In Raceroom you can buy virtual currency called Virtual Race Points that you can then use to puchase content at discounted price(35% off) from in-game store: https://www.raceroomstore.com/uk/list_page?cat=24 It's much cheaper than if you buy content directly via Steam. I believe Steam takes 30% (or 50%) revenue from game's developers. I'm not sure if this way R3E/Sector 3 avoids Steam's transaction fee, because since the game is hosted on Steam it may be bound with some agreement/contract. @Marcel Offermans - Would it be possible for rF2 to avoid/bypass Steam's transaction fee using similar method? This way both S397 and customers could benefit.
Do You know that Raceroom runs only if you and their servers are online to check which content you bought and which you can use? No thanks i don't want that stuff
I know this but does virtual currency really imply need to be online to check bough content? I mean if you buy it either via Steam or other way then it gets downloaded and activated. I think it's just R3E specific method of validating content because you actually download everything upfront.
Well... if people hate VRP they are either dumb or totally dumb. VRP is the best way to sell stuff via Steam without paying its fees. Especially if the dev want to keep the base price in euro or dollar (what rF2 does). Buying RR Premium pack via Steam costs R$441 here in Brazil, using VRP (buying in dolar) this drops to R$262. The WTCR pack for example, costs the R$66 via Steam (almost same as rF2 GT3/Endurance packs) and about R$45 with VRP. Would be much much better if they sold it that way here too.
I understand how vRP are helpful, but the community really dislikes them. The haters mostly see it as "funny money", where the exchange rate has no basis in reality.
Well I have never seen this community hate, especially since you can buy stuff via Steam if you prefer. Now for exchange rate... that's some easy math to do and compare price of content in real money and the virtual one.
Buying stuff inside rF2 in my opinion will work better than the actual "workshop" but I understand it isn't doable due to technical reasons... On the other side I still can't understand why S397 doesn't sell content as DLC like all the titles out there (that workshop thing is a pain on the ass specially for newcomers) since who buys one car still can't race against the other cars of the pack in multy...what will happen if S397 can't find a way to let you race against cars you don't hown? (Riots and wars on forum and bad reviews I suppose) Sell content as DLC and when ready give the option to buy single cars...(having a plan helps sometimes)
From discussions on discord some time ago Marcel explained that the problem with offering content as DLC is that steam has allocated only a certain number of DLC slots (10 from memory) for S397, so they have to be very judicious about what content is to be offered as DLC.
So that's confirmed that this way developers can avoid all steam fees? That's what I thought was the whole purpose but wasn't sure, because in this case I'd expect that it should be more common solution(option to pay 30% less is worth it ) .
Good discussion At the moment Raceroom is my favorite sim - but I admit that I allways has hated this vRp "micro transaction" thingy. Mainly because the real cost for a single car/track is so difficult to figure out (pour moi ) Comming from iRacing it was very easy to figure their prices out :-( In Raceroom I have to first buy a batch of these irritating monopoly money - and then afterwards in the Raceroom Store select what I want to buy - without really knowing the cost of these cars/tracks. Hehe but I can see above that this monopoly thing maybe sidesteps Steams greedy businessss - so maybe I should be a bit more positive against this pain in the ass payment method
If S397 implements a different payment system, they will have to manage it. Price in RF2bucks will have to allow for that. So price in RF2bucks will be the current steam price and steam price will increase. Everybody wins!
I don't think such system is so complicated to implement, considering there are many such solutions. It could be i.e. 20% cheaper for users and 10% for S397.. But I agree perhaps it might be not worth it considering small rf2 user base.
I want to be honest...reading here (finally a civil thread about this theme) I changed my mind. The in-game store could work somehow (we don't know technical limits so we are just speculating) and maybe can help rF2 sales. You download demo,you like it and buy the game, you play it and you see ingame you can buy content or download mods from workshop (like Warframe) and you buy them instead of digging on Steam to find official content, etc etc...money exchange between countries will be solved and S397 can sell products with more "popular" prices once they don't need to give part of income to Steam...
We have no plans in the near future to setup our own payment systems and create a virtual currency. The main reason is that it takes time to develop, maintain and support such a system. So for us it's not just that Steam takes a cut, they also provide a service. If we build our own system, we would also have to recover the costs we make, so it's not as simple as saying: let's do our own system and prices will go down. Of course, over time, we will keep looking at alternatives to Steam, but right now they are the dominant store for PC by a very long margin.