rec.autos.simulators

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.

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.

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.

        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.

        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.

        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

l8er
ronny

No, chess is a *game*. Football (in any continent) is called a Game.

Again the *word* is game.
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.