That's not just an iracing problem, it's video games as a whole. Now that the core element of video games is online multiplayer based, it's acceptable just to sit in your room all day doing nothing but play the game because you're clinging onto that hope of "gee maybe I'll make it pro on [insert game here]. It's a problem because when all the focus is on esports, that's all anyone who plays the game competitively will focus on. It's on the industry to change their game model and it's on the players to not fall into the trap
A change that the industry ignores because of money, and a trap people willingly choose to jump in because they're addled with desire and want. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
@@DR3ADER1 they certainly don't ignore it. they don't want that change and they'll do anything they can for that change to never happen. that's not ignoring the change, it's actively fighting against it. and of course like fish said above: that's not just an iracing problem or simracing problem, it's the game industry as a whole, that's why this video is about a problem we can find in an MMORPG and a racing game....
@@eddybouh2079 From what I gather, they're ignoring it. What you're seeing from EA and Activision is the exception. Meanwhile, in Europe and Asia, most big publishers are just ignoring calls for change because it's too profitable.
Top split has always been "my e-dick is bigger than yours". Lower splits are usually all about who can give the "best" advice and epic pre-race safety speeches.
I was in an f1 2021 lobby once were someone did an epic speech about not crashing anyone out or spinning out. That same guy crashed at monza with like 10 other guys. And thats how I got my first victory in f1 2021 online.
Agreed nothing wrong with spending a few hours when you have some free time racing friends or just chilling playing single player stuff but seriously these things need to stop period.
Yes, these guys definitely need a reality check, and for guys that are trying to get into the E Coca-Cola Cup Series, Indy Lights, etc, this is not acceptable behavior by far, and a rule of thumb should be, the higher you rank, the more people will notice you, so you want to make a good first impression, even if you do it for a couple hours a day
I got addicted and quit. It was really affecting my marriage and my physique. Since then, I’ve been taking to loads of time I spent on video games and applying it to working out and Wow - what a difference.
Awesome to hear this. You've always left great and insightful comments on my videos (which you'll notice I also pretty much stopped making for similar reasons to what you describe here). Don't go back, do things that are fulfilling.
@@TedHough68 Thanks man. Hey, it had some fun aspects but being a great husband and father is so much more fun. Also, I like it when random women are inappropriately polite to me, though my wife isn't a big fan lol. Seriously, I missed that ;)
At first I misinterpreted your comment, and read it as "applying it to working out and world of warcraft" and I felt very confused for like three minutes lol
I only keep it on for very very brief conversations, the only people I've seen talk a lot are those who are fault blaming others and actual kids who I politely ask to speak less.
Because I'm not going to listen to myself talk crazy for 2hrs on A Open and when doing the big shot events for fun like Daytona 500 etc. I got the next 3hrs of my time planned and invested in it. Got to fill the boring laps with something besides engine noise. When you get a genuine split that actually communicates it need not be a liability it's when people at the bottom and people at the top think they're the Next Dale or Jimmie or Richard Petty etc that grinds peoples gears and sucks the fun out of it. The leagues are no better.
This is the reason that there is a move in the community, attempting to shove a firm wedge between sim racing as a hobby and eSports. Both might seem similar at a glance, but the fundamental motivations and reward structure are completely different when you break them apart. I've made a concerted effort to focus on 'fun' content and move further from the gatekeeping that typifies sim racing communities. You find that it naturally attracts an audience with a better mental health balance, and people that are a lot more interested in having fun than proving obtuse points. Sim racing is often enough used as a crutch for mental illness or social maladjustment, and unfortunately, like most coping mechanisms, it can subsume and become just as bad as the problem it's replacing.
Things like this are why I'm happy to just play a few hours on weekends now. Get my fill, treat it like an irl race weekend (aka no 50+hrs on setup tuning) and enjoy it if I get a podium or win, or learn if I don't.
It’s all about finding the balance. I’m largely the same, hop in on a Saturday night, race with any content I own, and then be done till the next week. Probably the best way to be
i dont always agree with what you post but i swear this is so spot on, people lose sight of what is really important. i would like to add that competing or playing sports growing up helps you deal with the stresses of competition and its really easy to tell when someone can’t be a good loser or a good winner
this could also be a symptom of the “it’s not a video game, it’s a simulator” mindset where people assign greater value to these sims because of a belief that they should be taking a virtual race as seriously as a real race. unless you’re in esports or a genuine driver academy and gearing up for real racing, you’ll have to admit to yourself that it’s just a video game and it isn’t worth getting upset about it.
It's not game until people overdrive their car and wreck because they don't have to pay for it. Can't ever make the consequences of real racing translate to a sim.
I still occasionally get pissed at a game. It doesn't matter what game it is. If it's a game with a bit of challenge to it, there's a good chance you'll see me get pissed. I know it's just a game, but I play to be given a scenario and be able to figure a way to come out on top. Helps with my problem solving skills and whatnot.
Took me a few years to realise that, it's hard when you get into that mentality of 'this is real ' because you have nothing else going on, but opening doors and things just gives you that space to realise it is just a game
I’ve got over 1056 starts. 28 wins. and 60 or is top 5s. If I win. I win. If I loose I loose. I usually race 1 or 2 race a day or will do a 30-50 minute practice session. I’ll race for fun. I’ve stop stressing about iRating and Pro class. I spent some of my other times doing Hobbies go karting and acting. I’m also attempting to do a mechanics course. While I love racing I can let it go.
That's interesting, I have almost the exact same stats, and race in a similar fashion as you; 1 or 2 a day. I have been on and off since the beta. 1014 Starts / 21 wins / 204 top 5s / 76 poles.
As I messaged you, I recently bought an iBuyPower Slate MR and Logitech G920 in Mid-April. I chose to work a 6-Hour Night Shift in attempt to rebuild my bank account and I don’t have the time to do races because work and routines make to where I don’t dedicate much time to AC, RF2, or iRacing. So I literally turn laps in a DPi or Indycar for a minute, then watch some Roller Coaster videos.
I see this so so much today. I cannot do this for as long every day as a lot of people do. I have been working full time for 4 years now and I don't have the time, nor the mental capacity to test and race as much as a lot of people do. It would completely fry my brain, take away any type of social life and I need to relax and have breaks here and there so I can keep doing this and enjoy it. Because once it becomes more than a hobby, the fun can be easily taken away.
As a kid obsessed with racing, all I wanted was to feel the same adrenaline I'd feel go-karting with my friends. If I had known what it would turn into, I never would have purchased a wheel. It isn't the real thing and never will be, but is advertised as real. While its 'real' racing, at the end of the day you're spending hours in your room in front of a screen. A lucky few will actually get to translate what they learn on a virtual track to real life.
I find it ironic that simracing is all about the pursuit of realism... except for amount of tracktime and consequences of crashing. You can drive - and crash - for as long as you like. Yeah, sounds like that thing real racing drivers are doing, sure. This will remain an issue until some smart and brave company (Rennsport?) decides to enforce some realism-based limitations and consequences on their players. Being a good racing driver is not about grinding days behind the wheel, because that's not possible in real life. It's about being able to get up to the pace reliably _and_ safely with the limited amount of time and resources you get.
"Oops, you crashed your car really hard! You can't play for the next week!" Nobody is going to play a sim with realistic consequences. It's a video game.
@@minigungaming5915 I agree however that’s not what’s being proposed. Iracing could make one easy change to make there be more consequences. If they made it so practice and qualifying before a race would affect your cars damage in the race or at least make you start from the pit lane if you crash would be a huge improvement.
@@minigungaming5915 Another perfect example of hypocrisy in simracing community. If it's a hardcore feature someone wants, they say it's a simulation and it should have it, but if it's a hardcore feature someone doesn't want, they say it's just a video game.
@@steelin666 There needs to be *nuance* to these things. A simulation should have realistic physics and modeling. What it should *not* have is excessively punishing features like your braindead idea. One reason people play the sims is the unlimited seat time and low risk it allows.
Very factual video. This is the busiest time of my life at my current age. I race about 3 to 4 hours a week. It is something I just love. I actually find it is more enjoyable keeping it at just a few hours a week. Makes it more special in a way.
Addiction is addiction regardless of what the actual activity is. I have been gaming a long time, 1980’s, and I can’t stand multiplayer on any game. It is like being active on Reddit, it seems like it would be cool and fun but oh no! It is just toxic and horrible!
I am a former SCCA racer, quit because of cost and growing family. I purchased a Porsche many years later and got into DE track days with my friends as a fix for my speed need. I am now a PCA national instructor. Still costly and time consuming. I got into Sim racing during covid when the PCA promoted their League. Initially I was on the sim a lot, what else was there to do during covid, but now I just mostly do PCA events because the general Iracing races are filled with idiots. I have wrecked car, my fault, and not my fault. Nothing worse than taking your mistake back home on the trailer and fixing it. It’s time, money, guilt that you could be doing other things with time and money. With the sim, you push a button and your back in action, almost no penalty. It breeds stupidly, I see, and sometimes do things on track I would never do in real life. And that’s the problem, most of people on the sim have never crashed and had to fix, or pay to fix their car. Or walk around for two months with back and neck pain from the shunt.
I've never really gotten too far into online racing in general. I'm an old school time trial/ai opponent player. Online racing just seems like way too much of a commitment and I'd rather live a life tbh lol
I walked away from iracing. 1.5 years on it. 726 starts, 11 wins, and i feel i had enough it the whole need to grind in order to be anywhere near competitive. So instead of am organizing my own Racing Engineers league with both shorter, and longer race sessions for people from EU and Australia. Nobody is grinding insane hours all day, nobody is serious or on edge, everyone is chill and driving fair, clean races, and just having fun.
Its interesting to think back to when I was a youth and joined the platform. This video made me remember all those addicted people who would race hours a day and literally not do anything else. I saw marriages fail from this addiction. I am glad I gave up on my dreams of being a iracing star because I know for a fact I can and most likely will turn in to one of those people. This sport is a fun hobby that I do now on average 1 or 2 hours a month. It's just a bunch of pixels on a screen.
