mp servers are struggling with the not that big amount of players at the moment,with more they'd probably crash and burnLets see the long term evolution of the game,the number of players are slowly but steadily rising.Last big update and physics update where a big leap for the game,gave many clues for where this game is heading. We cant expect rre to acquire the pc or ac player numbers overnight,patience is of essence.Another huge leap forward would be shiny steady mp with proper rules like the one simbin had us used to
@The Angry Hamster: It's cool that you disagree with everything I say, but maybe you could throw your opinion in, just for fun, you know?
AMS is still in EA and multiplayer is not finished, so it is quite expected, but rF2 is just inconsistent and unpolished product that masses don't appreciate.
I dont think anyone was really suggesting that if you are willing to spend $15 per track in iR, that you should be expected to be willing to spend the same amount on other games. Your statement that you shouldnt be expected to be willing to spend the same amount per track in R3E because every game has a different "value." I completely agree with that. However, Im saying you cant make the comparison of cost of tracks between iR and R3E because R3E's tracks are only ~$5 or so. If you are willing to spend $15 per track in iR, asking if you are willing to spend $5 in R3E isnt an outrageous question. Your numbers are a bit sketchy for using an objective eye... An objective eye shows R3E had 39k in a 2 week span. AC had 66k and Pcars had 79k. That's only 27k less than AC and 40k less than Pcars. That doesnt at all look like R3E has 1/4th the amount of players as either game there... But, I see how you got that. You combined AC and PCars to get ~140k, which is 4x greater than R3E's 39k. But, you make that statement based on the assumption that each and every person exclusively plays 1 game. You dont take into account that many owners of AC and Pcars own both and play both games. So their player numbers overlap heavily. Combining both games 2 week play time numbers is purposely misleading. Saying AMS is in Early Access is meaningless. It is a full game that has been around since 2011, and only exists now with a name change. Of course it has been improved and content/features added to it, but it has been in development since 2011 as the original Game Stock Car was released back then. Having AMS in EA has little impact on the people who want to play the game since it has been around so long, and you can easily see how popular the game has been over the past number of years.
I was thinking same thing, mainly based on fact that R3E has been in beta forever, so the same point applies. That said, one thing R3E has proven is that you can develop the game further and change people's minds, however slowly. So maybe the same can happen with other AMS title (I have not played it yet)
I generally post where there's something new to be added or I have a different point of view to bring to the table in a discussion. In this instance neither of those applied. In terms of my previous post I just get so tired of people holding iRacing up some god of what racing games should all strive to be that sometimes it riles me up enough to post something. As is the case here it normally just results in nothing neither adding to the discussion or adding anything interesting. Most of the time simply using the reactions offers the same thing that I would have otherwise done in posting in the thread, such as this post. To sum up my thoughts so far: comparing racing games is fine, comparing the prices of their content is fine, comparing the amount of users they have is fine IF (and only if) you take all of those numbers in correct view of the game they reside in. There are a large number of people who seem to think that R3E is doing horrible, numbers show that is not true. R3E could obviously be doing better in many ways, including marketing, but marketing is effing expensive. If you don't believe me just run a quick test on Facebook. See how much it costs to simply promote a Facebook post to a specific demographic for just a week. Now extrapolate that out across Facebook, Twitter, various popular racing websites and forums for an entire year. You'll quickly see just how much you can easily spend on marketing in no time and why it is not as easy as just "go market the game better." There are a set of very vocal people who think the payment structure is poor, however none of them ever bring up any meaningful discussion without pointing back to the first point of R3E doing horrible, which is not true. The only real valid complaint I've seen in regard to the payment structure of R3E is with conversion rates and I simply do not know how those are calculated. Other than conversion rates, most of the argument revolves around "The game would have more people if it wasn't free to play" with absolutely nothing to back up the statement. The other common payment argument is "Things cost too much, people would buy more if it was cheaper" yet again with nothing to back up the statement. I FULLY understand backing those statements up is