The FIA Wants to Know What You Think About Racing Esports

[Famine]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

The FIA Wants to Know What You Think About Racing Esports​

The Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the governing body of world motorsport, is inviting motorsport and racing game fans to fill out a new survey on the topic of racing esports as it looks to help develop the future of motorsport...

 

[happycorey]

I thought there would be a link to the survey in the article?

Edit: found it

 

[MrSitar]

I thought there would be a link to the survey in the article?

Edit: found it

You have to click and click the link to find the survey 🤣

 

[HarVee]

My thoughts are simple - stop shoehorning it into games like GT7 and instead make your own damn FIA game. That way you have your own platform you can work with.

 

[Seikenfreak]

Thanks for the news on it. Dropped my 2 cents in there. Everything they don't want to hear: I do not care about and have zero interest in Esports. I do not actively attend or spend money on real life [FIA] race events. I have of course been, but I've done it enough and am old enough now to know that, if I care at all, I'll just get a better view of the actual race from some video coverage.

Survey kinda speaks for itself. It tells me they are only interested in games in relation to Esports, if its worth spending their money on, and most importantly.. Can they make money off it.

I commented that even though I am not interested in any of this, I am active and interested in cars (and motorcycles), I spend money on it, and I participate in track events. I would watch racing if it was the kind of racing I like.. Which is more grassroots stuff. Production based cars. SCCA Run-Offs for example (which they put on Youtube.) I'd be more than happy for the FIA to offer.. uhh.. whatever it is they can offer, but in a single player capacity as well. Provide realistic rules and race structure for the developers to build the races around. Everything from '60s to more modern stuff.

So yea.. That's the stuff they should actually be asking about, IMO. The car people are out there and if they aren't interested in Esports, then what are they doing and how do we get them into motorsport.

 

[Johnny Caisse]

My thoughts are simple - stop shoehorning it into games like GT7 and instead make your own damn FIA game. That way you have your own platform you can work with.

My thoughts exactly. I'm really not into E-sports.

 

[Famine]

That's the stuff they should actually be asking about, IMO. The car people are out there and if they aren't interested in Esports, then what are they doing and how do we get them into motorsport.

Okay, but that's not really under the FIA Esports Commission's remit. Like, just this bit of the FIA is about esports; the rest of it is about non-virtual motorsport.

 

[Seikenfreak]

Okay, but that's not really under the FIA Esports Commission's remit. Like, just this bit of the FIA is about esports; the rest of it is about non-virtual motorsport.

So a subsidiary of the FIA is handling this and not the FIA itself? I wouldn't think racing Esports were big enough to warrant a whole separate division of people handling it. Asking in a joking but serious way.. What exactly is the FIA doing for racing esports anyway? Polyphony seem to be the ones trying to BoP the cars. Is there like, one FIA "official" that lurks in the background of an event and just makes sure everyone is using the same controller or something? Penalties and what not are handled by the game, right? As the cynical person I am, all it ever seemed like to me was that either money was exchanged or the companies hoped for something mutually beneficial in some capacity. GT (or other games) get to plaster the FIA name on stuff to make it seem more official and the FIA "brand" gets exposure to a younger, broader audience.

And obviously I know the survey was only about Esports but.. I don't see them posting surveys about real racing so I gotta vent somewhere

Shut it all down!

 

[Famine]

So a subsidiary of the FIA is handling this and not the FIA itself?

Mmm, no? It's the FIA.

The FIA is comprised of commissions; there's dozens of them - safety, medical, GT, endurance, karting, homologation, off-road, land speed, single-seater, touring car, closed road, hillclimb, drag, drift, electric, and so on - who deal with all the various components of their sphere and report to the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC).

I think the FIA set up the Esports Commission in 2018, which was the "Digital Motor Sport Group" (a working group, rather than a commission, but it's now a commission) at the time. We even wrote about its first meeting in 2019...

FIA Creates a Digital Motor Sport Group to Discuss the Future of Esports

As announced at the Geneva Motor Show's first press day, the FIA's Digital Motor Sport Working Group has now held its first meeting. FIA President Jean Todt announced the group's creation shortly before it met at the Federation's Geneva offices. The group consists of some of the highest-ranking m

www.gtplanet.net

Asking in a joking but serious way.. What exactly is the FIA doing for racing esports anyway? Polyphony seem to be the ones trying to BoP the cars. Is there like, one FIA "official" that lurks in the background of an event and just makes sure everyone is using the same controller or something? Penalties and what not are handled by the game, right?