I played golf at a high level as an amateur and we had much of the same. Guys without jobs being supported by their wives to win a trophy and a gift certificate from the pro shop. I realized very early on I couldn't retire on trophies so I became a dentist which payed much better
the crazy thing is. i saw this happen live on someone's twitch stream. it honestly felt worse on that stream because the person streaming was in a discord call with like 5 people. half were talking about the voice chat in the race and the others were talking about something else completely that had nothing to do with iracing.
I saw this across lots of different games from WoW, CS, League and maybe streaming in general. It's that "make it out of the hood" mentality. In a weird way being a musician, sports or esports star is way more viable and promising than being an engineer. I met rural Americans, Europeans, Pacific Islanders with a similar mentality but with obviously massively different backgrounds and the same approach was there. Education is expensive, some of these guys are 25 with no license, their job market and opportunities are trash, they have no transportation to get to a job or college, they're in the middle of the countryside with barely enough money to pay rent but not enough to move. These avenues you can build your skills up without any of that though. It's a line of hope in a world that has given them 7/2 non-pairs. It's really no wonder they're so moody, this is their livelihood at stake here. Games will get the finger but I think that is kind of shallow thinking and misses the forest for the trees
You're talking about a very small minority there. Most addicts don't really live in rural places, even though some do. The amount of hours they spent working and honing their skills would fare better in terms of their career paths if they chose to use all that dedication towards any other. 99% of addicts will go nowhere, because that's how hard it is to be a professional at any video game or area for that matter. It takes time and dedication. To be an engineer it also takes time and dedication, but to a different extent. Education trully is expensive but so is gaming. People have no idea how much you can easily spend on a desktop computer, monitor(s), peripherals not to talk about a top level sim rig. You can buy education and/or even a car depending on how crazy you are with that kind of money. I think many just have that mentality of "i'm going to be a pro gamer" - no steve, you're 38, you're not that good, and you should think about something else - just as an example of course
This is something that needs to be said much more, this is why I don't do official races unless I actually want to do them, I have my fun in leagues and such, don't get me wrong I absolutely love to be the best I can be, but I do that in moderation because I use the sim as a way to learn real tracks to improve my real life driving ability. The big problem here is people aren't treating this like a simulation, they are treating it like it's Fortnite and that's why very few professional NASCAR drivers and racing drivers in general stayed in the iracing scene after 2020.
This is the reason why I only use the test sessions now in iRacing. I used to always race the thurs and sun NiS fixed splits (3000 iR) and try to race a full season (give or take 2-4 weeks because of work). I noticed right before covid a shift of just overly serious people taking the fun out of it. It got to the point where I couldn't be in a race without someone having a meltdown over some of the most meaningless stuff. My last straw was when I was doing a NiS race at Atlanta and I was managing my tires throughout the race really well and choosing to stay out a couple of times in the early to middle part of the race. This one guy, who was convinced I was gonna wreak the field was constantly moaning in VC and getting really angry with me. After 3 restarts where I was holding my position and was pulling away from the cars behind we get 2 quick yellows with about 15 to go. I stay out on the 2nd yellow with 6 lap old tires. The same guy, now fuming because I took the lead because he chose to pit, goes on a 2 lap long rant as we pace about how people like me are the problem with iRacing and that he'll never get to the Pro series because I'm too selfish and I don't care about others around me and that I should be taken off the service. Then because I was being a smartass and had a soundboard, I pushed the "It's only game" button which set him over and he decided to pit me into the inside wall. I'm all for esports and competition, but the problem with iRacing for me is that I feel that a large majority of people are convinced that they're the next William Byron or Ty Majeski and lose themselves in the grind. iRacing for me is a relatively cheap alternative to real life racing and an opportunity to race with other hobbyist/enthusiast.
Man, I remember when I grinded CSGO up to global elite, it was a toxic group of people that did nothing but played the game all day and watch videos on multiple smoke tricks they can do. And then when we played against a streamer, they REALLY cranked up the toxicity. The toxicity eventually drove me away from the game as I just couldn't enjoy it. So I can definitely relate here.
Should I make a video from my perspective? Just wondering… I’m gonna do one last official race though and stream it. Maybe I’ll talk about stuff during that. Gonna “retire” (sounds so stupid too say for a computer game) indefinitely. I’ve served my purpose on iRacing. Not renewing my membership in December. Removing iRacing from my taskbar and PC so I’m not tempted again. Good to see this video has blown up, keep up the good work Austin.
The biggest problem I see is "sim racers" in reality game racers think they're actual race car drivers. I don't care what game it is you're not a real race car driver, especially when the game isn't that realistic. Mind you, I'm someone that in the last 9 going on 10 years have over 10,000+ races on iRacing alone. (Primarily league with hosted mixed in. Only about 1100 of them races are official races, I've never cared for official.) Only time I usually get upset with wrecks if it was pretty blatant. Although I'm primarily a dirt oval racer (race it in real life also), I'm more of a universal driver. I race about anything, pavement oval, dirt oval, pavement road and dirt road. All different types of cars too, Nascar, Indy, GT, F1, lower hp aero cars etc... Am I super fast in everything? Not even close, only thing really that i'm decently fast in is the sprint cars, but I can usually hold my own in about everything. This isn't to brag, just using it to show that i'm not one that just spends hours in practice and 8000 races in 1 car. In that 9-10 years, I've rarely went into to practices for more than 30 minutes and it's rare for me to go into practices. Only time I practice, is usually if I get in a league or hosted race that has a decently long practice. I don't use them as practices for being better, it's just to pass the time, waiting for the races to start. I've been game racing since I was 4 and start more serious game racing around probably '05-'06 so since I was about 8-10. Then I got iRacing in the later part of 2012. Although I started racing open wheel dirt cars (mini sprints, midgets and sprint cars.) in 2011. So yes I game race a lot, but in that time I was also working at least part time, but a lot of time was at least 35+hrs a week, working on real race cars (only my dad and I as crew) and doing graphic design as a small time graphic design business. (One more thing, I bought my own race car at 13-14 and fund it my self, before someone claims my parents bought it for me.) Later years I started doing more semi professional E-Sports racing, including helping run a E-Sports team. My game racing does slow down a lot in the spring/summer though, due to real racing. In the last year or two it slowed down a lot. It's rare for me to get on more than 3 days a week. When I say game I'm primarily talking about iRacing, to many people call it realistic and it's like the real thing when they've never got close to driving a real race car in their life. To me as someone that races in real life iRacing will never be considered a Simulator, it's a Simcade. You can never be considered a Simulator if you have cars that were decently realistic, then make them easier to drive and more unrealistic, due to people complaining about them "being to hard to drive." I'm talking about this on primarily the dirt sprint cars and midgets. They used to be decently realistic for a game, not as realistic as some mods on another game, but decently realistic. Some of these addicts tended to complain that they weren't right and were to hard to drive so iRacing ruined them. Made them not even close to the real cars. Which is why it can never be considered a Sim. Only thing comparable to a sprint car in real life and iracing is the looks, nothing else is even close any more and keeps getting worse.
As a human the way I feel about addiction is as long as they're not harming anyone let them do whatever their little hearts want but as a fellow sim racer and person who has dealt with addiction throughout my life when you're addiction to whatever game/sim is causing you distress take a break for a few days trust me it'll bring back some of the enjoyment you once felt when playing I can't speak for those pros though all I will say is don't make your hobby your job or else you will grow to hate the very same thing that once brought you so much happiness
Weird take. I know plenty of people that are active in simracing, but neither care about motorsport or cars in general. Same could be said about the "milestones" you hit, but others don't. It's apples and oranges, just like you said: "the race means more to them, than to you". This is not just iRacing and WoW, this is gaming in general. Or anything with the slightest bit of competition. Even single player games get competitive with speedrunners working years on perfection.
To hone your craft and master your sport is admirable. But to spend hundreds of thousands of hours on a video game is sad. Sim Racing is in a weird spot.
it would not be so sad if sim racers were being presented with proper esports opportunities that grew to real life racing seats, but until then it is simply a hobby far too many people take far too seriously.
@@DavidGarcia-oi5nt HUNDREDS of thousands is definitely hypoerbole but there are pros in like csgo dota 2 and league that have well over 20-25k hours in those games. wouldnt surprise me in the least to see higher numbers on iracing.
The older I get the harder it seems to find the drive to play multiple races in nr2003 in one day. Finally found an exe and the better cautions mod which has been my replacement for the annual title, but I get tired easily. I cannot imagine the shit it takes for these people to get this addicted to the game.
If you sink +500$ to rent a game, you are not going: meh maybe i should run ACC or AMS2. You are locked into the system, they got you. And also, if it is the most expensive, it has to be the best, right? Right?
@@josephpenn1115 I guess you can, but would you ditch iRacing in favour of some other title (for it's flaws, the price and being outdated in many aspects)?
@@Bonkikavo I wouldn't ditch either of them, both iRacing and ACC have things the other does not have. Same reason I have both X-Plane and Microsoft Flight Simulator.
You see this in leagues too. I've raced in leagues where could win a few hundred bucks for a 15 week season and people would lose their minds. I enjoyed hopping on on weekends for an hour or two to test setups or whatnot, but like you mentioned, people do it for hours. If something goes wrong in the race, they revert to their 5 year old selves.
Sold my CSL DD and picked up a controller to play F1 games. It's a lot more fun to actually play the game instead of turn laps on the same circuit on a wheel for hours for miniscule advantage . This is coming from someone who was top 210 in F1 2021 time trials, simracing isn't worth the money or the time.
There have been plenty of people like this about real racing, i.e. Dale Earnhardt. That's unhealthy and silly, but this is just pathetic... nearly all of them aren't getting anything for this.
I grew up playing arcade racers like Forza/Gran Turismo. Eventually moved to NR2003, Project Cars, Assetto Corsa. When I heard about iRacing I was thrilled, but just didn't feel like I wanted to make the investment. But after consuming a lot of iRacing content online, I decided I didn't want to play the game anymore simply because of the community. It feels like it is quite literally a simulator to be used by serious race car drivers only, not a game that normal people can have fun playing.
my old best mate lost his girlfriend due to WoW. Just came home from work and went straight on this PC. Fuckt up, and I get how it can be the absolute same on Sim racing.
