Hi, I'm not really used to write game reviews, or to open forum topics at all (but i always read lots of them), but i really felt the need to do so for R3E, because i feel it's a very good game with a very bad marketing and buisness plan. I was part of the closed beta of R3E, but back then i didn't really like the tire model and how it reacted to slides, when the closed beta ended i didn't feel like it's content was worth it's price and didn't even care to install the open beta version of the game. Lately, with the Gr.5 and GTO packs coming out, i decided to give it another chance. When i first tried it with the free Saleen GT1, i was like "meh, quite good, but not really worth buying.." but then fortunately i gave the Gr.5 and WTCC cars a free ride. I was positively shocked by how much of a better game it has become in few years, I was truly impressed and decided to buy some content. Here's the bad point: even with the 49€ vRP pack i wouldn't have been able to buy nearly enough content to make it worth it: to have at least the most desiderable cars + some tracks the 65€ vRP pack was the only possibility. After some esitation i decided to buy it and i'm realy happy to have done so: R3E is now my go-to sim both for TT and racing AI, but can't stop thinking that for the money i spent i should have more content and/or a discount on buying more content: i have -WTCC 13/14/15 -DTM 13 -DTM '92 -Gr5 -Daytona prototype (1 car, not the pack) -EU track pack (the old one) -nords -macau -GTO not a very small list of content, but not that big either, i think all your competitors offer much more content for a lower price, and this pisses off people making them choosing other games instead. So i decided to try to give some suggestion on how to attract more players with a some more attractive offers and also to try to help with th online fragmentation that the F2P model brings: -Give one or two a free cars at choice to every new player, so they can get a taste of the car categories they'd like to drive without having to spend any money. -Very big packs that offer about the same value of a complete game: we already have some big categories ingame, so why not allow people to get all cars from one category? I really like WTCC cars, but it wasn't that fun having to pay for 13/14/15 with little to no discount why not make 4 packs, namely: -Touring: includes all WTCC+DTM+TT cup and similar content + tracks they race on -GT: GT2+GT3+GT1+GTX and tracks they race on -Historic: Gr5 + GTO + NSU + DTM '92 + ecc. -Tracks: all tracks Those packs should cost around 30€/3500vRP so you can have 2 full categories + some tracks or a full category + all tracks for a full game's price. Also not to piss off people buying a pack the day before a car comes out, have something like "next 3 cars of that category coming out will be free for pack owners". -Daily discounts on the least sold car/track/pack in the last 30 days by respectively 50/40/40%, this should help bettering ROI on least popular content while not reducing the earnings from the content that already sells well, also this will help making people trying cars that they wouldn't consider otherwise. -Let people join MP lobbies even if they don't have the track, or at least make it so that every car class has something like 3 "free" MP tracks they can race on, this way you can greatly reduce the online fragmentation where anyone has different tracks and cars they can use, and also increas a bit online lobbies variety: I'm not an online guy, but it kinda hurts that with 65€ worth of content most of the times the only lobbies i can race in are the nurb 1h qualify-2min race WTCC lobby and the free pratice Gr5 nords one. -As i mentioned before, you hardly get enough content for 65€, if you spend less, is very difficoult to find something worth buying (the only very good deal you have for newcomers is DTM 13). I think there should be some "newcomer pack" having something like 5 tracks (at least 1 famous) and 8 cars in various classes for a quite low price so people can taste how good the game is without spending tons of money. -All the mentioned changes are mainly for newcomers, but i think you should find a way to make also older users happy. I've already seen in another thread you have some plans regarding this, but i think i'd be nice to have something like "you get a 5% discount every 10k vRP spent, up to 60% or something like that so that the discount gets quite big after you've spent about 70€ on the game -Also, and that's fundamental, give players some MOTIVATION to play: actually there's zero progression in the game, you can only play for fun, i think you should have some small daily or weekly rewards for doing some things like: -win 5, 100%+ AI race: 40vRP/week -win a MP race with 5+ players: 20vRP/day -set a time in the upper 50% of the leaderboard: 10vRP/day so the prizes are too small to get a pack (you'd need some months to get it), but you can get a single car every few weeks, making player more motivated to come back to play your game, this would help expecially in MP, where i think this game still have to develope a big enough player base. I hope some dev will read this wall of text as i feel R3E is really the most fun sim to play out there, but it was only out of "luck" that i decided to give it a try, and i think it has not nearly enough consideration in every simracing forum or community mainly because of the buisness model that drives them away even before trying it.