The FIA's involvement in racing esports does not start and end with the Gran Turismo World Series - and as far as I'm aware it was barely involved in that aside from the name. No, it does not get involved in balancing the cars or ensuring people use the same wheel, and in any case it haven't been part of the GTWS since 2022.

It does, however, officially sanctions series like the F1 Esports Pro (which features all of the ten F1 teams and their official factory drivers), the WRC Esports series (on a break due to the transition from KT's WRC series at the end of 2022 to EA SPORTS WRC), WorldRx Esports, and WTCR esports (which is now dead, because WTCR is also dead). It's also brought digital motorsport into the FIA Motorsport Games (GTS in 2019, ACC in 2022), and of course it's been involved in both of the Olympic esports events - Esports Week and Virtual Series - with GT both times. And yes, the GT World Series - which, lest we forget, saw the champions up on stage at the annual FIA Prize Giving to receive trophies alongside all the other real-world FIA-sanctioned series winners.

The Esports Commission itself is essentially a body to oversee that sort of thing - possibly getting more "ASN"s (that's basically countries) to get involved with official esports events much like Motorsport UK - the UK's governing motorsport body and an FIA ASN - is already doing, giving more opportunities to more people to embark on a motorsport career this way.

As the survey may suggest, they're looking at other angles too: expansion of events across multiple platforms (Need for Speed, lol), standardisation of rules and regulations, leveraging the FIA's support to stage larger events, with more public attendance (like the SRO is already doing very well in the GTWC), more prize money, and so on.

I don't see them posting surveys about real racing so I gotta vent somewhere

They post a WEC survey every year...

 

[MisterWaffles]

My thoughts are simple - stop shoehorning it into games like GT7 and instead make your own damn FIA game. That way you have your own platform you can work with.

You know, Formula One has its own company, the Formula One Group, that's responsible for all the organizing of the actual events. The FIA just officiates and sanctions the proceedings. Why would the FIA become a video game studio when them doing what they do with Formula One, officiating events, is perfectly fine for their involvement in video games imo?

The FIA would either need to make a game that's all-encompassing for every series they host, or they could just achieve the same thing by hosting competitions in the EA Sport F1 and WRC series, Gran Turismo, iRacing, etc.

 

[HarVee]

I won't pretend to understand how FIA works internally. I can only base my opinion on what I do know, and what I do know is that it's tiring having FIA involved in GT to the point they even made an entire eSports-focused game for it. As for those other series, well, I could not care less about them.

 

[R3V]

Esports probably has a bigger audience than F2 and all regional F3 championships combined.

Nobody really cares about the FIA's activities apart from F1. Heck, F1 sessions themselves barely have anyone in the grandstands on a Friday.

 

[Tornado]

Asking in a joking but serious way.. What exactly is the FIA doing for racing esports anyway?

Cashing the licencing checks.

 

[Seikenfreak]

Thanks for expanding on what they do. I had forgotten about the actual Esports races with real drivers. I thought that stuff kinda came and went during the heyday of Covid since I never hear about it. Then again, its not exactly information I'm seeking out.

Still, in my mind, if the FIA could/should be doing anything to add legitimacy to Esport races, I'd think it should be the independent third party testing the BoP of grids for various games and I guess acting as a marshal/race official resolving racing disputes/penalties. Obviously they can't change the cars themselves but they could say.. like hey, the VW Beetle Gr3 is not eligible for this season because X reason cough it's ridiculous. Or testing a tracks limits or finding "tricks" people could exploit in races.

They post a WEC survey every year...

Well did you post it on GTP front page? Cause I won't know otherwise.. even then I may miss it

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

The whole point of organizations like the FIA is to provide oversight by an impartial 3rd party entity. Every single major mainstream sport is run this way in order to remove any notion of corruption or collusion between the event organizers and the event participants.

Esports racing has a massive cheating problem, but I don't see how the FIA can ease audience concerns when they don't have the technical reputation for finding online cheaters. The FIA also gets extremely political in F1 rulings, which has continued to undermine its impartial reputation.

If the FIA wants to solicit potential race series partners with this survey, they'd probably be better off pairing with some kind of anti-cheat organization or technology in order to offset their lack of experience in this space. Ultimately, they need to demonstrate a tangible service to the event promoters and the audience.

 

[Kazuya720]

hm...
Which game want you to see as a esport?

Gran Turismo series -> me: YES!
Assetto Corsa: -> maybe
others -> me: NO!!


I am really not a PC guy.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

Esports probably has a bigger audience than F2 and all regional F3 championships combined.

I highly doubt that, the best eSport races seem to get 10k viewers on a YouTube livestream, Formula Regional gets that for a practice session.