I just searched so I could listen to the original post. I am 48, have no time for drama like this. Had I been in this race, which I probably wouldn't have been in the first place, I would have just left the server when I started hearing a bunch of "Robot Chicken nerds" chirping at each other! I tried iRacing for a 3 month trial a few months back, my first online racing since I started playing 1994's Papyrus Indycar Racing. I did not have any issues, but I also respected other drivers by giving room to them when I knew I was slow and learning. My experience was good, but short, because as fun as it is racing real people, it also felt like a chore to accomplish moving up the ladder. In those 3 months, I am probably over-estimating that i spend a total of about 15 hours in only 4 or 5 racing sessions. I don't have the time to grind away to hone my skills, let alone make it to the next level. I always don't have the time for online warriors that think that just because they stand every waking hour of the day sitting at a racing rig that they are better than everybody else.
I see a lot of this in not just I racing but ro racing. I can admit it has been rubbing off on me sometimes raging a bit not to anyone when someone wrecks me or sometimes when my computer lags. This video kinda helps me. I remember just a month ago when I really started getting into ro racing I kinda was I was just happy to be here and now sometimes I get very moody when I lose. I’m working to turn around but it’s kinda hard. This was kinda a wake up call so thanms
The racing game community has been really weird lately. I've met some great guys on iRacing who know we're having fun doing some moves we can't pull IRL because we'd be left with the crash bill, and some who scold me for calling it a game and not a simulator sometimes. And then I've met people who believe Forza and F1 22 magically become simulators because they play with the most expensive Fanatec gear, especially the Instagram and TikTok heroes
Yeah, I was in that tryhard super serious sim racer crowd for a while. When I realized I was pissed off all the time while playing it I backed off, got back into other games I was into, found that zen place with it. I still play it, but I do 2-3 races a week? With maybe an hour of practice since said races usually involve the same car? Treat this game like I would if I actually had the money/time/talent to go IRL racing. I still land in the top splits on either side of the road/oval coin, and yes they are filled with egotistical asshats who think they’re the next influencer, esports phenom, or real world racing superstar. But god bless the mute button.
I stopped iRacing in 2017. It had gotten to the point that the community was so toxic, and the hours so long, that i just couldn't do it anymore. I had my A-Class license and had an irating of like 4K IIRC, but there were guys who'd race 30, 40, 50, 60+ hours a week. When i got engaged, that was the end. I have a life. I have a career. I have friends. I have normal hobbies. It dawned on me these people turning these laps/hours must not. There's just no way to make that work. The hours in the day just aren't there. I've not raced since and have no plans to ever return to Iracing for the exact reasons specified in this video
I spent 7 years of my life on iRacing and I can agree it became an addiction for awhile that was hard to kick...it's like to trying to quit smoking but you still get the urge for more nicotine STATS: OVAL (as of 2024) License: Class A iRating: 4818 SR: 3.36 Starts: 1899 Wins: 329 (17%) Top 5's: 1154 (60%) Poles: 420 Laps Led: 17422 (22%) ROAD (as of 2024) License: Class A iRating: 5148 SR: 2.40 Starts: 806 Wins: 258 (32%) Top 5's: 575 (71%) Poles: 312 Laps Led: 1600 (9%) I only stayed as long as I did simply because I wasn't financially capable of going to the race-track to get behind the wheel of a real car so racing on iRacing or some other racing game was the closest I could get. Also, I was able to get comfortable grinding away in a number of racing series in D-Class and C-Class (examples: solstice racing in the Production Car Challenge, Radical Racing Challenge, SK Modifieds, Whelen Modified Tour, etc.) Nowadays my reasons for not being on iRacing is the poor quality I've seen...the tires and physics not being up to par and toxicity in the SIM racing community. After awhile I realized my constant urge to want to get on SIM racing wasn't "healthy" nor helping me...that's why I've turned to other sports like College Football and Basketball as well as re-evaluating my life through Christianity (I won't go into the religious side of my life).
I found VR really limits my drive time as I don't want to have any session longer than 2 hours to preserve my eyes. It was really helpful to take a sim racing course to figure out how long it really takes to be competitive, and just applied more to what I'm actually good at like my career lol.
IF people put the same amount of time into eSports Grinding that they put into an extra part time job - they wouldn't need to sim race anymore, could have a fulfilled life and race IRL as a hobby. See it constantly. Nobody seems to want to talk about it.
@DJ Moose considering how much they get emotional and overreact when you point this out - maybe no, they don't want to actually race IRL or not be sim addicts.
@@Midsouth-Drone-Photography How is it not? An Autocross entry s $50. lmfao You can easily race off of $1000-3000 a year if you play your cards right, people just aren't very smart.
As someone who had similar problems in the past with both Guild Wars and various PC and Console racing sims (Mostly the Factions expansion, and the older PS2/OG XBox/Windows XP era racing games like Gran Turismo 4, 24 Hours of Le Mans - The Official Game, the old Sierra Racing open wheel and NASCAR sims) back in my teen years and early 20's, I feel sorry for these people. I still play racing games, as well as several MMORPG's, but I don't play consistently or constantly. I pop in and out. I was absolutely depressed, I was an entitled "nice guy," I hated my life and it was down to the fact I was over medicated, yet under-treated for my mental health issues, and I was oblivious to the fact I was being emotionally abused by one of my parents.
this goes for a lot more than just iRacing. I used to do esports with a group in highschool playing tournaments for rainbow six siege, we won a couple, made some cash, and it got to a point where we all would get easily have a mood swing if something didnt go right and we would lose it, and in highschool it effects your grades too. i quit that and feel better but thats become a problem with every game now, i mean hop on any game with multiplayer, maybe fortnite, cod, anything and youll see everyone sweating to win even in normal lobbies bc they want to always be better. i started doing sim racing and want to level up my safety rating and its frustrating losing a few points but its easy to get them back in a rookie or D lobby. racing is addicting in real life, im at the track every weekend or if im not working i want to maybe hop onto the sim for a race, but some people go too far sadly, and it becomes all they have because they want to try and make a career of something that you really dont get "noticed" for, you gotta have a business approach and bring soemthing to the table if you wanna be a pro. a lot of this with many people will be for nothing sadly but it becomes an addiction on any game, including iracing where you cant really control your emotions on it
I agree with this. Ive been Iracing since 2011, and I wouldn't say I was bad as "the person you're describing" or "that sim racer" lol, but I definitely had summers as a kid like this and races where ive freaked out. I think were all kind of guilty towards that, but growing up as a adult and living life, you're more mature or at least you should be and you realize its not as important as it once was or should. Sure I want to win every race and I still get mad when someone just doesn't something bluntly stupid, but at the same time I think my overall adult mature has kicked in the last couple years, to a point and have calmed down more. The incident that weren't viral is a good example of what Iracing has turned into. The person who was just getting ragged on isn't really the best driver and does make a lot of stupid remarks and decisions, but he always gets ragged on by the same people who were also in that video. Its kinda sad hear him completely break down and those same people still go at him and not care. The other sad thing is that the Iracing community is such a people pleaser system. There were plenty of people in there that joined in on the almost bullying behavior just to stroke the ego of the so called "fast drivers". Its sad and honestly Iracing has been super sad the last couple years. everyone thinks there good and you can get away with almost anything if you're a certain ethnic group which is a whole different story. Im not tying to start anything cause I am actually a minority when it comes to ethnic groups, but man there's not real much fun unless you find a little group of people who are more clam and race with them. Its really really sad and just seems to get worse every year. I hope Iracing does some real thinking on what's going on and more videos like this pop up. I can't stand all the people who just try to roast people because they want to do something stupid and constantly push peoples buttons and want to blame them. Its a big problem.
I'm not really sure what the message is here... where's the news in anything that's been said? As others have pointed out, you can get addicted to pretty much anything. The problem's much bigger than just iRacing or sim racing or gaming in general. Broaden your scope and you can encompass all the try-hards that dream of making it big as actors, musicians or athletes of some kind. It's nothing new, which is why I'm surprised to see it even brought up. Not hating on you, Austin - I usually watch and agree with most of the stuff you put out, but this was a bit of an odd one, imo.
All videogames with a competitive nature are like this. Poison feeding on poison with no consequences for poor attitudes. In real life, if you’re playing soccer or basketball or whatever sport, if you act like a POS, you might get away with it once or twice, but eventually someone will bite back with not words but with physical action or teammates that eventually say through words/actions “you’re not fun to play with, I’m not passing to you.” You also more often than not have a decently moral coach with wisdom/experience to teach you life lessons. I’ve played a lot of video games growing up, from sims to shooters to whatever and have seen close friends/people justify ridiculous actions and give such positive excuses to their actions. Like, No, there’s is no justification to putting 90+ hours into Dark Souls the first week into having it. Then they have their community of friends that normalize it. One close friend was talking about how he was completely toxic bullying someone online and cussing them out with the conclusion of “if you’re not good enough to play ranked, then don’t play the game!” …. First off, you play competitive bc it’s fun, you can’t take that away from someone, if it means that much to you, get a team to play with. Two, you more than likely have experienced the consequences of shitty people online, and it can really make a good day into a crummy one if you allow it. I still get stung by it at times even with my experience and ability to brush it off easily. You just feel worthless as a person from it. Is that what you want to give to other people? You’re leaving your mark on this world worse with you in it than better every time you are toxic online bc of the poison you give. It’s a butterfly effect. Be better than that
Loved the video, maybe addiction to racing games is just because some people really enjoy driving like myself, I found that my adhd brain is really at a comfortable state when I am let's say driving a lap around Nürburg whit a nice car. But I also have a full-time job and make music so racing is really not near the top 5 things that are really important to me right now.
Sim racing start out as a way for people to experience what it is like to be a real race driver since it is so expensive and rare to get into it, but in recent years when esports and streaming pop up people go crazy over it thinking they might hit the jackpot when in reality they fail to realize that it is just a game after all and they just became "racing-driver wannabe" gaming addicts rather than actual drivers, I met so many so-call pros and sim racer who don't even have an actually driver license yet.