welcome back. There have been multiple threads on the business model, for example https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/the-raceroom-business-model-thread.2888/ Two comments without going through the regular discussion when it comes to the topic: * s3s is not the publisher of the game who has a bit more say how to run things. So the developers active on this forum may not be the ones who can make changes (and they are well aware of several points you listed). The developer is small, probably smaller than when you were in the closed beta phase. * value is relative and subjective. yes competition may have X for Y, but there is many real world products, say cars that get you from point a to b and they are priced differently and not all of the pricing may be "rational" to compare. Or say "wine" pricing and whatnot. does it make you happy, do you "value" that happiness. Would game X for half the price make you twice as happy? it's not entirely rational. As for the progression, I agree, I miss this aspect as well. I would like to have a career mode unlocking seasons based on the content I have... doing the competitions is motivating, but something on the racing side would be nice indeed. Everything is a bit sterile outside the race. Multiplayer is quite a "kick" so for the extra tension. Otherwise maybe join some racing club that should give pressure on progression. While lots of other free 2 play games allow you to unlock with just playing (your suggestion to gain vrps) I am not sure that would work in this game. My feeling is the game is too niche to sustain this, and people would make too much "money" with it, affecting sales.
oh and if you haven't got it, you absolutely must get the crew chief https://forum.sector3studios.com/in...chief-version-4-auto-updating-and-shiny.2516/
Thank you for the suggestions, i already had the crew chief app for pCars, but still didn't try it in R3E. Regarding the topic, i didn't know S3S weren't their own publisher, but i hope they have a little decision power about their game's pricing model. My fear is that R3E could go the simraceway route: I don't know if it was a good or bad game, but being gmotor based and having high prices was enough for me and probably many more people to not even try it. I think they should find a way to incourage people to start playing with free/low cost content, i'm sure most sim racers will like it enough to buy some more content after that, but if prople don't even try the game and don't talk about it in forums i fear it'll slowly die. I understand the S3S financial situation may not be that good and decreasing prices may seem risky, but i think a big player base will bring more money in the long run.
I did, and it wasn't the pricing that resulted in me not even spending the 20 bucks I had received for free. Not trying to mock you, but as one of those people who've been here from the get go I've read this too many times to not chuckle when sb says it. RR is here to stay, and it's not as expensive as some people believe it is. Just make sure to buy vRP in bulk from http://raceroomstore.com and make use of the heavily discounted packs and special deals.
I already got some content and will probably get a second 10k vRP pack (and probably last, because i like supporting nice games, but i don't like supporting F2P model, that's not only for R3E but a general thing). What i'm trying to say is that too many people are driven away without even trying the game. Just take a look on virtualr blog: Most of the comments about R3E are about the pricing, and it gets MUCH less talks than any other sim out there. It's not about me wanting to pay less, is about how to make more willing to try some cars ingame and find out if they like them
We have this topic every once in a while, no worry, a lot are well aware of the situation (including the developers here). It's just that has been discussed to death, hence you won't see that much traction (and me pointing to one of the threads), doesn't mean all people think everything is great I'd disagree that people would not even try something when it's free, what probably happened is that they tried in the past and didn't like, or that they try now and don't like it, for whatever reasons and the business model is one of them. But not trying something that is free to try would be rather atypical for most simracers. If a product doesn't "grip you", it's more likely that secondary reasons like pricing become more important. If you really enjoy it and are behind it, then the cost is not holding you off. It doesn't mean you will blindly throw money (see buying discounted vrps, packs) but you "value" the joy you have enough to deal with it. If you don't value it enough, you look elsewhere. Which is why the developers here must focus on adding "value" (not lowering price). Features, game improvements... so that people are gripped more.
To be fair, I can't even begin to count the amount of times I've seen the same people who whine about the pricing model in R3E be super willing to spend $15 per track in other titles. Most of the people who complain about the pricing wouldn't purchase the content even if it was at a different price point, they just want to complain in hopes to make it free. The only legitimate complaints about the pricing model that come up usually deal with conversion rates more than the actual price of the content itself.
So you think if I'm willing to pay $15 for a track in iRacing, I should be happy to pay the same in R3E? You are wrong. You are comparing incomparable. The two games are that different that it is impossible to compare prices piece by piece. People simply buy only things for price that makes it worth for them. And if someone thinks R3E prices are not good enough, it doesn't automatically mean that he won't be happy to spend even more in another game. You know it's a nonsense, right? But you just couldn't help it, I guess.