difficult, but even taking a cursory glance at something like SimRaceWay shows that lower costs alone will not solve anything. In terms of AMS, it is still mostly just modded RF1. Reiza has had the source code for the engine for such a short amount of time, and they have done a lot in that time, but it is still mostly just Game Stock Car with a new coat of paint. In time it may become a larger force, but their price point mostly revolves around that fact as it is mostly competing with RF1's price point. As they move further along and customize more for themselves away from the core RF1 experience that will change, but as it stands now you're mostly just getting Reiza-specific content on top of modded RF1. Therefore, making comparisons to R3E doesn't carry as much weight since S3S (and SimBin) have had access to the source code for (I believe anyway) the entire duration of R3E's existence. In terms of AC, the discussion shifts pretty dramatically. If you look at AC devoid of mods, the amount of content present in the core game is actually not as much as it seems when you have all the dream packs and lots of mods installed. Also I'm not sure where the $30 price point is coming in unless that's for Europeans. In the US the base AC game is still $45 with $31 worth of DLC. Now you CAN get the 3 dream packs and the base game for $60, normally that would be $45 + $26, saving you around $10, but the Japanese pack is not included in that. So if you're just freshly getting into AC, you are NOT getting in at $30 unless you get the base game ONLY on a large sale and don't want to play on most of the online servers. With that said, once you get to the price point of $60 and $70 then you can begin to at least compare, and at that price point there are valid points to be made and comparisons to R3E. Just don't misrepresent the actual price of AC or overvalue the content by forgetting that mods are a large part of that experience. In terms of RF2, their price point is, and has been for a while, fairly low for the game itself with a steeper price for online play. However, their first-party content is also very limited and their mod content is nowhere near the same level as RF1 was. The 'biggest' advantage RF2 has is the league racing scene with things like the VEC. Outside of that, it's actually quite difficult to compare RF2 to other racing games as most of what it does falls pretty flat outside of the actual game physics. Ultimately, comparing all of these games, their price points, their level of content, and their installed user bases is not only difficult but often misleading in many ways. As I said earlier in this post my berating of iRacing mostly comes from being annoyed at its 'holy grail' status by the majority of its community. I think it can be compared, but it is often looked at so highly that any criticism tends to send people into entrenched positions instead of discussion-centric thinking. The end result is basically this: R3E could do some things different when it comes to marketing, payment structure, and gameplay, but most of those things would require more money, people, and/or time. Other companies that make racing games that have more money, people, and/or time than R3E may or may not do some things differently. Comparing those other companies and/or games to R3E can be useful as long as things are put into the correct perspective and not everything is treated as equivalent no matter what the situation. And thus ends another diatribe from me because someone felt the need to call me out specifically so they now get to read this because actually discussing ideas tends to take a lot of space and time.
That only adds to what I was trying to state about R3E numbers being low: if 300k players gave AC 60€, that's a lot more than R3E would be able to earn even if all of it's actual players (wich seems to be from 1/10 to 1/2 depending on what stats you consider) would be buying at least one pack. The F2P formula may work for more popular generes, but in sims you have a niche of players that often owns all the competitor titles, so it's not really about getting more people to see the game, is about making them willing to get some paid content. The reason R3E doesn't get enough attenction may aswell not be the prices, but i don't see many other complaints about it, so i concluded that they may play a role in this. Everybody is free to make his conclusion, even if different than mine, i just tried to suggest some moves that wouldn't impact much on the total game introits if the "amount of content averagely bought" remains the same, while IMHO increasing the product actractiveness. For example I'd like someone telling me while giving a 40-60% daily/weekly/monthly discount on the least sold content is a bad idea? Surely you'd get less from people that were already willing to buy, but for example with a 40% discount i may think about getting some GT3 car that otherwise i wouldn't ever get because i don't really like the class and already have plenty in other games, if more than the 40% of the average buyers number of that item thinks the same, S3S made a profit from a thing that wasn't selling well.
