GT World Challenge Drivers Can Win Real Championship Points from Esports Races

[GTPNewsWire]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

GT World Challenge Drivers Can Win Real Championship Points from Esports Races

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on January 22nd, 2021 in the Assetto Corsa Competizione category.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

Disgusting.

 

[Famine]

Disgusting.

I mean, that's pretty extreme - we don't know how many points they're even talking about; it might be one point for the esports tournament winner, equivalent to a single additional tenth place across the whole season - but one can easily see how this might get to a position of literally deciding a title by a racing game that half the grid won't take even slightly seriously and one team will have a James Baldwin/Nick McMillen/Lucas Ordonez.

 

[Granadier]

Disgusting.

I was waiting for Max's thoughts

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

I mean, that's pretty extreme - we don't know how many points they're even talking about; it might be one point for the esports tournament winner, equivalent to a single additional tenth place across the whole season - but one can easily see how this might get to a position of literally deciding a title by a racing game that half the grid won't take even slightly seriously and one team will have a James Baldwin/Nick McMillen/Lucas Ordonez.

1 point is one too many, GTWC is one of the most competitive series in the world, a few years ago Manthey Racing only scored 10 in the entire series as one of the best GT teams in the world with an entire line up of factory Porsche drivers. Any team who has invested massively into putting a team together and assembling a good driving line up should feel quite rightfully offended if they finish the season behind somebody who has only scored points through performing well at a PR event. Whether you like motorsport, sim-racing or both is irrelevant, they are different things and should not influence major competitions in the other.

The only positive I see is that this only damages the teams championship.

I was waiting for Max's thoughts

I think I hinted at that in the proper thread https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...ional-gt-series.172521/page-249#post-13334494

 

[Granadier]

1 point is one too many, GTWC is one of the most competitive series in the world, a few years ago Manthey Racing only scored 10 in the entire series as one of the best GT teams in the world with an entire line up of factory Porsche drivers. Any team who has invested massively into putting a team together and assembling a good driving line up should feel quite rightfully offended if they finish the season behind somebody who has only scored points through performing well at a PR event. Whether you like motorsport, sim-racing or both is irrelevant, they are different things and should not influence major competitions in the other.

The only positive I see is that this only damages the teams championship.


I think I hinted at that in the proper thread https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...ional-gt-series.172521/page-249#post-13334494

I agree with you. Have the PR event mid-season and encourage real-racing drivers to join and compete, but don't attach real-world championship points to the outcome. That's just dumb.

 

[Kermit_2142]

Completely agree, great idea on paper, bad idea in reality. The virtual Le Mans was great but do we actually want to substitute real racing for sim racing in the future?? This could set off a chain of events that could lead to the death of motorsport which is already struggling to cope with the financial/environmental challenges the modern world now has.

It should be separate and use GT3 to advertise the sim championship. Host it at the same track and fly all the sim racers out there but make it a completely separate championship.

A team/manufacturer championship is to show that the team/manufacturer has good reliably/effectiveness across more than one driver thus proving the brand. How can you have that in a sim where vehicle specifics are coded by a developer and reliability isn’t even a thing and if it was would be coded and have nothing to do with the reliability or effectiveness of the actually vehicle.

I love sim racing both to play and watch but this I don’t feel is the right path for both sports.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

I agree with you. Have the PR event mid-season and encourage real-racing drivers to join and compete, but don't attach real-world championship points to the outcome. That's just dumb.

I think NASCAR are doing something similar, for races with no practice/qualifying they're doing an iRacing race with real drivers before the actual one (I think it's on the Saturday), it gives the fans something to watch but doesn't influence the actual championship.

And yes, it feels weird to defend the points system in NASCAR.

 

[Famine]

Any team who has invested massively into putting a team together and assembling a good driving line up should feel quite rightfully offended if they finish the season behind somebody who has only scored points through performing well at a PR event.

Then that again comes down to how many points are on offer for it.

If it's just the one for all five events put together, that's the equivalent of being outscored by one pole position among two teams who couldn't even get better than 11th place once between them in ten races (five races, two teams). Or more likely by one tenth place among two teams who couldn't get better than 11th place once between them in nine races. They'd be two sucky teams, whether or not they're differentiated by a gimmick

However, if each race offers the same points as the endurance races (which I think is 25 for most rounds, and more for Nurburgring, Paul Ricard, and then the weird interstitial points at Spa?) then yes, it immediately becomes apparent that all the effort (and money) the teams put in for the 42 or so hours of racing throughout the year is negated by maybe two and a half hours of sim racing, and whichever team has the best sim racer will win no matter what. That would suck so hard, and I'd agree with your first assessment.

