A lot of questions have swirled around iRacing since it was first announced several years ago. Dave Kaemmer, the lead designer behind many of Papyrus Racing’s finest titles (most notably Grand Prix Legends and NASCAR Racing 2003 Season) partnered with John Henry, who is the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and Roush Fenway Racing, to create a new breed of racing simulation. The results are unprecedented in the world of sim-racing. The question is: is it so innovative and so far beyond its time that it’s tough to comprehend -- or has it just attained a level of arrogance that no other simulation has approached?

This is definitely not a review of the product, as I’m not entirely sure it could be reviewed using traditional methods. In fact, it’s not even a finished product. This is simply a commentary on the direction I see the title pushing sim-racing in general, and whether that direction is one that sim-racers will benefit from.

It starts with the way that this sim is marketed. It’s not a “sim” or a “game” according to the developers and website: It represents "Leading-edge Driver Development Software." It promises virtual training on tracks and in vehicles that so closely models reality, that a driver could literally jump into a real race car and turn the same lap times that he or she does in iRacing. Whether that’s accurate or not isn’t the point. After spending some time driving the simulation, I wouldn’t say that it’s outside the realm of possibility.

The vehicle behaved exactly as I imagine it would, which means that the accuracy part isn’t wildly different from my perceived reality.

When I first strapped in for some seat time -- after configuring my controller and system options -- the car felt unlike any other sim I’d played before. Whether that’s because of the incredible physics engine or because of the superb implementation of a true 900-degree rotation of the steering wheel remains to be seen. The vehicle behaved exactly as I imagine it would, which means that the accuracy part isn’t wildly different from my perceived reality. A subtle adjustment on the wheel mid-corner will allow you to fine tune your line without throwing the car out of control. You have a “feel” while in the cockpit that few other games have really captured.

The question that kept creeping into my mind was whether or not iRacing was worth the incredibly steep cost associated with "playing" it. It uses a traditional MMO pay-to-play format of $13 a month for the basic setup. That system isn’t exactly groundbreaking or "new" in a general sense, but is relatively new ground to be breaking on the sim-racing scene. Electronic Arts’ failed Motor City Online is the only other true racing MMO I can recall, and it went over like a bag of hammers with the racing community.

What pushes iRacing into new territory, is the need to actually qualify to drive faster vehicles and bigger tracks, solely against human competition. When you first sign up, you only have access to a pair of vehicles and fixed-setup racing. Neither of the default cars will light the track on fire, as they’re designed to get a driver’s feet wet and let them navigate a course without incurring incident penalties one after another. Incident penalties are infractions that a driver incurs by doing something reckless. Whether it’s going off the track, losing control, or hitting another car, every action on the track has an impact on a driver’s rating. That rating allows them to “graduate” from the beginner vehicles to more powerful machines, as well as race in faster series races against stiffer competition.

Nothing replaces true seat time. A real race car driver feels the car with every bit of his being: vision, sound, and quite literally the seat of his pants.

That’s where it gets really interesting. If you move up to a new vehicle, you actually need to purchase it with real-world money. Each car runs about $15, and if that car happens to run in a series that races on a track you don’t have with the core package, you are looking at investing another $25 per circuit. Currently, buying everything that iRacing has to offer would add up to over $300. That’s a serious investment for what is, for all intents and purposes, a game -- no matter how it is rationalized or marketed. It is branded as giving the driver “real” seat time without the costs associated with it. That’s the problem I have. Nothing replaces true seat time. A real race car driver feels the car with every bit of his being: vision, sound, and quite literally the seat of his pants. A great driver can feel a car’s weight shifting subtly and compensate before it loses control. iRacing, no matter how ambitious it is, cannot replicate that. It’s physically impossible to do, no matter how exquisite the physics engine is.

The rationale from Dave Kaemmer is simple, however: "It’s not a game."

It’s Driver Development Software, and instead of spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to build an actual Legends car, for example, you can get all the benefits of racing a Legends car (and many more) for $300. Instead of paying exorbitant transportation fees for fuel and a crew, you can simply pay a few Benjamins and get "real world experience." While I don’t quite buy the concept of the game replacing real experience, I do know that it seems to teach race craft much better than other sims due to the combination of a serious financial investment and a strictly managed rating system.

I’ve run in quite a few leagues in my day, and even with the best of guys to run with, things happen. That’s racing.

The lessons it teaches are subtle, too. So subtle, in fact, that the drivers themselves may not even know they’re being taught real-world lessons in track etiquette -- creating a racing environment that has to be experienced to be believed. I’ve run in quite a few leagues in my day, and even with the best of guys to run with, things happen. That’s racing. What iRacing manages to do is transcend the “game” feeling and turn it into a suspended-disbelief reality. If you’re worried about getting a reputation as a basher or a spinner, you’re a bit more cautious. That’s normal behavior for hardcore league racers; but, even the best simulation drivers in still tend to push it a bit harder in-game than a real driver would. That’s why you don’t see real drivers killing each other at every corner. They practice a good amount of give and take on the track, something that has been noticeably absent in most simulations until now.

