After a long gestation period iRacing is now officially on Steam. iRacing joins other racing titles such as Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom Racing Experience, rFactor and Colin McCrae Rally on the Steam service, introducing the title to its over 100 million active users.
And if this is the first time you’re hearing about it, it’s not you! The launch has been described as a “soft launch” by iRacing, not promoting it too hard in case there are any bugs. Hopefully there aren’t any and a bigger “here it is!” can be released soon.
Below is a message from Dave Kaemmer, iRacing’s co-founder and CEO, from about a month ago explaining the importance of Steam to the current members and how the implementation will work:
The main reason I am writing this forum post is to convey that iRacing’s being available on Steam is a good thing. Our whole model, not to mention our business, works much better with critical mass. The whole system was designed for that. The centrally-based service, head to head multi-player system, data centers around the world, the race results captured since day one, license ladder, the skill-based racing splits, the various racing divisions, the private league sections and more will all improve as our membership grows. It has also been a major goal to bring new people into sim racing and make it into a much bigger “sport”. The existing hard-core sim racing niche is not all that large, the number of people that own racing wheels but do not know about sim racing and iRacing is much bigger by a significant factor. Reaching some of those people will contribute immensely to the iRacing service and create a whole new wave of sim racers. This was always designed and intended to be a community for all, from experienced sim racers and real world racing drivers, to race gamers and beginners. The idea has been that people new to sim racing can see how it differs from most driving games, and that they become keen to progress and get better. This has proven to be true, as we have many members who came to iRacing from console racing games, and who have risen through the license ranks to become very accomplished sim racers.
I should also mention that if you are an iRacing member and joined directly through iRacing.com, this will have no impact on your membership at all, nothing will change. You should continue to come directly to iRacing to sign in like you always do. Also if you are an existing iRacing member, do not create a new iRacing account on Steam because that would be a whole new account–you would not be able to access the content that you bought directly on your existing iRacing account and your racing history would also not be tied to any new account you create. However, if you join directly through the iRacing website but you are also a Steam member, or at some point in the future you join Steam, you will be able to use the Steam community overlays to connect to their forums, videos, etc. while in iRacing. In other words, iRacing members who have signed up directly through iRacing can use Steam functionality if they are Steam members even if their iRacing account was not purchased through Steam. That is another positive.
Launching on Steam is going to open up a fresh set of eyeballs on us. We will get one opportunity with most people when they research us. I would like to ask that you welcome these new members and for those of you already on Steam, please encourage others to join iRacing! If you are so inclined, you can be powerful advocates for us by providing positive feedback and reviews on Steam about iRacing. I would even ask that you consider joining Steam–it is free–to help provide positive feedback for iRacing. By embracing this and helping to promote iRacing you will be helping us to grow–not only will the racing be more fun because of better splits, but it will allow us to continue to invest more in all the features we have planned. Every year iRacing’s development spend has grown, and we want that to continue! iRacing on Steam is a great opportunity for the sim racing community to grow.
We sincerely thank you for being members and supporting us. I can promise you that we are going to continue to do everything we can to make iRacing better and better. An enthusiastic and growing membership is very important to that goal. As always, the best way to help us continues to be to encourage your friends, fellow racing and car enthusiasts, gamer buddies, etc. to come check us out at iRacing.com, to sign up and give virtual racing a try!
R3E has been there for some years already 😉 Why do you newer dare to mention the “Raceroom Racing Experience” title?
That’s what I get for writing while watching a football game that I’m highly invested in… Bad omission on my part, fixed. And we’ve been posting about Raceroom like crazy!
Its Colin Mcrae Rally and nothing else 🙂
That’s what I get for writing while watching a football game that I’m highly invested in… Fixed.
I am in iRacing and against my will in Steam, I realize it is more exposure to possible racers… I just dislike the slow Steam loading and all the adverts for non racing games I will never try even for free. Want to be exposed to “new” racers? Try PSN and XBox One. Most of the Steam games and adverts are for non racing games. If they would take my input and stop showing me non racing games I might not dislike Steam so much. It does have a use, I have had to (verify local content) a couple of times for when I downloaded and installed a track or car and something went amiss. So yes it is useful for that. Another problem with Steam and the likes is it tends to dilute the racer core to non racer games as well. There are not enough of us as it is, which brings us full circle to Steam and trying to add races. It is an enigma.