Ok, So I too am another who has returned to R3E after a lengthy layoff! I have to say i'm having way more fun now that I ever did.... I read with interest most peoples perceptions as to why they think R3E isn't as popular as WE think it should be and do see some valid points into the mix. Now I've followed Simbin/Sector 3 titles from way back and to be honest my initial thoughts on the "free to play" concept was not favourable - and many do complain about the on-going costings of "pay to play" structure. To be honest I was one of these myself....to get the complete game will cost a small fortune! (something not all of us have) that said - I am able to pick and choose what I want - when I can afford it (even though I want it all) Anyway - heres my thoughts on the "state of the play" * For many the game will not be "pretty" enough - compare it to the eye-candy laden Pcars and it looks dated - BUT! R3E is probably far more acessable for the average gamer - My last PC could play R3E ok (on lower resolutions) yet really struggled to even initiate PCars. A lot of todays gamers are hell-bent on flashy graphics! * Content - as said before on-going costs "could" be a deterrent for many - leaving the more serious player on board to buy the product. I believe that PCars stole a small trump here on many of todays racers by offering up "free additional" content on a monthly basis. Not only does this give those who have invested $$$ into the game something new - it also keeps them invested in the game itself. The costing structure of any content to many may seem to be a little on the higher end of the scale for R3E - But remember Sector 3 need to obtain licensing, do research, obtain copyright agreements for sponsorships etc etc, build the track/car - test - test - test and test some more, all this being done by man-power and quite probably on a far smaller budget than that of some of the other developers! * Content 2 - Locale of content.....I'll say it straight up - I went to project cars purely because they incorperated my local circuit into the game (Ruapuna - Christchurch, New Zealand) This is where R3E could possibly improve a little - by expanding the locations of tracks around the world - it could also improve the R3E brand outside of it's largely European stronghold. I'm well aware that costing is an issue for such huge undertakings.... I'm aware that they do have American tracks as well - sadly if they really want to break into the U.S market in a big way Sector 3 would need to look at oval tracks and a Nascar style stockcar (this is hugely asked for by PCars players on a regular basis - even though they have the stockcars/indycars, they don't have the oval tracks) Could Sector 3 get the rights to open up the Indy oval??? I love seeing new tracks (even some I've never seen footage of before) and trying them out - it would be great to see some of the worlds lesser known circuits make an appearance in R3E *The Free Thing - It cant be so can it? Well, yes and no! Maybe the "Free To Play" thing is doing a little more harm than good? Yes it's free to "try out" but to get the most out of the game it's gonna cost you. I wonder how different the playerbase may have been if this game was marketed as lets say WTCC 2016 and sold as the base package of the interface, WTCC cars and track package at say $30 From there we can buy the add-ons for our game.....I wonder if some are initially scared off by automaticly thinking "It's FREE - there's bound to be a catch, and therefore they don't even give the game a chance.... * No User Content - This comes up everywhere - we are now in an age where the user wants to add things to expand the game (Rfactor was the biggest thing in race-sims due to User content being able to be added - before that you might have had someone figure out how to add a custom skin by hacking into the game) R3E doesn't support any User content - could this be doing damage to the game overall? It's great to be able to add content - BUT then I've added some pretty awful content to games in the past, and by restricting us from adding anything Sector 3 are ensuring that we don't get some bottom of the barrel add-ons! I would like to see them (if possible) open it up so we can add skins - but again licensing issues (sponsor decals etc) could become a headache. If we actually go back to the topic of the original thread "Marketing" I'm not overly sure how it can be done....WE as users should be trying to push the barrow somehow - I think of all the myriads of fansites for past racing titles or racing factions. Maybe Sector 3 need to get the R3E name on a few cars (even if just at club level) and take their product to some events, get some hats/shirts out there around the world - so that us users can do some "real world" exposure of R3E I don't know.....I think in this day and age it's a hard sell, when there's so much competition and the console market kind of has gaming in it's hands.... Anyway - as far as R3E I'm giving everything a go - and have entered in a few of the R3E "Competitions" which is a great little concept ( I've actually realised I'm not as quick as I though I was - and that I'm a pretty poor driver! ) I haven't as yet joined any online races - think yourself lucky guys! Sector 3 are pulling R3E together nicely with slow and steady improvements, and I guess they need to be aware that if they move too quickly on some changes they may also scare off some of the dedicated followers that they have.... I'm back in R3E and having an absolute blast....and after all that what we are here for isn't it? These are just a few of my thoughts - sure there will be some that disagree, but lets discuss? Chris