I started by late 2020 I started sim recing on iracing and by the end of 2021 I was too burned out to continue and I just stopped. I was never super addicted but I didn’t have much else at the time. I realized it wasn’t worth the money and time I was putting into it. I have now gone back to playing console games casually and have had a lot more fun.
Also keep in mind they think they are real drivers cause it's a sim. But they'll never feel that fire suit fill up with sweat and it's a oven in the car your ears are ringing and your nauseous. That V8 rumbles the whole car and the g loads don't forget that too
It's almost insane how simple the psychology behind this addictiveness to videogames is; the serotonin release rewarded while winning is what gets you hooked, and when you aren't winning (which is most of the time for the average player) you're left unsatisfied and wanting more. its almost like building up a tolerance in a physical drug type addiction. now you don't need just wins, you need to improve your rank by x factor before being satisfied, and it all spirals down into a depressive state. but what the crazier part is, there's little to no way to mitigate this other than self discipline or taught discipline from a parent as a child. but as you said, a lot of these people are adults so gaining that sort of discipline at that stage of your life is extremely harder. not to mention a lot of parents, sadly, just don't care.
Sim racing and racing in general is something that I immensely enjoy and I hope to have even a chance to be able to be a race car driver, but I wont spend days and days holed up in my room or something just to get another race and improve by a single tenth, I will still sim race and go out on track for karting to both have fun, and improve my skills, won't sacrifice absolutely everything though
Sim Racing was better 15-20 years ago when it was all a bunch of independent servers and leagues. I ran a Papyrus NASCAR Racing server and league from 2001 - 2006 and you had to do a few things to qualify for the league like have a good internet connection, a decent wheel and pedal and then run in a few open racing nights to prove you could race clean. The modest fee I charged for joining the league and donations wasn't even enough to cover my internet costs much less my time and effort but it wasn't about money. There was also a strict policy about how racers treated one another and if you were a jerk you got one warning and then a ban on the second offense. People did it for the love of the game and the sport then money and fame got involved and the culture completely changed. It became like the other multiplayer shooter games and just got toxic. Things that were completely unacceptable to the first generation of sim racers became the norm for the new generation. Then RUclips and Twitch "influencers" got involved and it got even worse as now money and fame entered the picture
Whatever a person wants to do in life is fine with me I personally couldn’t race pro as I just can’t sit in front of a screen for more than 20 minutes before I start to feel like shit but I still love to get on and race in my free time
Nail on head! When you read the iRacing side on Reddit and other places, so many people are deeply obsessed with chasing their iRating and SR as if it's the only thing that matters. I get it, it's no fun driving in the lower splits as it's full of lunatics that think a race is won on lap 1. But get to 2nd or 3rd split (pending how active it is...say 2nd split out of 4 and 3rd split out of 6+), the racing is fine. You have the odd idiot here and there, but that's just like in real life, even in F1 you have drivers pull impossible moves sometimes that inevitably end in a crash. Those that are so deeply obsessed with their IR can't seem to get any real joy out of iRacing anymore. I don't mind the chat when people are upset a dumb crash has happened in whatever split and has effectively taken them out of the race. Shit happens and it happens at all levels of sim racing and real life. I vent as well and have called people an idiot and been called an idiot myself...right or wrong. For me and thankfully others I race with, our frustration tends to end when the offending driver owns up to his mistake and/or makes an apology. It still pisses me off though when someone has taken me or others out by obviously being an idiot and refuses to apologize for obvious mistakes. It's a matter of decency...
Been on the service for about 2 years, but I’ve been sim racing for well over 5. I race probably two to maybe three times a day max. I do care about iRating, but at the end of the day I know damn well I’m not gonna go pro. Sure, I’ve earned probably 200 bucks in total from winning stuff on iRacing and I consider myself not half bad, but I do it just to escape for a little. Have my me time. Whether it’s from school or whatever, it’s a let off. For others, it’s definitely not as you said. And it needs to be addressed. I’ve seen people flip shit in top split races over minor stuff. It’s rough. We need to bring back the fun in sim racing.
It's so unfortunate, because sometimes you can be in a great and friendly lobby of people just trying have fun and competitively race, but more times than not it's a hairtrigger explosive lobby of toxic overly attached (or rather detached) individuals who just need to take a step back and remember, it's just only a game bud
Yeah I got addicted to counter strike 1.6. I actually went pro, traveled the world, had big sponsors like Intel and Nvidia and made some money. At least I was paid for my addiction lol.
I've quoted this before and I will do so again here: "We all have this certain potential for not being a "good person". And again, it's really easy, particularly in this virtue-signaling culture we live in, living lives of comfort and wealth to proclaim how good they are to the world. *We're only as good as our behavior is in the worst of circumstances we face...* Lest you fall prey to the delusion that you are uniquely good or virtuous or responsible, well, think about potential circumstances and think about how you might really act and you might be surprised about yourself and who you actually are." -Thinking-Ape
These reasons right here are why I’m doing like one, maybe 2 races a day now. When I started a year ago, iRacing was all I wanted to do. I played it anytime I wasn’t at work. I played the shit out of it. So much so that I got what I would call somewhat decent in a short time. Once I started getting into some real decent races, I noticed that I was going down this exact same road. If I got into a wreck, I would lose my shit. You can see it in some of my earlier videos. I’ve been an absolute dick to people for the littlest thing. I still struggle from time to time, but I’ve noticed my problem and am working on it. Which again, is why I’ve started doing less, competing in less NIS races, etc. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in it like you’re gonna get a NASCAR deal out of it, but the likely hood of that is probably 1/100,000. Now, it’s more about the fun for me. And I enjoy it a lot more now too.
I was addicted to Nr2003 when I was a teenager. It had the same effect of group think and drama. Now I can't get into iRacing because if you just want to race once a week, you can't compete because of people living in the game. That being said, it's more iRacings problem because they aren't getting the casual racer's money.
I could totally see how some get sucked into simracing. For me personally it's a hobby that I do on occasion, alone or with friends. It's cheaper than taking your own car to a track day and messing it up or have someone else mess up your personal vehicle. However it's still more fun to thrash your car on mountain roads 😁
Good video. I sim race as a hobby and because racing in real life is unfortunately out of my reach financially. I do kinda live out in the middle of nowhere and there's not much to do here in my small town except go to a bar or go drive up and down main street on friday night wasting gas. I just work and come home and play video games or sim race. it's my outlet to the rest of the world, and to another world.
I'm getting addicted to ATV offroad fury 2 trying to beat records on a Suzuki LTR 450 everytime I lose I rage I'm hoping I don't really get addicted because I noticed when I play racing games and sims I have a tendency to drive really aggressive to win.
this is just online competitive gaming in general. before i have a job i play a lot of online competitive games. i was addicted i become so competitive it makes me toxic, lose = mad, i easily get mad at small things, i can't focus on real life stuff and depressed. but now i feel so much better since i have a job and hobby, and stopped playing online competitive games. i'm still playing online games like Black desert online and GW2 but i only play against AI/PVE only, and i only play for 1-3hrs a day. if i want to get into sim racing, i would probably only play against AI.
Last time I ran iracing was about 1.5 years ago. By then the " Im going to report you" was already in full swing. Cant just race and let it shake out, nope always a reason someone didnt win. Last time some goof who was laps down do to a wreck he created, let the leaders get along side and off the bottom he came to wipe out as many as he could, just being an ass. Then claims he held his line and everyone else drove over him. when i said something on voice here came the " Im reporting you". my response was, " Ive recorded the race..do you want to stick with your story"? crickets chirped. After almost 1k races, a high B rating, bunches of poles and about 150 race wins (good at the plate tracks) I told myself it was no longer fun and walked away.
Yea, I don't report people unless they DESERVE to be reported. IRL drivers can wreck too, a lot can happen. I'm only going to be mad if you are blatantly breaking the rules.
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That's not just an iracing problem, it's video games as a whole. Now that the core element of video games is online multiplayer based, it's acceptable just to sit in your room all day doing nothing but play the game because you're clinging onto that hope of "gee maybe I'll make it pro on [insert game here]. It's a problem because when all the focus is on esports, that's all anyone who plays the game competitively will focus on. It's on the industry to change their game model and it's on the players to not fall into the trap
A change that the industry ignores because of money, and a trap people willingly choose to jump in because they're addled with desire and want. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
@@DR3ADER1 they certainly don't ignore it. they don't want that change and they'll do anything they can for that change to never happen. that's not ignoring the change, it's actively fighting against it. and of course like fish said above: that's not just an iracing problem or simracing problem, it's the game industry as a whole, that's why this video is about a problem we can find in an MMORPG and a racing game....
There can only be one in victory lane 🏁
@@eddybouh2079 From what I gather, they're ignoring it. What you're seeing from EA and Activision is the exception. Meanwhile, in Europe and Asia, most big publishers are just ignoring calls for change because it's too profitable.
Oh it will get wayyyy worse before it gets better. Gaming makes way to much money.
Top split has always been "my e-dick is bigger than yours". Lower splits are usually all about who can give the "best" advice and epic pre-race safety speeches.
the closer they are out of their rank the better the speech
I was in an f1 2021 lobby once were someone did an epic speech about not crashing anyone out or spinning out.
That same guy crashed at monza with like 10 other guys.
And thats how I got my first victory in f1 2021 online.
I have crashed in 100% of races where I didn’t qualify first I also crashed in 75% of those but I won the other 25%
Lmao I always say "Good luck everyone have fun, lets keep it safe into t1" every pre race on VC on Iracing 😂
Normally I’d say “racing is addicting, but in a fun and good way”. Buuuuut, I wouldn’t say that for this situation
just like alot of other games, there are people who take it WAY too seriously like its a religion
Agreed nothing wrong with spending a few hours when you have some free time racing friends or just chilling playing single player stuff but seriously these things need to stop period.