I suspect it will be somewhere in the middle though. Maybe 3-2-1 for the top three at each sim race, so 15 in total across the season - or about 60% of the value of one of the shortest races on the calendar, for about the same amount of driving. If one team happened to have a good sim driver who can pedal a GT3 car well (like any of the GT Academy winners), that might affect the middle order a bit, assuming none of the other teams think of that.

For now I'm holding off until I see what the score is with... well, the scores. I suspect GTWC is also holding off saying what the scores will be to gauge initial reaction.

Whether you like motorsport, sim-racing or both is irrelevant, they are different things and should not influence major competitions in the other.

I reckon Stephane Ratel likes them a bit, and he's decided that mixing them is okay. But again, we don't know to what extent.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

I suspect it will be somewhere in the middle though. Maybe 3-2-1 for the top three at each sim race, so 15 in total across the season - or about 60% of the value of one of the shortest races on the calendar, for about the same amount of driving. If one team happened to have a good sim driver who can pedal a GT3 car well (like any of the GT Academy winners), that might affect the middle order a bit, assuming none of the other teams think of that.

This is the issue I have, it's not the same amount of driving. Because one isn't actually driving, this isn't me :censored:ing on sim racing. It obviously takes a lot of skill and its competitions are put together professionally, but it's still not the same thing and they are not comparable. You can't win the Puskas award for netting a banger on Fifa.

If it's just the one for all five events put together, that's the equivalent of being outscored by one pole position among two teams who couldn't even get better than 11th place once between them in ten races (five races, two teams). Or more likely by one tenth place among two teams who couldn't get better than 11th place once between them in nine races. They'd be two sucky teams, whether or not they're differentiated by a gimmick

11th place finishers are strong line ups in GTWC, last season in the Endurance cup the following drivers didn't get a single top 10 finish/point: Norbert Siedler, Alvaro Parente, Miguel Molina, Davide Rigon, Jonathan Adam, Rob Collard, Giancarlo Fisichella, Maxime Martin, Kamui Kobayashi, Martin Tomczyk, Andrea Bertolini, Daniel Serra, Christian Klien, Nicky Catsburg, Phillipp Eng, Augusto Farfus, Edoardo Mortara...

Anybody who follows motorsport knows that those aren't random names but a selection of some of the best GT drivers in the world, I wouldn't call any of those "sucky", to score a single point is an achievement on a quality 50 car grid.

 

[Famine]

This is the issue I have, it's not the same amount of driving. Because one isn't actually driving, this isn't me :censored:ing on sim racing. It obviously takes a lot of skill and its competitions are put together professionally, but it's still not the same thing and they are not comparable.

It turns out that they are... because they are being compared, by this.

You can't win the Puskas award for netting a banger on Fifa.

That's a false equivalence, and both a very common one and very a surprising one considering where it's coming from.

There are differences of course. In sim racing you don't use your ass and your middle ear, there's a difference in physicality (no sim racer has ever needed their neck), and your field of vision is affected (although I find racing helmets harder to see through than VR, so maybe it's affected for the better!), but generally speaking the range of motions required for sim racing and real racing are similar.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone net a banger in FIFA with the same range of motions that Mo Salah uses to do the same in the real world.

11th place finishers are strong line ups in GTWC, last season in the Endurance cup the following drivers didn't get a single top 10 finish/point: Norbert Siedler, Alvaro Parente, Miguel Molina, Davide Rigon, Jonathan Adam, Rob Collard, Giancarlo Fisichella, Maxime Martin, Kamui Kobayashi, Martin Tomczyk, Andrea Bertolini, Daniel Serra, Christian Klien, Nicky Catsburg, Phillipp Eng, Augusto Farfus, Edoardo Mortara...

Anybody who follows motorsport knows that those aren't random names but a selection of some of the best GT drivers in the world, I wouldn't call any of those "sucky", to score a single point is an achievement on a quality 50 car grid.

I didn't call any of those drivers sucky either, and you quoted me not doing it.


As I said, I'm going to postpone having a strong opinion on this until I see the magnitude of the points involved.

 

[MarcoM]

I mean, that's pretty extreme - we don't know how many points they're even talking about; it might be one point for the esports tournament winner, equivalent to a single additional tenth place across the whole season - but one can easily see how this might get to a position of literally deciding a title by a racing game that half the grid won't take even slightly seriously and one team will have a James Baldwin/Nick McMillen/Lucas Ordonez.

You forget https://twitter.com/davidperel

I think it's again another step into the future. One might not like it now, but in the end I think more exposure is better. Especially when we at home, can somewhat relate to things.