I didn't ever spend anything on iRacing exactly because i won't support their subscription pricing model, to be clear i don't like the F2P model in any game, expecially when you can't buy things with an ingame currency, still R3E is the F2P game where i spent most money already, and i'll probably spend more. I just wanted to give some suggestion on how to attract more people to R3E because i think it doesn't get enough consideration in simracing communities, mostly because of the pricing, and also because i think the online is quite empity (i don't have time to get into organized races) and content fragmentation doesn't help with that, so i think you should somehow be able to play in MP at least some content that you don't have (and i think my "free" MP tracks suggestion would greatly help)
Yet when it comes to comparing RR to "cheaper" competitors that suddenly works? But how do you know this tho? Is it a feeling or based on any numbers? Not trying to stop you from discussing or making suggestions, but when a debate is based on subjective notions and not facts it's of little use.
Does it? I don't think I have ever made such a comparison. Anyway, my answer to it was "People simply buy only things for price that makes it worth for them", so I don't know what you are trying to say.
It's not a secret, just read some other forums discussing R3E and the reaction to this model. Do you expect exact numbers? He just said it's a shame some people would give it a try, if the pricing model was different. I wonder how many people here, who already bought some content would prefer different business model and how many think current model is the best. And as I have already said on many occasions, I don't mind the prices here, just how they are presented and what effort it takes to buy content for the best price (buying vRP on the other site and then purchasing content in main store, etc.).
It could also be argued that a game with 2,600,000 "owners" yet can only muster 622 concurrently active players is piss poor... ....but I won't make that argument.
Well, since you brought it up, some perspective is in order... I think it should be fairly clear that R3E has a huge "owner" count because it is free on Steam. Being free obviously attracts a huge and vast crowd of people to try it out, simply because there is no cost involved. So, because the game is free, it attracts people who have absolutely no interest in sim-racing or even racing games. People see free games on Steam, download it, try it out for 5 mins, and if it isnt there thing, they move on... because there is no risk or investment involved. The amount of people that actually play sims and are interested in sims is far less than 2.6 million. AC and Pcars can rather objectively be stated as the most popular in the genre. Both of those have roughly 300,000 owners on Steam (yeah, very rough estimate). Yet they only attract about an average of 1,000 players a day. So realistically, R3E isnt far off the most popular games in the genre. I understand the sentiment of your comment, even if I disagree with your implication that R3E is piss poor and doesnt maintain its players. However, giving the 2.6 million owners number is a bit of a false statistic for the reasons above and I think is purposely misleading to drive home a negative point. I think you are comparing the incomparable here There is no track in R3E that costs $15... So how can you ask if you are willing to spend $15 per track in iR that you should be expected to do the same in R3E... since there are no tracks that expensive in R3E? Most of the tracks are about 5 bucks... or 1/3 the cost of an iR track. Do you think they are far below the quality of an iR track? Well, I cant answer that, but everyone has their opinions on different developers content.
Didn't think I implied you did, certainly didn't intend to. Just asking the question in general, because you specifically mentioned the comparison between RR and iracing is flawed and not that any comparison between two titles is skewed (which is what I'd say). But what does that mean? Are you guys implying any company should base their business model and marketing strategy on "it's not a secret that...", "some people on some forums say..." and "i think/believe/feel that lower prices could make the product more attractive"? Would more people play the game if everything were cheaper/free? Probably. Would more people drive a Ferrari if it were cheaper/free? Posing such questions is a bit moot from my pov, because you could say that about anything. The question should be at which price the company can sustain production while maintaining the level of quality, support and progress they want to achieve. What does it cost to run this business, to pay 20 employees (following european standards) for over 4 years? What does it cost to create 1 track, 1 car model, 1 livery, how many hours go into that and what's an asking price that's fair to both sides? Personally I'd say you shouldn't base financial decisions on hearsay and emotions (at least as long as you're not an investment banker). It's in the nature of us in general that we don't raise our voice unless we're discontented. If you read those forums you will mostly see posts from people who want to voice their discontent with the fact that their expectations weren't met. Much more than people saying "I tried your product and it's what I expected, I like it, keep it as it is." People rarely do that, just like irl. If you're happy with what you got, you skip along because your expectations have been fulfilled. So while that feedback has to be heard, I also wouldn't overemphasise it, cause you're missing the positive counterpart that's obviously out there but not shouting as loud (if at all) as the unhappy. (Looking at the stats) As you're bringing up raceroomstore again, bear in mind that purchases made in the in-game store go through steams payment system and that comes at a fee. So when people buy anything in-game, 15 % (iirc) of that money goes to steam. And that doesn't happen with the vrp on rrstore, so they can offer a better price. The only thing I took in was that I have a point. Negative or not, Hooray. Not directed at you nate, but you guys did see that I didn't highlight that 2 million only? I didn't just slip and accidentally highlight the two lines below that...
