I (still) hate this hobby
About a year ago I made a post (https://www.reddit.com/r/simracing/s/8vyBEXzn48) about how I feel about this hobby. Things have changed a bit so might as well do an update post.
At the time I calculated that I had spent 1890€ just on equipment alone while having played just 60 hours of EA WRC. I didn’t write anything about it but I remember thinking that I was set with gear for a year at least. Unfortunately, I was wrong and things have escalated from that quite drastically. Especially the cost.
This January I bought the NLR HF-8 which was on sale and I had to pay only 200€. What a bargain am I right?
In February I decided that the CSL DD is not keeping up with my skills and I definitely need to upgrade it to something more powerful. I was planning to get the CS DD+ but unfortunately it was out of stock. Of course waiting was not an option so I had to settle on the CS DD. And since I was going to order something anyways I might as well buy the McLaren GT3 v2, too. I wanted it, no, needed it because driving GT-style cars with a round wheel is basically illegal. And the CS DD requires the QR2 I had to buy two of those. In total that cost me about 1240€. But of course I can sell my CSL DD which makes this upgrade almost free, right?
At this point I’ve spent over 3000€ so I should be set for good. Or for a year at the very minimum. Nope. Not even close. Because it turned out that my beautiful WRC branded wheel did not support more than 8Nm of torque. I was devastated. And maybe even a bit angry, too. Why didn’t Fanatec include this information in the product page of the wheel?!
Well, they do. But in my defense it was quite far down in the bottom of the page in fine print. But it was there. I was just too busy spending money to properly look for it. Somehow the RS steering wheel had magically placed itself in my cart while I was meticulously reading the product page of the WRC wheel. No choice but to order it then. Another 300€ gone.
In March I decided to do what so many of you suggested after I mentioned in my last post that I can’t fit triples in the room I have the rig in: go VR. I bought the Meta Quest 3 128GB with the silicone facial interface and with the elite strap along with a link cable from Amazon. In total it was almost 740€.
VR was touted like it is the second coming (ewww) of a certain religious figure. Suffice to say that it wasn’t. At least not for me. Not that I’m some sort of religious person sitting in my basement waiting for Jesus to appear. Not at all. But it just wasn’t good enough for me. And it certainly did not help that the game I play the most (EA WRC) doesn’t have the greatest VR support (ASM2 was great though). In the end it was too much of a hassle for me compared to a monitor and I did suffer slightly from motion sickness. Having a fan (a mechanical gadget, not a person) blowing to my face did help quite a lot. So I did end up selling them.
But I wasn’t let that one mispurchase stop me. Or the fact that I had spent already over 4000€. I saw a new shiny target in the horizon. Or should I say targets.
There wasn’t anything wrong with my Fanatec shifter and handbrake but I had seen the Moza HBP handbrake and the Moza SGP shifter somewhere and I couldn’t get them out of my mind. They looked more of the likes that are used in rally cars so surely I need them to improve the immersion? And they were rather cheap so why not. There goes 230€.
I’d love to stop here and say that was it but I would be lying. I’d seen a few reviews of Simagic P1000 pedals and they looked so good. And I was so interested in getting my hands on the haptic pedal reactor. Since the pedals lack any sort of angle adjustment for the pedal arms and the GTTrack I have has the pedal plate slightly tilted towards me I decided that the pedals are not for me. But I need the HPR.
I did find a 3D model for a mounting kit which would let me mount the HPR to my Fanatec pedals. Just two problems: the model wasn’t free and I don’t have a 3D printer. Now I have the Simagic P1000 pedals with the hydraulic brake upgrade. Oh, and the HPR on my brake pedal, too. And it cost me only 915€.
A tragedy happened in November: the RS steering wheel broke. Well, the left joystick was malfunctioning in a way that the software recognised it to be pointing to the upper left “corner” almost all the time. This made navigating the menus almost impossible. Since I don’t live in Germany and that is where I’m supposed to send the wheel to be repaired I was going to be in a situation where I’d be without a round wheel for several weeks. Completely unacceptable. And once again I found myself browsing the Fanatec website. A week later I found myself unpacking the Podium Steering Wheel Monte Carlo Rally bundle. And to get to enjoy that experience all I had to pay was 800€.
So all in all I’ve spent probably close to 5500€ in total after subtracting what I’ve gotten from selling the CSL DD, my previous pedals, and the VR glasses. I sold them to friends so I didn't ask much.
Oh, and I’m not even trying to count how much I’ve spent on different games. I mean what is the point? My grave is deep enough already.
The silver lining is that at this point I don’t really have much left to upgrade anymore. But then again the little I have left is really expensive (motion rig?) but at least I’m still dealing with the same space constraints.
If nothing else I’ve played around 600 hours of various games with this setup so the €/hour price isn’t that bad.
If it wasn’t clear to someone at this point English isn’t my first language so I’ll apologize for the mistakes beforehand. But for some reason in the end. The end.
P.S. I really hope you dont see me here next year.
Edit: it’s funny how many have somehow understood this as I don’t like the hobby. Maybe due to the title? Didn’t meant to make you all so emotional. My bad I guess. 🤷🏼♂️