Anyone who's followed my columns, reviews, and assorted rants over the past few years knows I'm a big fan of iRacing.com, the uber-authentic and highly challenging online racing sim service from former Papyrus (Grand Prix Legends, NASCAR Racing 2003) major-domo David Kaemmer. Despite its remarkable depth and fidelity, however, a sizeable segment of the sim racing community still eschew the service's subscription-based financial model for free-to-play alternatives like rFactor and GTR2.
Money Time
If you're one of those parsimonious holdouts, you should know there's a new player in the online sim racing world and, as with iRacing, it ain't no charity. Ignite Technologies' SimRaceway.com went live several months ago, and this well-funded upstart is gunning for its share of the pay-as-you-go PC sim racing business. Although you can download and play the basic SimRaceway client for free (which includes a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution sedan and access to online Quick Races), extra content like faster machines and entry into elite events -- including some with prize money -- will cost you.
A Mitsubishi Evo sedan doesn't come cheap.
Ignite secured official licensing from over 20 different manufacturers, then priced its entire collection at 1/100,000th of the actual car's street price.
You can pay for this content with credits you earn in-game (the go-kart can be in your garage after less than an hour of play) but the really hot cars -- like the 1184-horsepower Bugatti Veyron -- could take months to earn. Alternatively, you can just deposit credit card or PayPal funds into your SimRaceway account and buy the cars you want. The Veyron runs a healthy $25, but many of the three dozen available cars are just a few bucks -- and some can be had for as little as 30 or 40 cents. Ignite secured official licensing from over 20 different manufacturers, then priced its entire collection at 1/100,000th of the actual car's street price. With these sorts of bargains -- and with no monthly subscription fees to worry about -- you can build a diverse stable of street, GT, and purebred racing cars on a very modest budget. Recognizable Racer
Those familiar with Image Space Inc.'s wonderfully moddable rFactor will experience immediate deja vu once they hit one of SRW's nine tracks (five real and four fantasy) because ISI licensed its software to Ignite to help develop the service. This is a good news/bad news deal for gamers because, although the original DX9-based rFactor code was (and still is) a stable and respected product boasting some of the best netcode in the business, it's also seven years old and positively creaky by modern gaming standards. A few of SimRaceway's circuits are already showing their graphical age (some quite dramatically) and that's only gonna get worse once ISI releases rFactor 2 later this year.
Short on cash? Take a six-cent kart racer for a spin.
State-of-the-art physics helped accelerate iRacing to the front of the sim racing pack.
State-of-the-art physics helped accelerate iRacing to the front of the sim racing pack, and it's also hard to see SimRaceway closing that gap significantly with its current tool cabinet. The rFactor physics have always been solid, and all the SRW cars I've driven deliver convincing and believable feedback (proportionate with each vehicle's power, weight, grip, and general setup), but can anyone realistically expect a seven-year-old gaming engine to keep pace with the advanced competition at iRacing? Ignite claims to have one of the best brain trusts in the business helping it cultivate and fine-tune its driving model. "We're mindful that the engine itself is only as good as the data fed into it," explains Ignite CEO Jonathan Haswell. "And, thanks to the professional drivers we've been able to call on -- experts including Dan Wheldon (who sadly passed away at last year's final IndyCar race), Allan McNish, and Dario Franchitti -- and our permanent, real-world racing facility, the Simraceway Performance Driving Center, we have that side of things extremely well covered." (SimRaceway owns and operates the former Jim Russell Racing Driver School at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, one of the premier facilities of its kind in the country).
Where's Waldo?
A couple of weeks after my initial install I can launch sporadic pick-up races with three or four other players -- inevitably all driving the "free" Lancer Evo.
I've never tweaked game code in my life, so I'll have to take his word that the input Ignite receives from these pro racers makes its way into each of SimRaceway's growing stable of vehicles. One thing even Dario Franchitti can't help them with though is a player base, an area where the service remains sadly lacking. A couple of weeks after my initial install I can launch sporadic pick-up races with three or four other players -- inevitably all driving the "free" Lancer Evo -- at Infineon Raceway, but nothing else has ever appeared on my Quick Race menu. If I want to shake down some of my hotter cars, I have to resort to single-car or AI-populated practice events or navigate to the online Events menu and settle for hot-lapping duels with other users' ghost images. (Sadly appropriate, considering the ghost-town feeling that SimRaceway currently imparts on its visitors). rFactor's driving physics might be old, but they're still convincing.
Compared to iRacing, where full grids (tightly policed to exclude morons) and intense challenging races respawn every few minutes it seems SRW still has a lot of ground to make up. Even with its cheaper rates, no subscription fees, and open competition policy, SimRaceway is clearly struggling to attract an audience.
"We don't see iRacing as a direct competitor to SimRaceway," states Haswell. "We have a great deal of professional respect for its coverage of stock car racing, but we've always had loftier ambitions in terms of both content and user base. Our main interest is in rivaling the likes of Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, and Need For Speed, something we intend to do by offering a unique product that is able to attract all three driving game player types: simulation, realistic, and arcade. We would consider this venture a disappointment if we don't end up with iRacing's 40,000 user base, plus a couple of extra zeroes added onto the end of it!"
Wheels Optional
A revealing statement when you break it down, as it seems that iRacing's focused success -- where quality wheel-and-pedal sets are a must and only qualified PC racers may participate -- is too limiting for SimRaceway. Instead, Ignite hopes to appeal to every racing fan with a steering wheel, gamepad, or keyboard (sorry, but I shudder a little at that last one) in its efforts to build an online sim racing Mecca that rivals anything currently available for console racers.
I wish them success, and I plan to revisit the service every few weeks to see how they're doing. Perhaps I'll get a chance one day to dust off that Lola Formula 3 car (currently on sale for a meager $1.50) and run it against a full field of like-minded single-seater fans.
And I guarantee I won't be driving it with a keyboard.