@@rehehehehehehehehehe Ha imagine a religon which was made up of simracers that would be the weridest thing ever
Yes, these guys definitely need a reality check, and for guys that are trying to get into the E Coca-Cola Cup Series, Indy Lights, etc, this is not acceptable behavior by far, and a rule of thumb should be, the higher you rank, the more people will notice you, so you want to make a good first impression, even if you do it for a couple hours a day
@@ddvshow6473 Yeah
I got addicted and quit. It was really affecting my marriage and my physique. Since then, I’ve been taking to loads of time I spent on video games and applying it to working out and Wow - what a difference.
Awesome to hear this. You've always left great and insightful comments on my videos (which you'll notice I also pretty much stopped making for similar reasons to what you describe here). Don't go back, do things that are fulfilling.
@@TedHough68 Thanks man. Hey, it had some fun aspects but being a great husband and father is so much more fun. Also, I like it when random women are inappropriately polite to me, though my wife isn't a big fan lol. Seriously, I missed that ;)
At first I misinterpreted your comment, and read it as "applying it to working out and world of warcraft" and I felt very confused for like three minutes lol
Same here. Sold my wheel last year because iracing was all I wanted to do.
Why the fuck do ya'll race with the radio on? It's really not that hard people, just stay silent and drive the damn car.
It’s because people like drama. It’s why ignition 21 doesn’t have voice chat.
@Brandon Kauffman with how some people on iracing drive they might as well be ai
I only keep it on for very very brief conversations, the only people I've seen talk a lot are those who are fault blaming others and actual kids who I politely ask to speak less.
@@ZIGAG1999
That's an insult to the iRacing AI though, they drive better than a lot of these idiots
Because I'm not going to listen to myself talk crazy for 2hrs on A Open and when doing the big shot events for fun like Daytona 500 etc. I got the next 3hrs of my time planned and invested in it. Got to fill the boring laps with something besides engine noise. When you get a genuine split that actually communicates it need not be a liability it's when people at the bottom and people at the top think they're the Next Dale or Jimmie or Richard Petty etc that grinds peoples gears and sucks the fun out of it. The leagues are no better.
This is the reason that there is a move in the community, attempting to shove a firm wedge between sim racing as a hobby and eSports. Both might seem similar at a glance, but the fundamental motivations and reward structure are completely different when you break them apart. I've made a concerted effort to focus on 'fun' content and move further from the gatekeeping that typifies sim racing communities. You find that it naturally attracts an audience with a better mental health balance, and people that are a lot more interested in having fun than proving obtuse points. Sim racing is often enough used as a crutch for mental illness or social maladjustment, and unfortunately, like most coping mechanisms, it can subsume and become just as bad as the problem it's replacing.
Things like this are why I'm happy to just play a few hours on weekends now. Get my fill, treat it like an irl race weekend (aka no 50+hrs on setup tuning) and enjoy it if I get a podium or win, or learn if I don't.
It’s all about finding the balance. I’m largely the same, hop in on a Saturday night, race with any content I own, and then be done till the next week. Probably the best way to be
This is how I play as well.
You don't need to get podiums to enjoy it lol
i dont always agree with what you post but i swear this is so spot on, people lose sight of what is really important. i would like to add that competing or playing sports growing up helps you deal with the stresses of competition and its really easy to tell when someone can’t be a good loser or a good winner
this could also be a symptom of the “it’s not a video game, it’s a simulator” mindset where people assign greater value to these sims because of a belief that they should be taking a virtual race as seriously as a real race. unless you’re in esports or a genuine driver academy and gearing up for real racing, you’ll have to admit to yourself that it’s just a video game and it isn’t worth getting upset about it.
Nop, this happens in any genre in any game. You get addicts in FPS games, MOBA's, MMORPG's, Fighting Games, etc
It's not game until people overdrive their car and wreck because they don't have to pay for it. Can't ever make the consequences of real racing translate to a sim.
If they wanted to race, why not to race for real on the streets or the local tracks if there any nearby their places?
I still occasionally get pissed at a game. It doesn't matter what game it is. If it's a game with a bit of challenge to it, there's a good chance you'll see me get pissed. I know it's just a game, but I play to be given a scenario and be able to figure a way to come out on top. Helps with my problem solving skills and whatnot.
Took me a few years to realise that, it's hard when you get into that mentality of 'this is real ' because you have nothing else going on, but opening doors and things just gives you that space to realise it is just a game
I’ve got over 1056 starts. 28 wins. and 60 or is top 5s. If I win. I win. If I loose I loose. I usually race 1 or 2 race a day or will do a 30-50 minute practice session. I’ll race for fun. I’ve stop stressing about iRating and Pro class.
I spent some of my other times doing Hobbies go karting and acting. I’m also attempting to do a mechanics course. While I love racing I can let it go.
That's interesting, I have almost the exact same stats, and race in a similar fashion as you; 1 or 2 a day. I have been on and off since the beta. 1014 Starts / 21 wins / 204 top 5s / 76 poles.
Edit scratch that here’s my real numbers
Starts: 1140
Wins:28
Top 5s: 238
Poles:6
play way too many different sims to even think of going pro in one. im here to hone my skills and have fun on the weeekend
@@FredAndersonStillwater Hey Fred
@MonkeTonk I disagree with that, if someone wants to play longer than others that's fine.
As I messaged you, I recently bought an iBuyPower Slate MR and Logitech G920 in Mid-April. I chose to work a 6-Hour Night Shift in attempt to rebuild my bank account and I don’t have the time to do races because work and routines make to where I don’t dedicate much time to AC, RF2, or iRacing. So I literally turn laps in a DPi or Indycar for a minute, then watch some Roller Coaster videos.
I see this so so much today. I cannot do this for as long every day as a lot of people do. I have been working full time for 4 years now and I don't have the time, nor the mental capacity to test and race as much as a lot of people do. It would completely fry my brain, take away any type of social life and I need to relax and have breaks here and there so I can keep doing this and enjoy it. Because once it becomes more than a hobby, the fun can be easily taken away.
As a kid obsessed with racing, all I wanted was to feel the same adrenaline I'd feel go-karting with my friends. If I had known what it would turn into, I never would have purchased a wheel. It isn't the real thing and never will be, but is advertised as real. While its 'real' racing, at the end of the day you're spending hours in your room in front of a screen. A lucky few will actually get to translate what they learn on a virtual track to real life.
I find it ironic that simracing is all about the pursuit of realism... except for amount of tracktime and consequences of crashing. You can drive - and crash - for as long as you like. Yeah, sounds like that thing real racing drivers are doing, sure.
This will remain an issue until some smart and brave company (Rennsport?) decides to enforce some realism-based limitations and consequences on their players. Being a good racing driver is not about grinding days behind the wheel, because that's not possible in real life. It's about being able to get up to the pace reliably _and_ safely with the limited amount of time and resources you get.
"Oops, you crashed your car really hard! You can't play for the next week!"
Nobody is going to play a sim with realistic consequences. It's a video game.
@@minigungaming5915 I agree however that’s not what’s being proposed. Iracing could make one easy change to make there be more consequences. If they made it so practice and qualifying before a race would affect your cars damage in the race or at least make you start from the pit lane if you crash would be a huge improvement.
@@gretsky3463 I don't see how that would be an improvement.
@@minigungaming5915 Another perfect example of hypocrisy in simracing community. If it's a hardcore feature someone wants, they say it's a simulation and it should have it, but if it's a hardcore feature someone doesn't want, they say it's just a video game.
@@steelin666 There needs to be *nuance* to these things. A simulation should have realistic physics and modeling. What it should *not* have is excessively punishing features like your braindead idea. One reason people play the sims is the unlimited seat time and low risk it allows.
Very factual video. This is the busiest time of my life at my current age. I race about 3 to 4 hours a week. It is something I just love. I actually find it is more enjoyable keeping it at just a few hours a week. Makes it more special in a way.
I run the C class open series once a week on Mondays, I get one shot and one shot only just like the real nascar guys and I love it!
Addiction is addiction regardless of what the actual activity is. I have been gaming a long time, 1980’s, and I can’t stand multiplayer on any game. It is like being active on Reddit, it seems like it would be cool and fun but oh no! It is just toxic and horrible!
Turns out grinding like this sucks out all the fun of gaming.
I am a former SCCA racer, quit because of cost and growing family. I purchased a Porsche many years later and got into DE track days with my friends as a fix for my speed need. I am now a PCA national instructor. Still costly and time consuming. I got into Sim racing during covid when the PCA promoted their League. Initially I was on the sim a lot, what else was there to do during covid, but now I just mostly do PCA events because the general Iracing races are filled with idiots. I have wrecked car, my fault, and not my fault. Nothing worse than taking your mistake back home on the trailer and fixing it. It’s time, money, guilt that you could be doing other things with time and money.
With the sim, you push a button and your back in action, almost no penalty. It breeds stupidly, I see, and sometimes do things on track I would never do in real life. And that’s the problem, most of people on the sim have never crashed and had to fix, or pay to fix their car. Or walk around for two months with back and neck pain from the shunt.
I've never really gotten too far into online racing in general. I'm an old school time trial/ai opponent player. Online racing just seems like way too much of a commitment and I'd rather live a life tbh lol
Same
I walked away from iracing. 1.5 years on it. 726 starts, 11 wins, and i feel i had enough it the whole need to grind in order to be anywhere near competitive. So instead of am organizing my own Racing Engineers league with both shorter, and longer race sessions for people from EU and Australia. Nobody is grinding insane hours all day, nobody is serious or on edge, everyone is chill and driving fair, clean races, and just having fun.
Its interesting to think back to when I was a youth and joined the platform. This video made me remember all those addicted people who would race hours a day and literally not do anything else. I saw marriages fail from this addiction. I am glad I gave up on my dreams of being a iracing star because I know for a fact I can and most likely will turn in to one of those people.
This sport is a fun hobby that I do now on average 1 or 2 hours a month. It's just a bunch of pixels on a screen.
I played golf at a high level as an amateur and we had much of the same. Guys without jobs being supported by their wives to win a trophy and a gift certificate from the pro shop. I realized very early on I couldn't retire on trophies so I became a dentist which payed much better
Based
the crazy thing is. i saw this happen live on someone's twitch stream. it honestly felt worse on that stream because the person streaming was in a discord call with like 5 people. half were talking about the voice chat in the race and the others were talking about something else completely that had nothing to do with iracing.