 

[Famine]

You forget https://twitter.com/davidperel

I definitely don't (I have his Twitter in my editorial feed, and saw his reaction to this earlier), but if I typed out every good-at-gaming-GT3-racer in that post it would make for a very long post.

 

[PJTierney]

Well that’s one way to convince real drivers to care about sim racing I guess

 

[MarcoM]

Kimi Raikonen left the building.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

I didn't call any of those drivers sucky either, and you quoted me not doing it.

I must've misread what you wrote because it looked like you were suggesting teams who couldn't finish above 11th (as none of those drivers listed did last year) were sucky:

by one tenth place among two teams who couldn't get better than 11th place once between them in nine races. They'd be two sucky teams, whether or not they're differentiated by a gimmick

That's a false equivalence, and both a very common one and very a surprising one considering where it's coming from.

There are differences of course. In sim racing you don't use your ass and your middle ear, there's a difference in physicality (no sim racer has ever needed their neck), and your field vision is affected (although I find racing helmets harder to see through than VR, so maybe it's affected for the better!), but generally speaking the range of motions required for sim racing and real racing are similar.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone net a banger in FIFA with the same range of motions that Mo Salah uses to do the same in the real world.

The point is that they are still different things, as far as I hear no sim does a perfect job at replicating the real world so it's comparing apples to oranges, to possibly award titles based on achievements in other sports/games devalues them, remember this is for the teams championship where most of the team will have no involvement (unless there is a VR tyre changing simulator DLC on it's way)

I would've thought that the new sponsor partnership would allow them to market their esport series more and crown a deserving champion there. Forcing the computer stuff on traditional motorsports fans is going to leave a sour taste in the mouth.

You forget https://twitter.com/davidperel

I think it's again another step into the future. One might not like it now, but in the end I think more exposure is better. Especially when we at home, can somewhat relate to things.

I definitely don't (I have his Twitter in my editorial feed, and saw his reaction to this earlier), but if I typed out every good-at-gaming-GT3-racer in that post it would make for a very long post.

Looking at his feed he is in favour of this change, as a silver rated amateur who is fast on the games that is hardly surprising.

 

[Fanatec...]

Interesting to see this kind of negativity from people in a simracing forum.

Since GT Academy it should be clear that simracing and real racing is not that far away and we just brought it quite a bit closer together.

Do we want to replace motorsport with simracing? Hell no! I love to drive a loud V8 Race car on a track and the smell of gasoline. That is clearly not the point.

With those additional Simracing races the teams can reach a bigger audience and we all love to watch real race drivers how they do in the sim. Just look at the popularity of similar races during the lock down.

It increases the importnance of simracing among the drivers and the teams will probably check in future if a guy can be fast on the track AND in a simulator.

If you are only good at simracing then you will not earn enough points in those races but if you can race on a track AND in a simulator then you might end up winning the championship against a guy without simracing skills.

This is the future and people will see that as totally normal in 20 years. Someone had to start this.

Thomas

 

[Slapped]

Disgusting.

Well with 2021 already shaping up to be 2020's psychopathic little brother, sim racing might still turn out to be the majority of motorsports events this year. So if that's the case then why not points awarded.

In fact I find it slightly baffling that here you are as a very long time member of a sim racing forum, yet you find the idea of a mixed sim racing and real world racing championship disgusting. I would have thought that all involved with sim racing would be genuinely excited for a further step in the direction of validating sim racing as an actual motorsport.

But, hey ho.

 

[GTWolverine]

At least it's only team points that this counts towards, not the actual driver points.

So it's still stupid, but nowhere near as stupid as it could be...yet. The gimmick-ification of motorsports (and eventually other sports) has only just begun...

 

[Famine]

I must've misread what you wrote because it looked like you were suggesting teams who couldn't finish above 11th (as none of those drivers listed did last year) were sucky:

Drivers aren't teams.

Charouz blows hard, but Igor Fraga doesn't.

The point is that they are still different things, as far as I hear no sim does a perfect job at replicating the real world so it's comparing apples to oranges, to possibly award titles based on achievements in other sports/games devalues them, remember this is for the teams championship where most of the team will have no involvement (unless there is a VR tyre changing simulator DLC on it's way)

It's more akin to comparing apples to some slightly different apples - braeburn to pink lady.

Unlike pressing buttons to get virtual footballers to do preset actions, driving simulators... well, simulate driving. A lot of what goes into driving in a sim also goes into driving a car; several competitions now have used the former as a basis for training the latter.

