either. It's a product to many of us, and there's competition. I think the reactions might be an indication that the demand would be stronger with a slightly lower price, but that's not my place to say so, I just wish to avoid any perspective bias. There is a big difference between 50€ for all the cars, circuit layouts and experiences, and what one would have to pay to get the same without any discout. Both are probably extreme. Now there's no real need for anyone to actually possess the whole of it, but from the past experience in other products, that's how it works, that's what we are used to. These contrasts are probably what translates through the comments here. Then there's the frustration of seeing something one bought earlier suddenly become much cheaper - but that's life, and it's not meant to be fair, for my part I have no problem with it. Besides, it's a sale, it's temporary. Chances are, people who bought content here 6 months ago will not want to buy more now, they should rather see that as an opportunity to buy some other goodies that will also be on sale this weekend.
I think it's a great way to get the player base up with 500 newcomers, good call S3S! It might also be a test to see the reaction / demand of those codes for future plans of selling or including a base game, who knows? Well J-F apparently.. but for the rest of us, we just have to wait and see. However, my fingers will be crossed tomorrow that they sell every single one of these codes in a heart beat. That would send a good message to the publisher.
I hope they last about 5 minutes and I hope tomorrow every single person who bought it is on here asking questions so this community can show em just how friendly and how different we are when compared to other forums. My first R3E purchase was DTM14 and 10 minutes after I bought it I posted a question here and got a response (from you Heppsan) in less than 5 minutes. The game is fantastic, but this community as a whole along with the devs keeps me coming back. There's a true sense of belonging here
This game is undoubtedly the most expensive racing game out there (forget iRacing, that's not really a game). Most games of this gender sell for approx. $60 USD complete. If Sector 3 is hurting financially from this endeavor I find it hard to believe. Those of us that have purchased most of the content, like myself, have invested between $100-$200 USD for incomplete content. So what is the problem, seriously. All I'm saying is now Sector 3 is giving the entire game away to 500 newbies. That's fine, but it makes the rest of us that have dug down deep into our pockets feel like step-children.
Why would they change their business model and run the risk of threads being filled up with people who've bought everything complaining about changing the business model to a pack type pricing? Sorry, but S3S is very much in a "damned if you do", "damned if you don't" position. People complain about the vRP and the so called "nickling and diming" so they offer a huge sale with a pack, and then folks complain that they offered it. Lots of folks have asked for a pack that includes everything to get new players in the game and RRE has delivered and much like many of us predicted, this is what has happened. You can't have it both ways. You can't have a business model like the one we have and groan and complain and want pack pricing and then when a sale is offered, complain about what you complained about to begin with.
Wow, glad to hear that I was the first one to reply to you!! And that you remember it!. Hope I was a good one! Getting more new players in will eventually make it better for us all in the end, probably better prices as well.
Only that the discounts used to be more commonly; 50%. Also the track costs are creeping up ie: Spa 549 vRP. 500 vRP was the usual asking price per track. So, like Marcus, I doubt that I will be spending any money tomorrow. Not angry, just got too much sunk into this game already. Its a beautiful game and the best driving game there is, but I have to draw the line somewhere on game expenditures. Sorry.
Only 30%? Well... thanks ofc, better than nothing, but I was hoping for 50%. As your main competitors did at Steam.
Question. The $50.00 deal...this includes the packs as well like the DTM 2015 packs, GTR2 and Group 5 and all the track packs?...If it does...this is really a great deal!....Too bad the ADAC 2015 is not here yet....but I'll be looking out for this...Do they send the code via email?
I think a key point is that a lot of the content is still not offered in packs. This "everything in a pack" great deal only applies to those buying the special code. It's a product only truly available to new customers or those current customers willing to spend 50euro even though they may already own much of the content. Why can't Sector3 offer the remaining content in some type of pack (perhaps dynamically adjusted to your individual account -- like they already do with the "owned content" discount)? They could also finally drop all the remaining tracks/cars/liveries into packs. It is what it is, but as Marcus pointed out, the 30% discount is pretty much what we see periodically (the only difference being it applies to all non-pack content at once). It's just not a very impressive sale for people already invested. I'll likely just pass on it and hope they eventually pack up the stuff I don't have. I'd save more than 30% then.
Yes to everything. I'm not trying to to say everything is perfect and I'm not trying to belittle your investments, again a heartfelt thank you guys for your support and for sticking with it. It's not hurting S3S but it's "hurting" Raceroom, or to be more precise Klaus Wohlfarth's wallet cause he's the one financing this show for a number of reasons. This whole endeavor would've been shut down a long time ago if it had to rely on the income generated by sales. As I like doing some math: Let's be very positive (and neglect stuff like VAT ) and assume 3000 people (I chose this number as it's roughly the amount of members on this forum) invested an average of 100 €. The 300.000 € gathered that way wouldn't have kept them afloat for a year. The team was three times as big as it is now for the first two years but even with only 10 people that sum would probably pay their wages for circa 6 months. (That's assuming each earns 2.500 €, double that to cover social security, taxes etc. = roughly 5.000 € per employee and month) Take into account all running costs like rent, infrastructure, energy, marketing etc. I know there's more to it. I know there's in game advertising, revenue from doing contracting work for DTM and ADAC and so on. But the simple fact is that this product relies on a financial backer, namely Klaus Wohlfarth. So the best thing they can do is try to increase exposure and offering an all-in-one package is a great way to do that. This shouldn't make you feel like step children, it should make you feel like pioneers, the ones brave enough to take a risk and invest more than the average Joe at an early stage of the development of what could become the benchmark for (online) sim racing.