Whoops, I was more so saying that you cant really use the 2.6 million "owners" as a stat to say that the game is piss poor and if it were better, that it would have held more attention from those owners and more people would be playing the game. I was just trying to point out that many of those 2.6 million owners are not fans of sim racing, so even if R3E were a perfect game, those people would still have no interest in playing R3E I was also trying to show that the total amount of people that actually play any sim are far less than people who own them. ~1000 players average per day for the most played sims isnt very much, so to expect R3E to have a huge active population is a bit of a misguided expectation. Anyways, cheers
It was a flippant comment on my part although there is a serious point in there somewhere. The 2.6m figure is obviously a massive stretch but you only need 10% of this install base to be interested in racing games to have a 'serious' install base on a par with AC and PCARS. R3E is averaging around 300 players online at any time (over the past few months) and is yet to crack an all-time peak of 768 set in June 2015. AC and PCARS both average around 1000 players online at any one time and both have all-time peaks many magnitudes higher than R3E. R3E is free-to-play and fairly inexpensive to get involved with at a base level. AC and PCARS require a full purchase to play. My point is (I think ) R3E is under-performing for a free-to-play title. I think it all comes down to (lack of) marketing/awareness and the complexities of the business model unfortunately. Raceroom/Sector3 may well be very pleased with how the game is performing, and that's all that matters, but my personal opinion is R3E should be attracting player numbers similar to AC and PCARS. It's certainly not an inferior product - quite the opposite. And it's not unapproachable to the mainstream racing fan in the way rF2 is. @nate - I'm not saying R3E is piss poor in any way, just the player retention figure isn't too hot.
Yeah, I see your points in there. Frankly, I dont know what it would take to see an overall increase in the amount of people playing R3E. As you say, many may have been turned off by the business model, or any number of other reasons. Such as trying the game 2 yrs ago, when the overall feel of the game is much different than it is today. As for the pricing though... I think that is overall very subjective whether the value is "good" or not. I recently took a look at my account after the European track pack was updated, and I had the offer to buy Nords, Spa, Paul Ricard, Salzburgring, and 1 other track I cant recall at the moment for 849 vRp because I had all the others already (from previously owning the euro track pack) and have to say... that is one hell of a deal for 5 tracks... with 1 of them being Nords. Early adopters of anything will always pay more for the same product in the long run, but R3E does have very good deals on occasion. If you are somewhat patient out of fiscal necessity, then you can maximize your dollar. It doesnt take a mathematician to find the best deals here, just some simple calculation. Much in the same way you go to your local grocery store and compare 2 products to find the price per ounce (or kg). Beyond that, the player numbers do seem to be rising though since the release of the past few updates. More players online (in MP) and more in game. They seem to be sticking around too, which is slowly building the player base up. Club events such as the ones from Race Dept, the TCOne series, and other leagues you can find here on the forum do seem to be helping to grow enthusiasm for those who may not be as interested in R3E should they not have those options. As always though, I think I can safely say that the people that use this forum here... the overwhelming majority just want to see this game improve, and continue to grow. It's apparent that the thoughts and arguments put forth arent meant to be destructive, but are just different ideas to get to the same goal. A thriving community and populated game (in my case ) Cheers
I agree the sim racing player base isn't that big to really expect to have even 500k players in any sim, not even pCars archieved that, but i think R3E lacks even the player base to make it one of the "big players" simply because not enough people talks about how good it is. If i remember correctly things i read in the past, S3S isn't doing that good financtially, so Christian i think you're not totally right saying that lowering prices would be a bad move: if making a big pack of cars and tracks, comparable to what you'd get for a full game, for about 30€ brings in even 1/10 of the pCars or AC crowd, they'd earn much more than having few pople owning all the content for over 150€. Also, i think R3E lacks any serious marketing, it had some reviews when it came out, but right now i never happen to see it on socials, youtube, or even general gaming sites. I think it needs some more advertising than it has. This remembers me another thing, prices are too random: i've taken the nords less than 2 weeks ago and the EU track pack about 5 days before they updated it, now i can buy it for 549vRP for 2 tracks i'm not really interested in. I was ok buying the pack and nords at their price, but it didn't really feel good to see that i could have had 2 more tracks for a lower price only few days after the purchase