Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-27728287-20160301172039/@comment-26715739-20160302090914

Re Le Mans: for some reason they decided to give higher rewards when they first released it (probably because it was their first real world event tie in).

For F1 payouts - I can see why it's less - you're only running "replica" races (think about Motor Fiesta 1 - it was a "fan event" with replicas). So it's not like you're running proper F1 events. From that perspective, of all the cars and races in the game NASCAR should be the most lucrative.

Hmmm I have some dated figures so take this with a grain of salt... but looks to me like a fast time at Daytona 12 lap at the end of the All Star event is roughly comparable in payout (per minute) to a slow time in the Classic Ferrari Showdown (ie run with a degraded car) - otherwise payout-wise (R$ or Fame/minute) it's in the vicinity of the races in Accolade Open.

Anyway, since they first introduced the Le Mans premium they've tried a couple of times to equalise the rewards (so Le Mans isn't so much more lucrative than other races). Of course from EA/FM's perspective "equalization" means "reduction of Le Mans payout" (rather than making other payouts less derisory). The reduction of the Le Mans payout unsurprisingly met with universal condemnation, a massive mark-down on ratings and massively p***ed off user base (and subsequent U-turn reinstating the Le Mans payout to its previous level).

It's part of why I think many people will be disappointed if they do ever get the "Green Hell" (and there are major technical limitations in the way of that ever happening) - the payout will be tiny compared to time spent. Not to say that the challenge itself won't be worthy - but I always get the impression that at least some of the request comes from seeing that Le Mans is a long track with a high payout so assuming that a longer track will have an even higher payout (otherwise why not press for highly technical short tracks?).

Re "free play" - I think the only way they'll ever allow free-play is if it is for minimal (or no) rewards. Also I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that there are some licensing limitations with some of the cars to say they can't be raced against certain other cars (or can only be raced against certain cars) - so we might never see this.

Given it's such a popular request though, it shouldn't be beyond their power to monetise it. And it could be an easy way to get people to spend some of their R$ stockpiles.

It's a bit off-topic, but they could make money from freeplay doing simple things like:
 * pay (gold) to unlock tracks for freeplay (could have a career progress model of unlocking, eg Brands Hatch, Laguna Seca with 100% on Amateur; Le Mans with 100% on Legend, but unlock early for gold)
 * pay (R$ per race/lap) to "hire the track for the day"
 * pay (R$) to hire the other cars for the day (if you and friends don't have them in your garage, ie you have 8 friends with a Regera, you have one as well, but want to put 10 on the grid, you could hire the last one).

Given that you pay to run the event you wouldn't get an R$ payout - and given they're "private" events you could argue that you wouldn't have "fame" payouts either (of course if your manager/agent were any good the "private" event would have lots of publicity...).