iRacing is not a sim

This is a dangerous video to make. As we know, iRacing charges quite a lot to use their service, they charge a monthly payment,  their DLC prices are 3 or 4 pieces of content elsewhere, the game is graphically dated, it doesnt feel or drive as good as other sims. With all the problems raised every so often, including now with the GTP cars, why do they keep doing it, why do they charge so much?

Well, the answer is simple and will surprise you: so listen closely. The reason why iracing keeps doing this despite all the problems is: Its because they can. If they couldn't they wouldn't. You listened correctly, and I could finish the video here, but lets explain it for a bit. Enjoy hottakes, press like and subscribe.

Just recently, iracing has been again in hot water regarding their new GTP driving models where these cars are wayyyyy too fast everywhere. Too much grip, too much speed,  unrealistic hybrid model that havent fixed for years, and so on. Jimmy Broadbent has a really excellent video about the topic, check it out in the description. Its not the first time iracing received criticism like this, in reality, even before covid theres been almost a yearly situation where the tyre model or the driving model gets underfire. A couple of years ago it was grassgate, where drivers cooled the tyres over the grass, remember that?

 it was quite funny. And this is not counting the laughable netcode in higher ping or the UI, and the aging graphical engine that still runs like sand inside an engine. 

These issues come and go, or stay, and even some underlying problems stay unfixed, but no matter the criticism, or the problems with the driving model, iracing seems to stay relatively unscathed from this, its kind of strange, right? 

Well, it is until  you understand that iracing isnt really a sim. Yes, its another hot take. Iracing has a sim, but the sim plays only a certain part of this, and if you talk about the sim aspect, iracing isnt just a sim, its about 3 sims, a road sim, an oval sim and a dirt racing sim, but first and foremost iracing is not a sim. iracing is a service. Because it is a service, everything else will fall in line, the physics issues are temporary or secondary, because while it may have issues with physics and it has many, the service part only has gotten better, and you are not really paying for the sim, or just the sim, you are paying for the service where the sim is attached as part of the experience. 

So, when you come to iracing, iracing offers you a bunch of ways to progress your pretend race car career, you can choose road oval or dirt, you progress through multiple series, and thats just the racing part, it offers a process, something to be engaged on beyond the sim part. Behind it, there is a service that offers races every 15minutes, one or two hours, special races and a protest system. 

So, in this context iracing took a good look at the competition and this was their reaction. Since there isnt any competitor to directly attack their business model they are able to keep the prices and dlc policy. Competition lowers prices. The current level of competition is only able to keep it more or less stable. 

There are other systems that bring something like this, and even for free, but iracers are happy enough with the system that generally they wont feel the need to change. In reality, iracing numbers have grown. The drivers might experiment elsewhere, but at the end of the day, they stay around or come back. Furthermore, and I think this is often forgotten, iracing was the first to explore this type of service for racing. the competition were unable or worse, unwilling to bring something similar for over a decade, allowing iracing to solidify its position as the premier simracing service, and by virtue of being attached to the service for so long without really any comeptition, the sim inside iracing became also the premier sim even though below the surface, everything is nascar 2003.

This unwillingness, and a decade of headstart the competition gave iracing, is one of the many reasons, but probably the most important reason that not iracing is not going anywhere, its very unlikely they get dislodged unless some sort of seismic event comes around. 

Iracing is 15 years old now, in that time without any real competition, drivers have created their own habits, spent a load of money in it, and changing those already ingrained habits of using a simracing platform that does pretty much everything they want, has a user ecosystem and culture around it, has a large amount of different content, and different disciplines, to another platform, either that be integrated in a game, or third party, its really a tall ask.

iracing while comparatively costly, is convenient. And it works. Convenience and reliability beats almost everything else even if theres a price tag attached to it. 

Question here, how many of you are still using your CDs attached to hifi systems, or FLAC files instead of spotify or any other streaming system? Are you paying for that streaming system when there are even free options? yeah. 

So while other sims may have a better tyre model or physics, or whatever, its totally irrelevant, because physics do not beat convenience, and iracing has good enough physics to be considered a sim. So that more advanced sim that has a tyre model that is calculated a billion times a second, might be impressive, the truth of the matter is, nobody cares. 

Sorry for being blunt. 

If being advanced mattered, rfactor 2 which im told its really advanced, would be the top dog and everyone would play it. But how it is, even the four time f1 champion casts aspersions on it. 

iracing tyre model during corona got a lot of flak from pro drivers and it is still around because… iracing isnt really a sim. 

Iracing does these prices, they do what they do, because they can. The competition is nowhere near close, and the current crop of racing titles are unlikely to do anything relevant, because they are either too narrow on what they offer, or too dispersed and requires a third party solution which adds a small layer of complication. Iracing also has for it the fact that its just iracing, theres no iracing 2, or iracing vengeance underground, or iracing evo ultimate. Just iracing. No need to buy another title. If the sim gets new graphics, or features, theres no need to buy a new game. And once again, buying a new game. More complication.

 Low resistance, simpler solutions will always win. 

So, if there is any hope to have some sort of competition to iracing, assetto corsa evo, may bring it. And say may, because I dont know. It will have plentiful content and multiple classes, and an integrated scheduling system via simgrid. If that synergy is good or not it remains to be seen and you need really good synergy to beat established spending habits. 

So, for those of you that are hopeful that a new title is going to dislodge iracing, because the new title has better physics or graphics, sorry to be a cynic,id urge you to understand what makes a driver stay in iracing. Sunk cost fallacy only goes so much, but most stay because they are perfectly content with the system, it does what they want it to do and physics are perfectly adequate to what they want from the system, which is a competition scheduler with a good number of competitive drivers in it. A better sim with less to offer, wont cut it for most besides the novelty factor. Physics become irrelevant when they are good enough. Every other developer seems to be falling into the “make perfect the enemy of good” trap, when iracing brings experience first.

Iracing would need to massively screw up beyond those gtps to make any sort of permanent damage.

So if developers want to have a bite of that, they need to deliver more than just a sim. They need to deliver a reason for everyone to stay around. And physics arent enough. We are way past physics really being important. 

If you enjoy my cynicism as much as I enjoy driving everything that isnt iracing, press subscribe.