Any development costs time and money. We should not assume that someone should work for us for free even for a minute, which would be to have future versions of a digital asset that cost us cheaper than a beer.
The specific car is another car, completely different from the previous version, as well as the recently launched EGTs.
Moreover, no one is obliged to buy and the release of the new version does not make the last one unusable.
IRacing makes money in the subscription, the digital asset is only an object of marketing.
I pay for any additional minute dedicated to improving a product that I use with pleasure, either via price or donation. It's fair. It's sustainable.
This excuse is used all over game development nowadays and I cannot believe how often it is done so.
URD, VRC, RSS et al are not my mates that I send money to now and then to give 'em an ol' chummy boost. They are (unfortunately) very much businesses at this point. I am in no way, shape or form obligated to pay so I can feel warm and fuzzy inside. I don't care if the mesh was redone, or if the car has ostensibly new physics (I believe the M4 2.1.4 also uses CPHYS and COSMIC as well, so no idea what that argument is about either).
[EDIT - yes, it does - the straight wheel angle in CM previews are a giveaway. Perhaps this one has newer revisions for newer CSP preview versions.]
The M4 GT3 EVO looks, and sounds, and drives, identically to the original M4. If you put them side by side in a blind test, you couldn't pick out which is which. There are very minor cockpit tweaks, and 5th and 6th gear are longer. I can't even feel the minuscule aero changes. (I'm using the iRacing car as my reference).
This is, for all intents and purposes, the -exact- same car, from a customer's perspective. Which is all that matters. Even iRacing understood this very keenly, despite the car requiring a new scan - and they live at the summit of Mount Avarice. They didn't offer it for free out of benevolence - they knew there'd be backlash if they charged full price.
This argument, in various forms, has been made on and off in this very thread and elsewhere for years about the PX pack (yes, I'm bringing it up again), which I paid full price for and was abandoned in a totally unfinished state. "Oh, well, 7 dollars is nothing, at least I'm supporting URD's dreams!"
It's not about the 7 dollars, obviously I can pay that. It's the principle that matters. This is a transaction between two parties (for unlicensed third-party mods, no less). I will never, ever waive that analysis for as long as I live.
This "consoomer" sentiment, scaled upward and with pre-orders tacked on, is how we got Project Motor Racing. Shills unquestioningly paid 100 dollars on faith to support their buddy Ian Bell's pie-in-the-sky ambitions, with zero proof-of-concept and more red flags than Baku 2025 qualifying - and promptly won a shiny "Fell for it Again Award" and a turd of a product unlikely to recover. This principle, broadly, is why sim racing and gaming as a whole is in such a dismal state. "Won't you think of the devs" is no reason to shell out cash, no matter the amount, without a simple value analysis. I'm sorry.
There is near-zero value in this car to owners of the regular M4. It's probably why it released to all the fanfare of a wet fart.
I will be frank - I expected a limited-time heavy discount/"upgrade path". Didn't even get that. Which prompted a hearty chortle, and this long post.
So until it comes bundled with other inevitable full-priced "EVO" cars at a heavily discounted price, years from now (if ever), I'm a hard no. And I own more than 75% of the URD library.
mega.nz