 

[PJTierney]

Done, threw some opinions and ideas in from the perspective of somebody who works on two games with FIA championship licenses.



The list of game series they mention seems like somebody googled “popular racing game franchises” and put them all down there. I wouldn’t take it too seriously.

Project CARS and DiRT for example aren’t being actively supported, and the older titles aren’t even on sale anymore. They exist but if FIA wanted to do something with DiRT they’d probably be advised to go with WRC instead.

 

[ZedNinetySix]

(oh look! REAL cars, REAL racing. REAL progression.)

Racing Esports only makes sense when the best of the rest get the real chance to open their wings into real Motorsport just as GT Academy did.

I fondly remember meeting with the GT Academy team at Le Mans back in 2015, with multiple champions in charge of driving the Nissan GT-R LM.

They really did earn their place, and with all their effort and dedication into the eSports it got them somewhere real in their lives, many of which built other careers from it later using this experience as a foundation. It truly expanded their life.

This is where real-life Champions were made.
(even a hollywood film was made of it!)

As opposed to stagnating in the same endless cycle of competing in Esports for more Esports, where even the champions only get as far as doing the same all over again as the rest of the competitors, with no real progression beyond it to show for, like how it's become today...

This is where virtual Champions keep doing more of the same as they started with, behind the curtains of glitz & glamour.

When you literally have Champions only returning to their same bedrooms to do more of the same series, there is a problem.

Give people a real reason to become Champion, give it a real purpose.

 

[R3V]

Formula Regional gets that for a practice session.

On which platform?

 

[MatskiMonk]

Racing Esports only makes sense when the best of the rest get the real chance to open their wings into real Motorsport just as GT Academy did.

I fondly remember meeting with the GT Academy team at Le Mans back in 2015, with multiple champions in charge of driving the Nissan GT-R LM.

They really did earn their place, and with all their effort and dedication into the eSports it got them somewhere real in their lives, many of which built other careers from it later using this experience as a foundation. It truly expanded their life.

Ahhh... that's so touching, I'm so happy for the <0% that gets to enjoy esports like that... it really does make such a difference to the ordinary motorsports fan, and the ordinary gamer.

/s.

For esports to benefit real motorsports, it has to increase viewing figures (broadcast and trackside) of real motorsport. Simple as that. There is no point in increasing the supply of people hungry for glory to take out of the sport if you're not generating demand from people willing to put their coin into the sport just for the love of watching it, and I remain sceptical that esports benefits real motorsport in this respect.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

On which platform?

YouTube

 

[ZedNinetySix]

I won't pretend to understand how FIA works internally. I can only base my opinion on what I do know, and what I do know is that it's tiring having FIA involved in GT to the point they even made an entire eSports-focused game for it. As for those other series, well, I could not care less about them.

GT is so focused around FiA (or whichever way round it is) that they even compromised their own Original tracks in favour of making more overtaking zones for the FiA series finalists instead of embracing track-flow.

The entire last half of Deep-Forest's natural flow was torn to pieces with different corner layouts, and we can kiss goodbye to the very highlight of Trial Mountain's yeet-chicane.

Grand Valley might have a similar travk layoit, but the elevation changes and tightness of some corners are so radically different tgat it really throws iff the natural flow that track used to be renown for.

If PD sucking-up to FiA means compromising their own creations to cater to the 1% who move on to World Series drivers instead of well-made track flow, then there is a problem here.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

If PD sucking-up to FiA means compromising their own creations to cater to the 1% who move on to World Series drivers instead of well-made track flow, then there is a problem here.

I think that's a eSport problem in general rather than specific to Gran Turismo. It is something the vast majority of casual players have no interest in but it's being forced down our throats in pretty much every new racing game.

 

[Tornado]

I think that's a eSport problem in general rather than specific to Gran Turismo. It is something the vast majority of casual players have no interest in but it's being forced down our throats in pretty much every new racing game.

Not just racing games. See: The hundreds of millions of dollars Activision wasted trying to make Overwatch into the next DOTA 2 and all they managed to accomplish was to destroy the IP entirely.

 

[tankuroded]

I think that's a eSport problem in general rather than specific to Gran Turismo. It is something the vast majority of casual players have no interest in but it's being forced down our throats in pretty much every new racing game.

Not just racing games. See: The hundreds of millions of dollars Activision wasted trying to make Overwatch into the next DOTA 2 and all they managed to accomplish was to destroy the IP entirely.

This is also a problem with fighting games, on both those smaller and larger companies/IPs (not to mention that fighting games are hypercompetitive and requires a precise finesse to play).

 

[Veinz]

Esports in general just don’t click with me, especially racing.