What happened?
I learned to just have a mute button on my wheel because if you make any mistake you get crucified.
I saw this across lots of different games from WoW, CS, League and maybe streaming in general. It's that "make it out of the hood" mentality. In a weird way being a musician, sports or esports star is way more viable and promising than being an engineer. I met rural Americans, Europeans, Pacific Islanders with a similar mentality but with obviously massively different backgrounds and the same approach was there.
Education is expensive, some of these guys are 25 with no license, their job market and opportunities are trash, they have no transportation to get to a job or college, they're in the middle of the countryside with barely enough money to pay rent but not enough to move.
These avenues you can build your skills up without any of that though. It's a line of hope in a world that has given them 7/2 non-pairs. It's really no wonder they're so moody, this is their livelihood at stake here. Games will get the finger but I think that is kind of shallow thinking and misses the forest for the trees
You're talking about a very small minority there. Most addicts don't really live in rural places, even though some do. The amount of hours they spent working and honing their skills would fare better in terms of their career paths if they chose to use all that dedication towards any other. 99% of addicts will go nowhere, because that's how hard it is to be a professional at any video game or area for that matter.
It takes time and dedication. To be an engineer it also takes time and dedication, but to a different extent. Education trully is expensive but so is gaming. People have no idea how much you can easily spend on a desktop computer, monitor(s), peripherals not to talk about a top level sim rig. You can buy education and/or even a car depending on how crazy you are with that kind of money. I think many just have that mentality of "i'm going to be a pro gamer" - no steve, you're 38, you're not that good, and you should think about something else - just as an example of course
Well said. Game "addiction" is a symptom of a much larger socio-economic problem...
This is something that needs to be said much more, this is why I don't do official races unless I actually want to do them, I have my fun in leagues and such, don't get me wrong I absolutely love to be the best I can be, but I do that in moderation because I use the sim as a way to learn real tracks to improve my real life driving ability.
The big problem here is people aren't treating this like a simulation, they are treating it like it's Fortnite and that's why very few professional NASCAR drivers and racing drivers in general stayed in the iracing scene after 2020.
This is the reason why I only use the test sessions now in iRacing. I used to always race the thurs and sun NiS fixed splits (3000 iR) and try to race a full season (give or take 2-4 weeks because of work). I noticed right before covid a shift of just overly serious people taking the fun out of it. It got to the point where I couldn't be in a race without someone having a meltdown over some of the most meaningless stuff.
My last straw was when I was doing a NiS race at Atlanta and I was managing my tires throughout the race really well and choosing to stay out a couple of times in the early to middle part of the race. This one guy, who was convinced I was gonna wreak the field was constantly moaning in VC and getting really angry with me. After 3 restarts where I was holding my position and was pulling away from the cars behind we get 2 quick yellows with about 15 to go. I stay out on the 2nd yellow with 6 lap old tires. The same guy, now fuming because I took the lead because he chose to pit, goes on a 2 lap long rant as we pace about how people like me are the problem with iRacing and that he'll never get to the Pro series because I'm too selfish and I don't care about others around me and that I should be taken off the service. Then because I was being a smartass and had a soundboard, I pushed the "It's only game" button which set him over and he decided to pit me into the inside wall.
I'm all for esports and competition, but the problem with iRacing for me is that I feel that a large majority of people are convinced that they're the next William Byron or Ty Majeski and lose themselves in the grind. iRacing for me is a relatively cheap alternative to real life racing and an opportunity to race with other hobbyist/enthusiast.
That guy got butt hurt because you were beating him with strategy. lol What a maroon! as Bugs Bunny would say. lol
Man, I remember when I grinded CSGO up to global elite, it was a toxic group of people that did nothing but played the game all day and watch videos on multiple smoke tricks they can do. And then when we played against a streamer, they REALLY cranked up the toxicity. The toxicity eventually drove me away from the game as I just couldn't enjoy it. So I can definitely relate here.
Should I make a video from my perspective? Just wondering…
I’m gonna do one last official race though and stream it. Maybe I’ll talk about stuff during that. Gonna “retire” (sounds so stupid too say for a computer game) indefinitely. I’ve served my purpose on iRacing. Not renewing my membership in December. Removing iRacing from my taskbar and PC so I’m not tempted again.
Good to see this video has blown up, keep up the good work Austin.
The biggest problem I see is "sim racers" in reality game racers think they're actual race car drivers. I don't care what game it is you're not a real race car driver, especially when the game isn't that realistic. Mind you, I'm someone that in the last 9 going on 10 years have over 10,000+ races on iRacing alone. (Primarily league with hosted mixed in. Only about 1100 of them races are official races, I've never cared for official.) Only time I usually get upset with wrecks if it was pretty blatant.
Although I'm primarily a dirt oval racer (race it in real life also), I'm more of a universal driver. I race about anything, pavement oval, dirt oval, pavement road and dirt road. All different types of cars too, Nascar, Indy, GT, F1, lower hp aero cars etc... Am I super fast in everything? Not even close, only thing really that i'm decently fast in is the sprint cars, but I can usually hold my own in about everything. This isn't to brag, just using it to show that i'm not one that just spends hours in practice and 8000 races in 1 car. In that 9-10 years, I've rarely went into to practices for more than 30 minutes and it's rare for me to go into practices. Only time I practice, is usually if I get in a league or hosted race that has a decently long practice. I don't use them as practices for being better, it's just to pass the time, waiting for the races to start.
I've been game racing since I was 4 and start more serious game racing around probably '05-'06 so since I was about 8-10. Then I got iRacing in the later part of 2012. Although I started racing open wheel dirt cars (mini sprints, midgets and sprint cars.) in 2011. So yes I game race a lot, but in that time I was also working at least part time, but a lot of time was at least 35+hrs a week, working on real race cars (only my dad and I as crew) and doing graphic design as a small time graphic design business. (One more thing, I bought my own race car at 13-14 and fund it my self, before someone claims my parents bought it for me.) Later years I started doing more semi professional E-Sports racing, including helping run a E-Sports team. My game racing does slow down a lot in the spring/summer though, due to real racing. In the last year or two it slowed down a lot. It's rare for me to get on more than 3 days a week.
When I say game I'm primarily talking about iRacing, to many people call it realistic and it's like the real thing when they've never got close to driving a real race car in their life. To me as someone that races in real life iRacing will never be considered a Simulator, it's a Simcade. You can never be considered a Simulator if you have cars that were decently realistic, then make them easier to drive and more unrealistic, due to people complaining about them "being to hard to drive." I'm talking about this on primarily the dirt sprint cars and midgets. They used to be decently realistic for a game, not as realistic as some mods on another game, but decently realistic. Some of these addicts tended to complain that they weren't right and were to hard to drive so iRacing ruined them. Made them not even close to the real cars. Which is why it can never be considered a Sim. Only thing comparable to a sprint car in real life and iracing is the looks, nothing else is even close any more and keeps getting worse.
As a human the way I feel about addiction is as long as they're not harming anyone let them do whatever their little hearts want but as a fellow sim racer and person who has dealt with addiction throughout my life when you're addiction to whatever game/sim is causing you distress take a break for a few days trust me it'll bring back some of the enjoyment you once felt when playing
I can't speak for those pros though all I will say is don't make your hobby your job or else you will grow to hate the very same thing that once brought you so much happiness
Weird take. I know plenty of people that are active in simracing, but neither care about motorsport or cars in general. Same could be said about the "milestones" you hit, but others don't. It's apples and oranges, just like you said: "the race means more to them, than to you". This is not just iRacing and WoW, this is gaming in general. Or anything with the slightest bit of competition. Even single player games get competitive with speedrunners working years on perfection.
To hone your craft and master your sport is admirable. But to spend hundreds of thousands of hours on a video game is sad. Sim Racing is in a weird spot.
Very good point.
it would not be so sad if sim racers were being presented with proper esports opportunities that grew to real life racing seats, but until then it is simply a hobby far too many people take far too seriously.
I kinda want a refund ngl
Hundreds of thousands? Come on bud calm down a bit lol
@@DavidGarcia-oi5nt HUNDREDS of thousands is definitely hypoerbole but there are pros in like csgo dota 2 and league that have well over 20-25k hours in those games. wouldnt surprise me in the least to see higher numbers on iracing.
I run into these guys constantly. I work 65hrs a week. Wife, kids, housework ect. I run 3-4 races a week at most.
How are you running 3-4 races with that many responsibilities? Short races I’d guess?
The older I get the harder it seems to find the drive to play multiple races in nr2003 in one day.
Finally found an exe and the better cautions mod which has been my replacement for the annual title, but I get tired easily.
I cannot imagine the shit it takes for these people to get this addicted to the game.
Lots of free time and no responsibilities
If you sink +500$ to rent a game, you are not going: meh maybe i should run ACC or AMS2. You are locked into the system, they got you. And also, if it is the most expensive, it has to be the best, right? Right?
*laugh histerically in pirated rFactor*
iRenting sisters...
What? I have fun with ACC and iRacing, it's not impossible.
@@josephpenn1115 I guess you can, but would you ditch iRacing in favour of some other title (for it's flaws, the price and being outdated in many aspects)?
@@Bonkikavo I wouldn't ditch either of them, both iRacing and ACC have things the other does not have. Same reason I have both X-Plane and Microsoft Flight Simulator.
You see this in leagues too. I've raced in leagues where could win a few hundred bucks for a 15 week season and people would lose their minds. I enjoyed hopping on on weekends for an hour or two to test setups or whatnot, but like you mentioned, people do it for hours. If something goes wrong in the race, they revert to their 5 year old selves.
Sold my CSL DD and picked up a controller to play F1 games. It's a lot more fun to actually play the game instead of turn laps on the same circuit on a wheel for hours for miniscule advantage . This is coming from someone who was top 210 in F1 2021 time trials, simracing isn't worth the money or the time.
I just play offline. It’s so much better.
Jesus christ I feel exactly as described, but with overwatch... Eye opening, will think about it.
There have been plenty of people like this about real racing, i.e. Dale Earnhardt. That's unhealthy and silly, but this is just pathetic... nearly all of them aren't getting anything for this.
