"I never understood the online service as a business model, unless
they really over-estimated the number of active subscribers when
they started this."

They admit they did overestimate. But they also have ignored non-English
speaking markets. An acquaintance figured out how to count unique keys
for NR2003 that logged into the arena and it was only 55000. A game that
was a revered as that probably gave us a more accurate count of how many
"hardcore" SIM racers there really is in the world. So iR can't ignore
the non-English markets when trying to reach it's membership goals.

rcgldr wrote:
>> I would love if they would release this as a product I could buy
>
> I never understood the online service as a business model, unless
> they really over-estimated the number of active subscribers when
> they started this. Initially the physics still needed tweaking,
> and there wasn't a lot of content (cars and tracks), but
> there is enough content now to release a stand alone game, and
> given the fact that there aren't any other new sim-oriented racing
> games being released now (when is rFactor 2 supposed to happen?),
> sales should be good for a sim-oriented racing game.
>
> Who knows what will happen. I recall a few predictions that drastic
> changes would happen within 3 years of release, and some of those
> drastic changes, mostly price reductions and now the hosted
> racing, have already occurred.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>