You’ll see drivers exhibit an amazing ability to keep their nose clean, so to speak. Guys will go out of their way to make sure they don’t make contact with your car, because having a double-digit incident race is like a death penalty. The vast majority of racers would let a faster car by cleanly if he had the line, yet not move over and instantly relinquish his position. It’s the basis of hard, clean racing. The racing I experienced in my brief seat time with iRacing has been some of the most exhilarating of my "sim career." I feel that the rating system in the game accomplishes this feat -- that's before I even factor in the hefty price tag to drive -- but that’s purely speculative. What’s there is golden, and it’s something that every future simulation should strive to achieve.

Since every incident and infraction is tracked on a global scale (meaning you can never run away from your mistakes), it’s only fitting that iRacing’s league environment is innovative as well. Races in iRacing, much like in reality, have a specific start time. Either you show up on time or you don’t race. The races in any given series tend to start every two hours, but some drivers hop from series to series and start several races per session. Obviously you’d have to be very comfortable with different vehicles and tracks to pull that off, but it’s possible. The problem is that iRacing isn’t reality, which is something that the game forgets quite frequently.

In reality, things happen. For example, if you’re a newcomer with a family and commitments, you’re left with a choice to make the 9 p.m. race or the 11 p.m. race in Legends. If you can’t make it, then that’s too bad. According to iRacing you should have told the wife and kids, "Honey, I’m going racing." My mom was a racing widow for most of my life, and that’s just how it was. But this is a game, and that’s why I have a problem with it. Granted, I make it sound rather extreme, since people set up league races and games all the time, but it’s never been so “my way or the highway” as it is with iRacing. Either you show up or you don’t; you don’t get to choose how it is. Add to that the fact that racers are always grouped automatically by the iRacing system, and thrown into races without knowing who they’ll be racing -- with no option to run against friends or rivals -- and it starts to get a bit annoying.

I would like to be able to fire up my sim of choice and turn some laps, which admittedly is possible in practice sessions in iRacing.

I’m not sure I'd be pleased with the genre heading in that direction. I would like to be able to fire up my sim of choice and turn some laps, which admittedly is possible in practice sessions in iRacing. Practice sessions seem like a waste of server bandwidth though, because they start every two minutes and I have yet to see anybody in one. You may as well run a private test session instead of the sanctioned practice sessions. It’s an entirely solo affair, so anybody who wants to improve by running with faster drivers will have to learn on the job, so to speak. The only real experience you’ll get is from the races themselves, so you’ll find most drivers just throw down a qualifying time and run race after race to get that experience.

When taken as a whole, it’s tough to really categorize iRacing as being worth the investment or not. Much like life, you get out of it what you put into it. If you spend a ton of time jumping from race to race, then that may be the best $300 you ever spend. For people like me, who can’t seem to get back to a server at a specific time to save my life, it just feels alienating and unnecessary. iRacing has some seriously impressive things going for it, most notably the physics model, the league implementation and stat tracking. What I hope doesn’t come to pass is the $15 per car, $25 per track model spreading like wildfire throughout the sim-racing genre. We’re already nickel-and-dimed to death on Xbox Live for anything that a publisher sees the opportunity to make money on. But, while Kaemmer and company rightly deserve to profit from their efforts, when does a developer saying, “we’re not making a game, we’re making reality” mean that they need to start pushing the cost closer to real-world value?

I realize three hundred bucks is chump change for a true racer, but that’s the point. Ninety-nine percent of the drivers hitting the servers aren’t real racers. They’re guys like me who want to drive a very good racing simulation. Most will never move on to a career in motorsports, but they're still there to have a good time. No matter how iRacing is marketed or explained, it's still a simulation that is going to be categorized as entertainment software. For sim-racers who spend the majority of their time online, it will prove to be a solid investment. In fact, even if every title coming down the pipe shifts to a pay-to-play and pay-for-content model, those types of gamers will still probably be happy.

But for the driver who spent $30 on something like rFactor a few years ago, and still downloads countless mods and tracks for free, it will be a tough sell

But for the driver who spent $30 on something like rFactor a few years ago, and still downloads countless mods and tracks for free, it will be a tough sell. When you include the fact that you can jump in and race rFactor with friends at any time, or even offline with the AI, it becomes even tougher. That’s what it always comes back to in my mind: If Joe Gamer could go out and spend $30 and get 400 tracks and 750 cars, or he could $300 and get 7 cars and 40-something tracks, which one would he choose?

I think the choice is obvious, but that’s the thing -- iRacing is not marketed to Joe Gamer, but to the hardcore racers of the world who want "real-world experience." Is that experience, and an exhaustive stat-tracking model worth the significant investment that it commands? I'm not sure, but one thing is for certain: every racing developer is standing at attention and waiting to know the answer. If iRacing is a huge success, we’ll see more and more knockoffs trying the pay-to-play model. Without Kaemmer to design the sim, and Henry there to foot the bill, I’m sure it will be a radically different experience.

I know some racers who frequent Operation Sports are avid iRacing supporters. I know some who are appalled at the perceived arrogance that seems to permeate every issued press release. No matter what your stance is, it cannot be denied that sim-racing is at a crossroads, and iRacing is at the center of it. We won’t know the results for a few years, but personally, I'm more than a little curious to know how it turns out.