4:44 brutal truth and so many people need to hear it. Not just in this community, but many many others.
I grew up playing arcade racers like Forza/Gran Turismo. Eventually moved to NR2003, Project Cars, Assetto Corsa. When I heard about iRacing I was thrilled, but just didn't feel like I wanted to make the investment. But after consuming a lot of iRacing content online, I decided I didn't want to play the game anymore simply because of the community. It feels like it is quite literally a simulator to be used by serious race car drivers only, not a game that normal people can have fun playing.
my old best mate lost his girlfriend due to WoW. Just came home from work and went straight on this PC. Fuckt up, and I get how it can be the absolute same on Sim racing.
Living in the middle of nowhere is an excuse to be unemployed? Dammit, why didn't anybody tell me?
I just searched so I could listen to the original post. I am 48, have no time for drama like this. Had I been in this race, which I probably wouldn't have been in the first place, I would have just left the server when I started hearing a bunch of "Robot Chicken nerds" chirping at each other!
I tried iRacing for a 3 month trial a few months back, my first online racing since I started playing 1994's Papyrus Indycar Racing. I did not have any issues, but I also respected other drivers by giving room to them when I knew I was slow and learning.
My experience was good, but short, because as fun as it is racing real people, it also felt like a chore to accomplish moving up the ladder. In those 3 months, I am probably over-estimating that i spend a total of about 15 hours in only 4 or 5 racing sessions. I don't have the time to grind away to hone my skills, let alone make it to the next level. I always don't have the time for online warriors that think that just because they stand every waking hour of the day sitting at a racing rig that they are better than everybody else.
I see a lot of this in not just I racing but ro racing. I can admit it has been rubbing off on me sometimes raging a bit not to anyone when someone wrecks me or sometimes when my computer lags. This video kinda helps me. I remember just a month ago when I really started getting into ro racing I kinda was I was just happy to be here and now sometimes I get very moody when I lose. I’m working to turn around but it’s kinda hard. This was kinda a wake up call so thanms
Class C fixed is the way to go, most people are cool and understand that we arn't top tear drivers and don't have the time to grind to ever be one.
The racing game community has been really weird lately. I've met some great guys on iRacing who know we're having fun doing some moves we can't pull IRL because we'd be left with the crash bill, and some who scold me for calling it a game and not a simulator sometimes. And then I've met people who believe Forza and F1 22 magically become simulators because they play with the most expensive Fanatec gear, especially the Instagram and TikTok heroes
Yeah, I was in that tryhard super serious sim racer crowd for a while. When I realized I was pissed off all the time while playing it I backed off, got back into other games I was into, found that zen place with it.
I still play it, but I do 2-3 races a week? With maybe an hour of practice since said races usually involve the same car? Treat this game like I would if I actually had the money/time/talent to go IRL racing.
I still land in the top splits on either side of the road/oval coin, and yes they are filled with egotistical asshats who think they’re the next influencer, esports phenom, or real world racing superstar. But god bless the mute button.
I stopped iRacing in 2017. It had gotten to the point that the community was so toxic, and the hours so long, that i just couldn't do it anymore. I had my A-Class license and had an irating of like 4K IIRC, but there were guys who'd race 30, 40, 50, 60+ hours a week. When i got engaged, that was the end. I have a life. I have a career. I have friends. I have normal hobbies. It dawned on me these people turning these laps/hours must not. There's just no way to make that work. The hours in the day just aren't there. I've not raced since and have no plans to ever return to Iracing for the exact reasons specified in this video
I spent 7 years of my life on iRacing and I can agree it became an addiction for awhile that was hard to kick...it's like to trying to quit smoking but you still get the urge for more nicotine
STATS:
OVAL (as of 2024)
License: Class A
iRating: 4818
SR: 3.36
Starts: 1899
Wins: 329 (17%)
Top 5's: 1154 (60%)
Poles: 420
Laps Led: 17422 (22%)
ROAD (as of 2024)
License: Class A
iRating: 5148
SR: 2.40
Starts: 806
Wins: 258 (32%)
Top 5's: 575 (71%)
Poles: 312
Laps Led: 1600 (9%)
I only stayed as long as I did simply because I wasn't financially capable of going to the race-track to get behind the wheel of a real car so racing on iRacing or some other racing game was the closest I could get. Also, I was able to get comfortable grinding away in a number of racing series in D-Class and C-Class (examples: solstice racing in the Production Car Challenge, Radical Racing Challenge, SK Modifieds, Whelen Modified Tour, etc.)
Nowadays my reasons for not being on iRacing is the poor quality I've seen...the tires and physics not being up to par and toxicity in the SIM racing community. After awhile I realized my constant urge to want to get on SIM racing wasn't "healthy" nor helping me...that's why I've turned to other sports like College Football and Basketball as well as re-evaluating my life through Christianity (I won't go into the religious side of my life).
I found VR really limits my drive time as I don't want to have any session longer than 2 hours to preserve my eyes. It was really helpful to take a sim racing course to figure out how long it really takes to be competitive, and just applied more to what I'm actually good at like my career lol.
IF people put the same amount of time into eSports Grinding that they put into an extra part time job - they wouldn't need to sim race anymore, could have a fulfilled life and race IRL as a hobby. See it constantly. Nobody seems to want to talk about it.
💯
@DJ Moose considering how much they get emotional and overreact when you point this out - maybe no, they don't want to actually race IRL or not be sim addicts.
A part time job isnt helping a irl race hobby to be fair but I do agree with what your saying.
@@Midsouth-Drone-Photography How is it not? An Autocross entry s $50. lmfao
You can easily race off of $1000-3000 a year if you play your cards right, people just aren't very smart.
Except not everyone wants to race IRL
As someone who had similar problems in the past with both Guild Wars and various PC and Console racing sims (Mostly the Factions expansion, and the older PS2/OG XBox/Windows XP era racing games like Gran Turismo 4, 24 Hours of Le Mans - The Official Game, the old Sierra Racing open wheel and NASCAR sims) back in my teen years and early 20's, I feel sorry for these people. I still play racing games, as well as several MMORPG's, but I don't play consistently or constantly. I pop in and out. I was absolutely depressed, I was an entitled "nice guy," I hated my life and it was down to the fact I was over medicated, yet under-treated for my mental health issues, and I was oblivious to the fact I was being emotionally abused by one of my parents.
Was waiting for this video man.
This can be summed up in one word.... immaturity
Great video Austin seriously man 👍👍👍#FACTS
this goes for a lot more than just iRacing. I used to do esports with a group in highschool playing tournaments for rainbow six siege, we won a couple, made some cash, and it got to a point where we all would get easily have a mood swing if something didnt go right and we would lose it, and in highschool it effects your grades too. i quit that and feel better but thats become a problem with every game now, i mean hop on any game with multiplayer, maybe fortnite, cod, anything and youll see everyone sweating to win even in normal lobbies bc they want to always be better. i started doing sim racing and want to level up my safety rating and its frustrating losing a few points but its easy to get them back in a rookie or D lobby. racing is addicting in real life, im at the track every weekend or if im not working i want to maybe hop onto the sim for a race, but some people go too far sadly, and it becomes all they have because they want to try and make a career of something that you really dont get "noticed" for, you gotta have a business approach and bring soemthing to the table if you wanna be a pro. a lot of this with many people will be for nothing sadly but it becomes an addiction on any game, including iracing where you cant really control your emotions on it
I agree with this. Ive been Iracing since 2011, and I wouldn't say I was bad as "the person you're describing" or "that sim racer" lol, but I definitely had summers as a kid like this and races where ive freaked out. I think were all kind of guilty towards that, but growing up as a adult and living life, you're more mature or at least you should be and you realize its not as important as it once was or should. Sure I want to win every race and I still get mad when someone just doesn't something bluntly stupid, but at the same time I think my overall adult mature has kicked in the last couple years, to a point and have calmed down more. The incident that weren't viral is a good example of what Iracing has turned into. The person who was just getting ragged on isn't really the best driver and does make a lot of stupid remarks and decisions, but he always gets ragged on by the same people who were also in that video. Its kinda sad hear him completely break down and those same people still go at him and not care. The other sad thing is that the Iracing community is such a people pleaser system. There were plenty of people in there that joined in on the almost bullying behavior just to stroke the ego of the so called "fast drivers". Its sad and honestly Iracing has been super sad the last couple years. everyone thinks there good and you can get away with almost anything if you're a certain ethnic group which is a whole different story. Im not tying to start anything cause I am actually a minority when it comes to ethnic groups, but man there's not real much fun unless you find a little group of people who are more clam and race with them. Its really really sad and just seems to get worse every year. I hope Iracing does some real thinking on what's going on and more videos like this pop up. I can't stand all the people who just try to roast people because they want to do something stupid and constantly push peoples buttons and want to blame them. Its a big problem.
I'm not really sure what the message is here... where's the news in anything that's been said? As others have pointed out, you can get addicted to pretty much anything. The problem's much bigger than just iRacing or sim racing or gaming in general. Broaden your scope and you can encompass all the try-hards that dream of making it big as actors, musicians or athletes of some kind. It's nothing new, which is why I'm surprised to see it even brought up.
Not hating on you, Austin - I usually watch and agree with most of the stuff you put out, but this was a bit of an odd one, imo.
There can only be one winner and a lot of people don’t like that
I have always raced with other drivers muted. Why people keep open coms is beyond me. But I only ever road race so maybe oval is different
Moderation you got to take everything in moderation.
To much of a good thing is a bad thing.
What exactly happened?
The video is removed.
