How many active players in iRacing now?

Since they dropped the prices quite a while ago, I assume that
the number of active players has increased quite a bit. Anyone
here know how many active players and how many current iRacing
subscribers there are now? Last I recall it had increased from
around 10,000 to 14,000, quite a few players, but far short of
what would be needed to pay off the original $20 million
investment in 3 or 4 years.

(rcgldr) wrote:

> Last I recall it had increased from
> around 10,000 to 14,000

I think in excess of 20,000 have now tried the service. I believe there are
something like 16,000 people (or at least accounts, as some people have several it
seems) who've taken part in oval races, and about 15,500 for roads. And obviously
many drivers will have at least tried both.

But how many of those are still paying? And how many of those are driving regularly
enough to help give the service momentum? It's very hard to be sure, and the guy
who used to do a brilliant job of measuring weekly activity on the servers has
given that up.

However he did recently make a special appearance with some stats which seemed to
show that active participation, after rising very significantly over the winter,
has sunk down again as people's special offer periods come to an end. The hosted
side of things also seems to be growing in popularity, but perhaps at the expense
of the main service, effectively soaking up much of boost given by new membership.

Overall the service is definitely busier than it was 6 months ago, but not that
much in my experience outside the Rookie level where new members are earning their
spurs. Numbers there have been very impressive over recent months, even off-peak
when I race, though they've tailed off recently as people leave or graduate to the
main classes.

I rarely see peak hour racing though, and I think anyone racing in the evenings
will be pretty happy with the choice of races and field sizes.

Overall iRacing remains the best darned sim on the planet.... trapped within a
structure which really annoys me much of the time. There are days when I wish I'd
never joined, and there are others when I'd pay twice the price. Just not many of
them. :-) Fortunately the England club is full of names I've "known" for many years,
and the banter in there is good fun. However the thing I still dislike most about
iRacing is the fact that it's completely isolated from the outside world. Open
forums would at least make me feel like I'm not hibernating from the real world
outside.

Others would say it's a nice safe, warm cave, and it's very cold outside... at
least until rF2 arrives to warm things up a little. Hopefully!

Andrew McP

> Overall iRacing remains the best darned sim on the planet.... trapped within a
> structure which really annoys me much of the time.

After the high pricing, the next issue for me is the 45+ minute races. I and
most racing game players aren't willing to commit that much time to a single
game. NR2003 seemed like a time killer with essentially 2 races per hour, and
now iRacing has reduced this to 1 race per hour.

Then again, these issues and more were all posted in the "why aren't you
subscribed to iracing" thread at rsc forums. The thread went inactive 4 or
5 months ago, and now RSC is gone, (although it's name is now used for a
different forum).

Seems like the sim fans are stuck in a waiting game. iRacing pricing and/or
format isn't attractive to many players, don't know if a boxed version will
ever be sold. rFactor 2 may be a year or more away from release. And for the
few that care, Live For Speed is undergoing a "do-over" of it's "tyre physics",
which has essentially stopped progress there for over a year now.

"However the thing I still dislike most about iRacing is the fact that
it's completely isolated from the outside world. Open forums would at
least make me feel like I'm not hibernating from the real world outside."

I don't understand the private nature of the forums either. It seems to
me, if they would open them that the potential member could connect to
the iR community easier.

"Others would say it's a nice safe, warm cave, and it's very cold
outside... at least until rF2 arrives to warm things up a little. Hopefully"

I hope ISI takes their time and does rF2 right. You know, improve the
tire especially. In reality, ISI and iR should merge. Bring the best of
both worlds together which might also merge the SIM community.

iR desperately needs Spanish and Portuguese language portals for their
service.