What in the world is this? Logic and reason... well presented and articulated posing some insight as to why you have certain thoughts about R3E, business models, advertising, etc.? Cant be... This is the internet, and a sim racing forum at that! Exaggeration, jumping to conclusions, sourcing data that is of little relevance, and stating opinion as cold hard fact is how the internet works mate Just kidding here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here too. You are quite a well spoken guy that knows how to make your points very well, and it seems to leave a good jumping point to make a response. But to that point, I dont have much to respond with to your comment, since much of it has been discussed plenty before. The only thing I could really add, was when you discussed the price points of other games and questioned why people say AC costs $30. The only thing I can think of, is that many people familiar with Steam, understand the whole "sale" philosophy. Namely, buying any game ONLY when it goes on sale at its lowest price point, because you dont really need to spend more than that, since games on Steam go on sale so frequently. Using the sale price as a metric can be fair under certain circumstances. For instance, comparing sale price with sale price. You cant say AC costs ~$30 and say R3E costs $200, because that is not a fair comparison. AC with all content, at its lowest if I recall, was on sale for about $45. R3E had that Black Friday 'everything' deal for $50. Not too far off price wise eh? The whole topic about an early adopters 'tax' for lack of a better term, has already been discussed plenty, so I wont further comment there. I will say one more thing in regards to your post. Which I thought you laid out a good segue to make a fundamental point. This specifically. You can have all the data and statistics in the world, and draw any number of conclusions. However, it's how you interpret that data... to get the proper answers for your query. If you purposely twist the data to fit your talking points, how is that of any real benefit? Analyze the data, and try to draw an unbiased conclusion. Only then can your really use that data constructively, instead of saying that R3E should have more active players because it has 2.6 million owners, for instance... That's misleading, so use that data better! I think this goes back to the initial idea for how R3E was going to be. Back when the game was originally created, it seems they had a much more "arcade" approach than what we have currently. It has only transformed into more of a hardcore sim in the past couple years. Before that though, the focus was not the most ultra real and hardcore physics with fancy pants tire models. Back then, the game was aimed at a much more broad audience, so the F2P thing may make more sense in that context. They werent looking to only draw in sim racers, but people who liked any sort of racing game. R3E also has given away free content Portimao was added as a free track a while back... And more recently, the entire Silhouette class was made free. Oh, and also the Prototype class when then got split into the P1 & P2 classes. So, that's 6 free cars and a track given away for free. Not too shabby right? "Oh, but I dont like prototypes." Some people may say... Well, does this negate the fact that the cars were given away for free? (Not disagreeing with you, just expanding on your point) I think one of the nicest things about R3E, which is severely lacking in the market, is having fully licensed racing series. R3E has that. Other games simply dont. So having the licensed cars for a series, all the proper liveries, and the tracks that they race on is a wonderful thing. Other games may have a car from a certain series, but the thrill of using that car on a track it has never raced diminishes some of the sense of immersion and fun. I like that R3E has ADAC, DTM, and WTCC. These series are largely focused in Europe, so that's why we have so many European tracks. Perhaps Sector3 will expand to include more oversees content, and I would welcome that, but this is my thought as to why we have so much Euro stuff. Honestly, one of the worst things I see in games that support modding is the quality of content. Most of it is simply garbage. The true gems are few and far between. It should be noted that the people making mods arent professionals doing this as a job, but simply as a hobby. So their skills vary greatly. Not only that, but the biggest thing that irks me about iR (besides its price), is seeing all the terrible liveries people make. I dont want to see some pink livery, with a squirrel and an anime girl in front of me on my screen. I much prefer seeing the real world liveries, that make me feel like Im in the right place. Racing against real competition. Not just driving with someone who has an odd taste in art. R3E luckily has many real world liveries, so this is a nice benefit for someone like myself. Anyways, these replies are getting longer and longer... going to need someone to transcribe all my thoughts for me soon Cheers