I don't - and I will once again stress that the points on offer play a huge role in this - see this as being particularly different from a point for pole, or for fastest lap. Those are different disciplines than a 3/6/24hr race, and with series that use success ballast can be borderline arbitrary. You could see a team finish above another one simply on the basis of a fluke pole or fastest lap.

If they give the esports parity with the on-track stuff in points terms though, sure, that's mental.

I would've thought that the new sponsor partnership would allow them to market their esport series more

*whynotboth.gif*

 

[GingerBredMan]

I'm not necessarily against this idea. I'm just not looking forward to all of the overblown sim racing drama from last year (rage quits, substitute drivers).

There's a lot more on the line in these races, but how seriously the drivers will take it will be interesting to see

 

[HaydenFan69]

I would've thought that the new sponsor partnership would allow them to market their esport series more and crown a deserving champion there. Forcing the computer stuff on traditional motorsports fans is going to leave a sour taste in the mouth.

They have to bring the traditional race drivers into the eSports because not enough people pay attention to those non-traditional racers.

But like @GingerBredMan said, we saw a lot of unprofessional acts from those professional races we saw last year. Where racing etiquette went out the window and everyone went full mental treating it more like a game of Wreckfest than a true auto race.

 

[Kermit_2142]

Why not just make a separate ACC championship like GTS has. It would then be credible in its own right instead of a gimmick bolted in to an actual championship just to please a sponsor. Ultimately this will degrade the prestige of the real sport.

I expect most of us here have watched some or most of the GTS live events. I don’t see why it would be any different for a standalone ACC championship, Fanatec could even sponsor/run it and hit their actual customer base more directly.

We wouldn’t have the Tennis Open merged with Wii Tennis just because the Wii has decent physics etc. So why do this?

 

[PJTierney]

They have to bring the traditional race drivers into the eSports because not enough people pay attention to those non-traditional racers.

Correct.

Unless you already know who the esports pros are and follow them, many people (particularly those that don't play the game in question) don't care.

There's a reason Jimmy Broadbent was invited to every esports event under the sun last year, he's "the face" of sim racing

 

[GTWolverine]

Why not just make a separate ACC championship like GTS has. It would then be credible in its own right instead of a gimmick bolted in to an actual championship just to please a sponsor. Ultimately this will degrade the prestige of the real sport.

I expect most of us here have watched some or most of the GTS live events. I don’t see why it would be any different for a standalone ACC championship, Fanatec could even sponsor/run it and hit their actual customer base more directly.

We wouldn’t have the Tennis Open merged with Wii Tennis just because the Wii has decent physics etc. So why do this?

Agreed 100%, although unfortunately prestige doesn't necessarily correlate with views. Gimmicks can draw new faces who wouldn't otherwise care to watch. These decisions are all about money at the end of the day, so while I still think this is a stupid idea, unfortunately from a business perspective, it's probably not that dumb...

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

Drivers aren't teams.

I listed the drivers to illustrate the quality of entries missing out on the top 10 finishes, the teams to score no top 10's include Garage 59, HubAuto, HTP Motorsport, Walkenhorst, Tech 1, etc. It is easy to confuse drivers and teams, I see you have done the same with the headline on your news article 👍

It's more akin to comparing apples to some slightly different apples - braeburn to pink lady.

Unlike pressing buttons to get virtual footballers to do preset actions, driving simulators... well, simulate driving. A lot of what goes into driving in a sim also goes into driving a car; several competitions now have used the former as a basis for training the latter.

I don't - and I will once again stress that the points on offer play a huge role in this - see this as being particularly different from a point for pole, or for fastest lap. Those are different disciplines than a 3/6/24hr race, and with series that use success ballast can be borderline arbitrary. You could see a team finish above another one simply on the basis of a fluke pole or fastest lap.

I don't think we're going to agree on this but if simulators actually simulated driving we wouldn't see things like Timmy Hill winning virtual NASCAR races. The one thing we learned from lockdown last year was that they are not the same thing (this is an example from iRacing but I guess it's relevant since people say it's the most realistic game [Language Warning]). Other championships have gimmicky rules (reverse grids, ballast, playoffs ) to increase excitement but until now this wasn't one of them.

Well with 2021 already shaping up to be 2020's psychopathic little brother, sim racing might still turn out to be the majority of motorsports events this year. So if that's the case then why not points awarded.

In fact I find it slightly baffling that here you are as a very long time member of a sim racing forum, yet you find the idea of a mixed sim racing and real world racing championship disgusting. I would have thought that all involved with sim racing would be genuinely excited for a further step in the direction of validating sim racing as an actual motorsport.