Andrew MacPherson wrote:
> (rcgldr) wrote:
>
>> Last I recall it had increased from
>> around 10,000 to 14,000
>
> I think in excess of 20,000 have now tried the service. I believe there are
> something like 16,000 people (or at least accounts, as some people have several it
> seems) who've taken part in oval races, and about 15,500 for roads. And obviously
> many drivers will have at least tried both.
>
> But how many of those are still paying? And how many of those are driving regularly
> enough to help give the service momentum? It's very hard to be sure, and the guy
> who used to do a brilliant job of measuring weekly activity on the servers has
> given that up.
>
> However he did recently make a special appearance with some stats which seemed to
> show that active participation, after rising very significantly over the winter,
> has sunk down again as people's special offer periods come to an end. The hosted
> side of things also seems to be growing in popularity, but perhaps at the expense
> of the main service, effectively soaking up much of boost given by new membership.
>
> Overall the service is definitely busier than it was 6 months ago, but not that
> much in my experience outside the Rookie level where new members are earning their
> spurs. Numbers there have been very impressive over recent months, even off-peak
> when I race, though they've tailed off recently as people leave or graduate to the
> main classes.
>
> I rarely see peak hour racing though, and I think anyone racing in the evenings
> will be pretty happy with the choice of races and field sizes.
>
> Overall iRacing remains the best darned sim on the planet.... trapped within a
> structure which really annoys me much of the time. There are days when I wish I'd
> never joined, and there are others when I'd pay twice the price. Just not many of
> them. :-) Fortunately the England club is full of names I've "known" for many years,
> and the banter in there is good fun. However the thing I still dislike most about
> iRacing is the fact that it's completely isolated from the outside world. Open
> forums would at least make me feel like I'm not hibernating from the real world
> outside.
>
> Others would say it's a nice safe, warm cave, and it's very cold outside... at
> least until rF2 arrives to warm things up a little. Hopefully!
>
> Andrew McP
>
>

>On Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:53:21 -0500, Niles Anders > wrote:
>I hope ISI takes their time and does rF2 right. You know, improve the
>tire especially. In reality, ISI and iR should merge. Bring the best of
>both worlds together which might also merge the SIM community.

The real problem I have with ISI and Simbin are the tracks. While some
of them are relatively close some of them are waaaay off. When I run
in iRacing on tracks I have actually raced on i'm amazed at the
accuracy, right down to things like the nasty bumps coming through T17
at Sebring. I don't mind the expense, running with people (for the
most part) that want to run a good clean race. Do I like the iRating
setup as it is? No. I'm hoping as time passes they will continue to
refine how damage is done and how penalties are assessed for minor
contact and offs. For now if you want the best, this is it.

GP

> The real problem I have with ISI and Simbin are the tracks. While some
> of them are relatively close some of them are waaaay off.

For the vast majority of us who will never race the tracks, it doesn't
really make much difference. Eastern Creek was laser scanned, but I'll
never know the difference.

In the case of NFS Shift, they deliberately exaggerated the vertical
variation at Nordschleife, in order to capture the "essence" of the
actual track in a racing game where you only get visual cues instead
of being able to feel how steep a section of track is. It's a trade off
between duplicating a track physically, or trying to duplicate the
"feel" of the track.

"Niles Anders" > wrote in message
news
> iR desperately needs Spanish and Portuguese language portals for their
> service.

What does that mean exactly? I mean, what stuff would you suggest be
translated?

Everything that isn't in Spanish or Portuguese.

Byron Forbes wrote:
> "Niles Anders" > wrote in message
> news >
>> iR desperately needs Spanish and Portuguese language portals for their
>> service.
>
> What does that mean exactly? I mean, what stuff would you suggest be
> translated?
>
>

So iRacing should pay for all this ongoing conversion? And why stop at
Spanish - what about all the other languages?

My attitude on this is simple. If they (countries with different
languages) want to keep their own languages (and not have English as a
compulsory subject in their schools) then they can do the work for all that.

Screw 'em!

As an iRacing customer I'd be unhappy to see my money be spent on that
crap!

This was talked about at length on the iRacing forum and it is clear
that people can do this stuff themselves anyway. All they need is at leadt
one person in their group that speaks English so that ant anomilies can be
tidied up.

Again, not my, or the English speaking world's, problem!


"Niles Anders" > wrote in message
...
> Everything that isn't in Spanish or Portuguese.
>
> Byron Forbes wrote:
>> "Niles Anders" > wrote in message
>> news >>
>>> iR desperately needs Spanish and Portuguese language portals for their
>>> service.
>>
>> What does that mean exactly? I mean, what stuff would you suggest be
>> translated?