R3e in no way what so ever, needs nascar/oval content. It does badly need more tracks from around the world to help grow the userbase. But to try and compete with iracing when it comes to nascar would be a foolish waste of money. R3e should focus on it's strengths which are gt3, wtcc, dtm and other interesting content you dont see in every sim such as the audi tt and imsa gtos. I think older muscle cars and other vintage cars in general would bring in my fellow Muricans. Multiple older American sim racers took notice when that imsa gto pack came out. I think there are a lot of us waiting for content similar to gt legends. Many sims are lacking in this area. Iracing has every track nascar uses pretty much, quite a few different kinds of nascar cars and trucks. And the rules and everything to go along with those series already. They are adding dirt oval content soon too. If people went from iracing to r3e for oval they would just complain about features that aren't there yet and the racers aren't there, and would hate the lack of a penalty system. Iracing follows the real world track schedules of multiple series also. Plus they have a pro nascar league where you can win $10k or more. Plus not to mention the userbase on iracing is immense compared to any other sim. r3e's gtr3, gt2, gt1, p1/p2 classes are huge compared to iracing's offerings, though some cars are dated now. More tracks and all the latest cars in the series that r3e is affiliated with would be the best move(which is what they will do most likely). Along with adding necessary features such as a kick/ban option, making pit stops/penalties more fluid, actually animate the movement of the car's suspension/chassis better. I would love to see more blancpain liveries too but I know that wont happen since they are with adac and iracing is affiliated with blancpain. If they were to add in multi class racing, weather and day/night transitions. They could easily become the sim king of IMSA style multi class racing. More and more people from iracing are checking out r3e, especially for gt3 content. Even though the sim is great, it still lacks badly needed features. Lots of British and Australian guys on iracing that wish they had touring cars too.
@The Angry Hamster: So you disagree when I say you can't compare R3E and iRacing price-wise side by side and then you write: And regarding AMS, what does it matter it is "only" enhanced rF1 code? The sim is simply more advanced in terms of physics and more complete in sim features. Why do you think it is not, have you tried it? Anyway, thanks for taking the time making your post.
RR already has the - by far - most impressive developer-made track pool of all available sims out there, it beats them all hands down in this point. While I do not necessarily need more cars, and do favour new tracks over new cars in principle, and welcome new tracks, I do not expect more tracks to let explode player numbers in RR. The track list as it already is now is not the reason why player numbers are what they are. We have seen a moderate increase in past months, but we need to see these numbers consolidating over longer time to declare them a change of times, a trend - not just a change in the daily weather.
That part of the argument was in relation to the price point of AMS in comparison to other titles. It's lower price point has a lot to do with the short time frame in which they've had the source code compared to when AMS/GSCE was just modded RF1 without access to source code. In terms of being more advanced that is just patently false as R3E is based off the exact same source code both being gMotor (RF1) licensed games. And every game I listed I own and have plenty of time spent in. Time spent doesn't mean anything in and of itself, but it's likely a followup question.
Even though both games are based on the same physics engine, each have done different adjustments to it. And in the relatively small time frame Reiza put A LOT of new features in it. For example dynamic track surface, flat spots or new suspension physics. On the other side, from the start and until recently R3E took quite different approach in its simulation leaning more to the accessibility and now are turning back to the rather realistic simulation. I would argue they are already back at the level of original rF1, because according to J-F only ~20% of the original code left and not many new features (in physics department) was introduced. And if I would be really nit picky, i would say, it also isn't true that they are based "off the exact same source code", since S3S (SimBin) did get the engine before its development stopped by ISI, thus Reiza has "newer" version of it.