But, hey ho.

I'm not interested in validating sim racing as an actual motorsport because it isn't one. There is overlap between the two, some gamers can become good drivers, we've seen that from William Byron and Norbert Michelisz, it would be ignorant to acknowledge where they've come from and simulators can be useful for traditional drivers, even in the 90s Jacques Villeneuve was using them to learn the tracks. However from a spectator point of view games will never be as entertaining as real motorsport, whether that is viewing from TV or trackside, electric motors or internal combustion. I say that as a motorsport fan, GTWC is followed by motorsport fans who will probably have the same opinion as me. The sim fans will love it though.

 

[George Jakob]

Im all for Esports getting as popular as possible but this is 🤬 real championships should be contested on the tarmac (or any other surface) only.

 

[Famine]

I listed the drivers to illustrate the quality of entries missing out on the top 10 finishes, the teams to score no top 10's include Garage 59, HubAuto, HTP Motorsport, Walkenhorst, Tech 1, etc. It is easy to confuse drivers and teams, I see you have done the same with the headline on your news article

Not at all - the individual drivers (because it's one per team, as explained in the piece) win real championship points. Those points, however many they are, contribute to the team championship.

I don't think we're going to agree on this but if simulators actually simulated driving we wouldn't see things like Timmy Hill winning virtual NASCAR races.

There's very much levels of "simulation" though.

To its most raw extent, anything that in any way mimics the driving of a vehicle is a driving simulator - even GTA, Need for Speed, or Crash Team Racing do that. Of course we don't class them as such, because that's not necessarily the point of them, and because other things we do call simulators aim to simulate more aspects of it. Whatever your opinion of Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, Project CARS, or even F1 20xx, they simulate more aspects of driving a vehicle than Need for Speed Heat does. Other titles go to greater lengths to simulate more, and in more detail - Assetto Corsa (and Competizione), iRacing, rFactor... and so on, to the custom simulators that race teams use.

It's also worth noting that it's still a simulator whatever input device you use. There may well be some hidden control dampening going on if you use a non-steering wheel device, but it's still simulating driving. You don't need this to make it a driving simulator any more than you need a full motion cockpit for a flight simulator - it just provides extra detail (and sensory input).

Now the fact is that when you remove certain aspects of what's being simulated, including what your ass and inner-ear pick up, some drivers cope better than others do, and you might see drivers who are better at the real thing falling back. You might not; George Russell handed everyone's ass to them (in equal machinery) six months before he got into Lewis Hamilton's car and mostly repeated that - until his team sucked.

That doesn't say anything in particular about the detail of the simulation, much as Timmy Hill's wins don't. F1 2019 is not well rated by F1 drivers for its authenticity, and I'm not in a position to contradict that, but we saw pretty much what we'd expect in the real world with Russell and Leclerc at the sharp end. Is iRacing's NASCAR simulation less detailed than F1 2019's F1 simulation? I can't say for sure.

 

[Granadier]

It increases the importnance of simracing among the drivers and the teams will probably check in future if a guy can be fast on the track AND in a simulator

If you are only good at simracing then you will not earn enough points in those races but if you can race on a track AND in a simulator then you might end up winning the championship against a guy without simracing skills.

Thomas, respectfully this is what I think the majority of people who find issue with this announcement are concerned about. The GT3/GT2 series should be determined based upon a team's real-world racing ability, and not swayed in any way by how fast they can drive around the track in ACC. How would fans react if F1 announced a similar move?

I strongly feel that this addition of a sim racing round will backfire spectacularly once a season comes around like 2019 where the top drivers are separated by a single point like FFF and SMP were edit: read the final standings wrong. If the championship comes down to being decided based on which team did better in the sim racing event there will be immeasurable outrage. Both from the teams themselves as well as the racing community. And Fanatec will be the one's bearing the brunt of that outrage and bad press.

When I first saw the announcement that Fanatec was becoming the title sponsor I was overjoyed! After the recent announcement of BMW working with you to develop the real-world M4 GT3 wheel, and with ACC being the official partner of GT World Challenge, it just made sense to have Fanatec more involved. But the partnership should've stopped there and it should not have extended to this attempt at blending the lines between sim-racing and real-racing.

I say this as a massive sim-racing enthusiast as well as a major supporter of Fanatec themselves.

 

[HaydenFan69]

This is the future and people will see that as totally normal in 20 years. Someone had to start this.

Thomas

In what context? Do we see sim racing replacing physical motorsport? Or are you saying sim racing becomes a stronger component of Motorsport? Like, do we see half the schedule run of physical tracks, and the other run online?