I think you are fooling yourself that people "not involved in any way shape
of form, should somehow have a voice? you can, get an account and join in,
it is "a big !%king deal" then really you have not much of a conversation
base with people who inherently believe this to be true. It is like any
club, start your own or join ours, but I don't try to take my club and ruin
it.

I still believe the strength of iRacing is the ignoring of the "gamerz
community" to a large extent. sure I might have offended some on here, but
it is more complicated than that. I don't see the need for ****ing contests
from 12 YO kids trying to run on iRacing because it is cheap enough for them
too. I like the "little bit of elitist" in simming, but it is more
complicated than just that statement. Just like racing discussion groups I
have with Motocross, and other sports, it is and will be kind of exclusive,
when we have riders meetings, and we as a group might discuss anything
including racing, last thing I want to hear is bull**** from people who are
only involved via their mouths (posts/texts). We have one common thing, in
this case racing iRacing, (other than we breath air and have use of a
computer). that is what makes the conversation have merits that they don't
have with your uptight neighbor and ****.


"Niles Anders" > wrote in message
news
> "However the thing I still dislike most about iRacing is the fact that
> it's completely isolated from the outside world. Open forums would at
> least make me feel like I'm not hibernating from the real world outside."
>
> I don't understand the private nature of the forums either. It seems to
> me, if they would open them that the potential member could connect to the
> iR community easier.
>
> "Others would say it's a nice safe, warm cave, and it's very cold
> outside... at least until rF2 arrives to warm things up a little.
> Hopefully"
>
> I hope ISI takes their time and does rF2 right. You know, improve the tire
> especially. In reality, ISI and iR should merge. Bring the best of both
> worlds together which might also merge the SIM community.
>
> iR desperately needs Spanish and Portuguese language portals for their
> service.
>
> Andrew MacPherson wrote:
>> (rcgldr) wrote:
>>
>>> Last I recall it had increased from
>>> around 10,000 to 14,000
>>
>> I think in excess of 20,000 have now tried the service. I believe there
>> are
>> something like 16,000 people (or at least accounts, as some people have
>> several it
>> seems) who've taken part in oval races, and about 15,500 for roads. And
>> obviously
>> many drivers will have at least tried both.
>>
>> But how many of those are still paying? And how many of those are driving
>> regularly
>> enough to help give the service momentum? It's very hard to be sure, and
>> the guy
>> who used to do a brilliant job of measuring weekly activity on the
>> servers has
>> given that up.
>>
>> However he did recently make a special appearance with some stats which
>> seemed to
>> show that active participation, after rising very significantly over the
>> winter,
>> has sunk down again as people's special offer periods come to an end. The
>> hosted
>> side of things also seems to be growing in popularity, but perhaps at the
>> expense
>> of the main service, effectively soaking up much of boost given by new
>> membership.
>>
>> Overall the service is definitely busier than it was 6 months ago, but
>> not that
>> much in my experience outside the Rookie level where new members are
>> earning their
>> spurs. Numbers there have been very impressive over recent months, even
>> off-peak
>> when I race, though they've tailed off recently as people leave or
>> graduate to the
>> main classes.
>>
>> I rarely see peak hour racing though, and I think anyone racing in the
>> evenings
>> will be pretty happy with the choice of races and field sizes.
>>
>> Overall iRacing remains the best darned sim on the planet.... trapped
>> within a
>> structure which really annoys me much of the time. There are days when I
>> wish I'd
>> never joined, and there are others when I'd pay twice the price. Just not
>> many of
>> them. :-) Fortunately the England club is full of names I've "known" for
>> many years,
>> and the banter in there is good fun. However the thing I still dislike
>> most about
>> iRacing is the fact that it's completely isolated from the outside world.
>> Open
>> forums would at least make me feel like I'm not hibernating from the real
>> world
>> outside.
>>
>> Others would say it's a nice safe, warm cave, and it's very cold
>> outside... at
>> least until rF2 arrives to warm things up a little. Hopefully!
>>
>> Andrew McP
>>