iRacing comments (was hardware)

Since the old thread was no longer about hardware, I decided to start
a new thread.

> Well, I don't know. In my language chess is called sport. In real
> life racing you are mostly sitting in your car, and the only "sport" is
> performed by crew that changes tires.

Sport implies a reasonable amount of physical activity. Driving a race
car is fatiguing, but it's sort of in a grey area to call it a sport.
Sport's are like soccer, tennis, basketball, ...

The other stuff is called a hobby or an activity or a job.

> NFS puts their money in good explosions (or something).

Probably the details of the graphics of the cars, tracks, and city,
plus whatever is involved with the storyline for the NFS games that
have them. The city based NFS games have fairly large 3d areas filled
with all sorts of structures, and objects, some of which are animated.

> iRacing puts its money into things which makes it a good tool for real
> life racers

The issue with that is only a small percentage of real life racers would
consider using any sim oriented game as a tool. Some formula one teams
use simulators, but they make their own. With 100 million dollar or more
yearly budgets, they can afford to make expensive simulators.

Anyway, it's too soon to tell how iRacing is going to work out. The rate
of development seems slow as they've only added one or two cars and tracks
since the public release. They've invested a lot of money into a project
that obviously is never going to get the millions of players that the
top games get (for example the Sims or World of Warcraft).

By my guestimate, they need about 40,000 to 50,000 players to make a
profit, but at the current 6,000 or so that seems like a long ways
off if it ever happens. Currently, there's just not a lot of content,
and a lot of what's there requires seperate fees in addition to the
rental cost.

jeffareid:
>> iRacing puts its money into things which makes it a good tool for real
>> life racers
>
> The issue with that is only a small percentage of real life racers would
> consider using any sim oriented game as a tool. Some formula one teams
> use simulators, but they make their own. With 100 million dollar or more
> yearly budgets, they can afford to make expensive simulators.

Exactly. And I don't think that thosee 100 million dollar simulators
F1 teams use are much better than iRacing. And the benefit of that simulator
isn't actually to get used to g-forces (they are already used to g-forces),
or to help them to learn how to drive the car, or to learn to shift (they
KNOW how to drive the car, or how to shift, already) it is preciselly what
iRacing is doing, to get used to the track, and by the mean of VISUAL
representation of the track.
If it is useful to put 100 million dollars into simulations for F1
team, I would presume that it is as useful (and even much more useful,
becuase F1 teams DO HAVE the money for on-track testing) for some poor team
to pay 156 $ a year.

> Anyway, it's too soon to tell how iRacing is going to work out. The rate
> of development seems slow as they've only added one or two cars and tracks
> since the public release.

All iRacers are more than satisfied with the rate of development.
iRacing gone public only one and a half months ago. But, actually, iRacing
already has A LOT to offer.

> They've invested a lot of money into a project
> that obviously is never going to get the millions of players that the
> top games get (for example the Sims or World of Warcraft).
>
> By my guestimate, they need about 40,000 to 50,000 players to make a
> profit, but at the current 6,000 or so that seems like a long ways
> off if it ever happens. Currently, there's just not a lot of content,
> and a lot of what's there requires seperate fees in addition to the
> rental cost.

Firstly, I don't know if really John Henry put that much money in
it. Secondly, if this thing develops into sport (and definitelly it looks
like it will), they will earn A LOT. -- Mario Petrinovic

jeffareid wrote:
> Since the old thread was no longer about hardware, I decided to start
> a new thread.
>
>> Well, I don't know. In my language chess is called sport. In real
>> life racing you are mostly sitting in your car, and the only "sport" is
>> performed by crew that changes tires.
>
> Sport implies a reasonable amount of physical activity. Driving a race
> car is fatiguing, but it's sort of in a grey area to call it a sport.
> Sport's are like soccer, tennis, basketball, ...

That's nonsense. Snooker is not (really) a physical activity, maybe just a
little bit more than moving chess pieces. Anything that's done in a competition
is called sport, even eating the most wieners is one.

l8er
ronny

"Byron Forbes" > wrote in message ...

> Also, I believe that in the not too distant future, we will have competitions in place where the champion of the top
> class will have a legitimate claim to being the "World's" best simmer for that seasons duration, much the same as
> formula 1.

There's the World Cup Games, but they use Need For Speed games since
EA is a sponsor.

"jeffareid" > wrote in
:

> Since the old thread was no longer about hardware, I decided to start
> a new thread.
>
>> Well, I don't know. In my language chess is called sport. In real
>> life racing you are mostly sitting in your car, and the only "sport" is
>> performed by crew that changes tires.
>
No, chess is a *game*. Football (in any continent) is called a Game.

> Sport implies a reasonable amount of physical activity. Driving a race
> car is fatiguing, but it's sort of in a grey area to call it a sport.
> Sport's are like soccer, tennis, basketball, ...
>
> The other stuff is called a hobby or an activity or a job.

Again the *word* is game.
>
>> NFS puts their money in good explosions (or something).
>
> Probably the details of the graphics of the cars, tracks, and city,
> plus whatever is involved with the storyline for the NFS games that
> have them. The city based NFS games have fairly large 3d areas filled
> with all sorts of structures, and objects, some of which are animated.
>
>> iRacing puts its money into things which makes it a good tool for real
>> life racers
>
> The issue with that is only a small percentage of real life racers would
> consider using any sim oriented game as a tool. Some formula one teams
> use simulators, but they make their own. With 100 million dollar or more
> yearly budgets, they can afford to make expensive simulators.
>
I have *never* seen any stats either way. Certainly there has been a solid
20 years from which data could be taken, but it could possibly have PR
implications that may not be good, depending on the invidual driver's
situation. Specifically The general public's mental image of computer
games and perhaps the *type* or racing involved.