All videogames with a competitive nature are like this. Poison feeding on poison with no consequences for poor attitudes. In real life, if you’re playing soccer or basketball or whatever sport, if you act like a POS, you might get away with it once or twice, but eventually someone will bite back with not words but with physical action or teammates that eventually say through words/actions “you’re not fun to play with, I’m not passing to you.” You also more often than not have a decently moral coach with wisdom/experience to teach you life lessons. I’ve played a lot of video games growing up, from sims to shooters to whatever and have seen close friends/people justify ridiculous actions and give such positive excuses to their actions. Like, No, there’s is no justification to putting 90+ hours into Dark Souls the first week into having it. Then they have their community of friends that normalize it. One close friend was talking about how he was completely toxic bullying someone online and cussing them out with the conclusion of “if you’re not good enough to play ranked, then don’t play the game!” …. First off, you play competitive bc it’s fun, you can’t take that away from someone, if it means that much to you, get a team to play with. Two, you more than likely have experienced the consequences of shitty people online, and it can really make a good day into a crummy one if you allow it. I still get stung by it at times even with my experience and ability to brush it off easily. You just feel worthless as a person from it. Is that what you want to give to other people? You’re leaving your mark on this world worse with you in it than better every time you are toxic online bc of the poison you give. It’s a butterfly effect. Be better than that
Loved the video, maybe addiction to racing games is just because some people really enjoy driving like myself, I found that my adhd brain is really at a comfortable state when I am let's say driving a lap around Nürburg whit a nice car. But I also have a full-time job and make music so racing is really not near the top 5 things that are really important to me right now.
if there was something to take away from this, I totally missed it.
Sim racing start out as a way for people to experience what it is like to be a real race driver since it is so expensive and rare to get into it, but in recent years when esports and streaming pop up people go crazy over it thinking they might hit the jackpot when in reality they fail to realize that it is just a game after all and they just became "racing-driver wannabe" gaming addicts rather than actual drivers, I met so many so-call pros and sim racer who don't even have an actually driver license yet.
Bro I'm both and feel personally attacked. 😆
Great video Austin. Cheers from the Inorganic :-D
I started by late 2020 I started sim recing on iracing and by the end of 2021 I was too burned out to continue and I just stopped. I was never super addicted but I didn’t have much else at the time. I realized it wasn’t worth the money and time I was putting into it. I have now gone back to playing console games casually and have had a lot more fun.
It's not even just a video game problem. People do this stuff with fantasy football, DnD, and all sorts of other things.
Also keep in mind they think they are real drivers cause it's a sim. But they'll never feel that fire suit fill up with sweat and it's a oven in the car your ears are ringing and your nauseous. That V8 rumbles the whole car and the g loads don't forget that too
It's almost insane how simple the psychology behind this addictiveness to videogames is; the serotonin release rewarded while winning is what gets you hooked, and when you aren't winning (which is most of the time for the average player) you're left unsatisfied and wanting more. its almost like building up a tolerance in a physical drug type addiction. now you don't need just wins, you need to improve your rank by x factor before being satisfied, and it all spirals down into a depressive state. but what the crazier part is, there's little to no way to mitigate this other than self discipline or taught discipline from a parent as a child. but as you said, a lot of these people are adults so gaining that sort of discipline at that stage of your life is extremely harder. not to mention a lot of parents, sadly, just don't care.
lmao, what you re talking about is exactly the same on any multiplayer game. The internet is full of no lifers
..the ending statements really opened my eyes to it all 😳😳😳
My comment on one of race beyond matters videos is 100% valid to this issue an is gods honest truth... 13yr irace member here
avoiding gt3 and A class is the best decision ive made since starting this game in 2016
Sim racing and racing in general is something that I immensely enjoy and I hope to have even a chance to be able to be a race car driver, but I wont spend days and days holed up in my room or something just to get another race and improve by a single tenth, I will still sim race and go out on track for karting to both have fun, and improve my skills, won't sacrifice absolutely everything though
Sim Racing was better 15-20 years ago when it was all a bunch of independent servers and leagues. I ran a Papyrus NASCAR Racing server and league from 2001 - 2006 and you had to do a few things to qualify for the league like have a good internet connection, a decent wheel and pedal and then run in a few open racing nights to prove you could race clean. The modest fee I charged for joining the league and donations wasn't even enough to cover my internet costs much less my time and effort but it wasn't about money. There was also a strict policy about how racers treated one another and if you were a jerk you got one warning and then a ban on the second offense. People did it for the love of the game and the sport then money and fame got involved and the culture completely changed. It became like the other multiplayer shooter games and just got toxic. Things that were completely unacceptable to the first generation of sim racers became the norm for the new generation. Then RUclips and Twitch "influencers" got involved and it got even worse as now money and fame entered the picture
Surprised they haven't released a battle pass yet
Whatever a person wants to do in life is fine with me I personally couldn’t race pro as I just can’t sit in front of a screen for more than 20 minutes before I start to feel like shit but I still love to get on and race in my free time
Nail on head!
When you read the iRacing side on Reddit and other places, so many people are deeply obsessed with chasing their iRating and SR as if it's the only thing that matters. I get it, it's no fun driving in the lower splits as it's full of lunatics that think a race is won on lap 1. But get to 2nd or 3rd split (pending how active it is...say 2nd split out of 4 and 3rd split out of 6+), the racing is fine. You have the odd idiot here and there, but that's just like in real life, even in F1 you have drivers pull impossible moves sometimes that inevitably end in a crash.
Those that are so deeply obsessed with their IR can't seem to get any real joy out of iRacing anymore.
I don't mind the chat when people are upset a dumb crash has happened in whatever split and has effectively taken them out of the race. Shit happens and it happens at all levels of sim racing and real life. I vent as well and have called people an idiot and been called an idiot myself...right or wrong. For me and thankfully others I race with, our frustration tends to end when the offending driver owns up to his mistake and/or makes an apology. It still pisses me off though when someone has taken me or others out by obviously being an idiot and refuses to apologize for obvious mistakes. It's a matter of decency...
Been on the service for about 2 years, but I’ve been sim racing for well over 5. I race probably two to maybe three times a day max. I do care about iRating, but at the end of the day I know damn well I’m not gonna go pro. Sure, I’ve earned probably 200 bucks in total from winning stuff on iRacing and I consider myself not half bad, but I do it just to escape for a little. Have my me time. Whether it’s from school or whatever, it’s a let off. For others, it’s definitely not as you said. And it needs to be addressed. I’ve seen people flip shit in top split races over minor stuff. It’s rough. We need to bring back the fun in sim racing.
It's so unfortunate, because sometimes you can be in a great and friendly lobby of people just trying have fun and competitively race, but more times than not it's a hairtrigger explosive lobby of toxic overly attached (or rather detached) individuals who just need to take a step back and remember, it's just only a game bud
Amazing perspective
Yeah I got addicted to counter strike 1.6. I actually went pro, traveled the world, had big sponsors like Intel and Nvidia and made some money. At least I was paid for my addiction lol.
well what can i say, racing is a helluva drug
I've quoted this before and I will do so again here:
"We all have this certain potential for not being a "good person". And again, it's really easy, particularly in this virtue-signaling culture we live in, living lives of comfort and wealth to proclaim how good they are to the world. *We're only as good as our behavior is in the worst of circumstances we face...* Lest you fall prey to the delusion that you are uniquely good or virtuous or responsible, well, think about potential circumstances and think about how you might really act and you might be surprised about yourself and who you actually are." -Thinking-Ape
For a second I thought we were talking about World of Warships…
thats another game I left....fking insanity.
These reasons right here are why I’m doing like one, maybe 2 races a day now. When I started a year ago, iRacing was all I wanted to do. I played it anytime I wasn’t at work. I played the shit out of it. So much so that I got what I would call somewhat decent in a short time. Once I started getting into some real decent races, I noticed that I was going down this exact same road. If I got into a wreck, I would lose my shit. You can see it in some of my earlier videos. I’ve been an absolute dick to people for the littlest thing. I still struggle from time to time, but I’ve noticed my problem and am working on it. Which again, is why I’ve started doing less, competing in less NIS races, etc. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in it like you’re gonna get a NASCAR deal out of it, but the likely hood of that is probably 1/100,000. Now, it’s more about the fun for me. And I enjoy it a lot more now too.
I was addicted to Nr2003 when I was a teenager. It had the same effect of group think and drama. Now I can't get into iRacing because if you just want to race once a week, you can't compete because of people living in the game. That being said, it's more iRacings problem because they aren't getting the casual racer's money.
I could totally see how some get sucked into simracing. For me personally it's a hobby that I do on occasion, alone or with friends. It's cheaper than taking your own car to a track day and messing it up or have someone else mess up your personal vehicle. However it's still more fun to thrash your car on mountain roads 😁
Good video. I sim race as a hobby and because racing in real life is unfortunately out of my reach financially. I do kinda live out in the middle of nowhere and there's not much to do here in my small town except go to a bar or go drive up and down main street on friday night wasting gas. I just work and come home and play video games or sim race. it's my outlet to the rest of the world, and to another world.
I'm getting addicted to ATV offroad fury 2 trying to beat records on a Suzuki LTR 450 everytime I lose I rage I'm hoping I don't really get addicted because I noticed when I play racing games and sims I have a tendency to drive really aggressive to win.
this is just online competitive gaming in general. before i have a job i play a lot of online competitive games. i was addicted i become so competitive it makes me toxic, lose = mad, i easily get mad at small things, i can't focus on real life stuff and depressed. but now i feel so much better since i have a job and hobby, and stopped playing online competitive games.
i'm still playing online games like Black desert online and GW2 but i only play against AI/PVE only, and i only play for 1-3hrs a day.
if i want to get into sim racing, i would probably only play against AI.
Last time I ran iracing was about 1.5 years ago. By then the " Im going to report you" was already in full swing. Cant just race and let it shake out, nope always a reason someone didnt win. Last time some goof who was laps down do to a wreck he created, let the leaders get along side and off the bottom he came to wipe out as many as he could, just being an ass. Then claims he held his line and everyone else drove over him. when i said something on voice here came the " Im reporting you". my response was, " Ive recorded the race..do you want to stick with your story"? crickets chirped. After almost 1k races, a high B rating, bunches of poles and about 150 race wins (good at the plate tracks) I told myself it was no longer fun and walked away.
Yea, I don't report people unless they DESERVE to be reported. IRL drivers can wreck too, a lot can happen. I'm only going to be mad if you are blatantly breaking the rules.
Moral of the story. Touch grass
Exactly lmfao
Thats just when you start wrecking them for fun
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