Hoping this is not a sign of things to come

[Kevin Watts]

Like most other virtual racers I eagerly awaited the release of Assetto Corsa and purchased it the day it was released. I was stunned by how polished it was as an alpha/beta/early access game and enjoyed not only the superb visuals but the crisp believable handling of the cars as I threw them around the laser scanned tracks. As each week went by I looked forward to the next batch of fortnightly content and was happy to see each new car and track was crafted as well as the last. Not even the silly bickering on the Steam forums over whose game was better could dull my enthusiasm or the banal criticism’s by the console gamers because you couldn’t ‘pimp’ your car with gaudy body-kits like Forza Motorsport or that the game didn’t already have 1000 cars like Gran Turismo. Each new announcement via their web-site or Facebook page brought more excitement – a new manufacturer license, a laser scanned Nordschleife – the future looks bright…

Then it happened. The first quick and dirty conversion quite literally ripped from another game. News spread and this track suddenly became the hot topic, the ‘must have’ despite it being taken warts-and-all from a game released nearly 10 years ago. Rather than herald this new ‘mod’ it left me despairing for the racing sim community. While many virtual racers and racing simulation sites rightly shunned discussion of this ‘rip’ there were many more making asinine excuses for the author essentially taking this work without permission and grafting it into a new sim. Theft is theft no matter if you ‘get away with it’ or not or even that you give it away freely. It reminded me of rFactor and how when it was released it showed so much promise. For months we saw 3d meshes being shown by talented mod makers working their magic on new cars and tracks made from scratch.

It all seemed so exciting and then conversion tools reared their ugly heads. All of a sudden sites like rFactor Central were awash with poorly ripped work from Grand Prix Legends, Geoff Crammonds Grand Prix 4 among others. Far from pushing the genre forward it felt like we were now going backwards. The same racers who argued over the radius of a hairpin in Simbin’s rendition of Macau were suddenly silent when rFactor became awash with low poly conversions of 10 year old games complete with poorly defined racing surfaces, low resolution textures and cardboard cut-out tree’s and track side objects which screamed ‘FAKE’ as you sped past them. Questionably legal content appeared and then disappeared from the net as lawyers and mod makers played cat and mouse.

Is this really where we want to go with Assetto Corsa? - A step backwards porting generations old content complete with all their imperfections into a next gen simulation? There was a ‘gold rush’ in rFactor when the conversion tools appeared to be ‘the first’ to bring a popular track to rFactor, be it Spa or Brands Hatch for example so why would someone spend time carefully building a track from scratch when others are just ripping it from another game and fudging it into this new sim. Have our expectations really been lowered so far that we’d accept the grave robbing zombification of old content like this?

 

[Jorge Alves]

I would prefer track mods build from scratch with high quality content but there are not modders enough to do it for free (only 2 or 3) ... there will be more if people start paying for high quality track mods ... but modders cant charge money because unless a mod is totally fictional it will be illegal to charge money for it ... and people dont want fictional ... they want to drive in real tracks.

So every "real" track mods without official licenses are illegal to sell ... and because they are illegal to sell... modders cant sell them (unless they pay a big amount to the owners like developers do)... and because it takes a lot of time and effort they just dont do it for free (with 2 or 3 exceptions)

So instead of building high quality tracks made from scratch the majority of track modders will just take short cuts (conversions) from other games and unless developers like iRacing say no to mods they will allways be there.

Asking a small developer like Kunos to filter mods its unfair ... it will be so mental demanding have to deal with everyone complaining about the filtering system and it will be so bad to their image ... that would be preferable just to cut mods off like in iRacing. Also i dont think its a developer job to filter legal from ilegal mods ... that job belongs to the ones who own the contents rights ... and many times not even their lawyers would be abble to decide what would be a legal or ilegal content ... there are so many variants and aspects to consider and the law is so "grey" on this area that will be crazy for a small developer to start judging that.

It will be not the developers to raise the modding level ... it will be the people who play them ... if they start paying for quality mods ... maybe this high quality modders can start paying the official licenses and their own job. But i dont think this will ever happen so ... there are 2 ways ... cut off mods like iRacing or let chaos rule while there are no real and clear laws to punish infractors.

There could be one other way but i also dont see it working ... if all communities get together and run no more "illegal" content on their servers ... but this will also never happen ... not only because communities dont like to interact together but because once again they will never agree on what is legal or illegal ... and because there will be allways a lot racers who dont give a **** about this there will allways be communities who also dont ...

In the end .. the users decide what modders do ... and unless users mentality changes modders mentality will not change either ... communities can try to open people minds but changing mentalities take many many many years.

 

[Chris Partridge]

I think my concerns regards converted content comes from a different angle to that expressed so far. BTW I'm not ragging on iRacing with these comments but merely using them as as example. Others may have similar rights & abilities. Businesses like iRacing (its not just a game its a very profitable business) will be protective of their licenced content. Its their right & their licenees may see it as an obligation to defend against conversions being used in another product.

Secondly AC represents a very real & serious threat to iRacing. Content conversions would allow a legal avenue to attack a competitor such as Kunos. I'm not stating iRacing are malicious but there is an option to act with malice if their business starts to suffer as a result of AC's success. Money drives people to file law suits. Thats the real world.

So many developers (or any kind of business) have been destroyed as a result of battling law suits, even vexatious ones. Companies such as iRacing are Goliaths compared to Kunos, especially at their respective stages of development. iRacing is in an income phrase, AC is in a (I presume) expenditure phrase of development. Content conversion is not helping if it opens Kunos to being sued. Lawyers cost money, cases take time, development is curtailed and investors become wary of outcomes.

IMHO Kunos would do well to establish a vetting system for content submissions, even one operated by the community on their support site via KS servers. It only needs 1 person to flag KS to illegal content that way. It also ensures only genuine buyers of AC can submit content. Mozilla, Opera and many others do the same with extension vetting. You can have an open development system this way without risking IP infringement, nullifying claims against KS of negligence in permitting or benefiting financially from the use of illegal content & ensure content that is legal is up to expected standards of a next gen sim. Just my 2 legal cents.

I don't think this will happen. Otherwise ISI would have disappeared long ago. In 2005, rFactor was hailed as the leading racing simulator and it still was in 2010 even. Professional driver simulators still use it (see my avatar) today and so too F1 teams. ISI is still alive and very much kicking. I would be v surprised to see iRacing taking any such action.

 

[Dazmaniac]

That was utterly ridiculous to complain about that, and frankly the detractors then made fools of themselves. The most significant track announcement for several years -- with 10 new cars thrown in too -- for the price of a few beers is win-win-win - except for some.

Have you seen a price for the Dream DLC?

Just wondered with you saying it will only cost the price of a few beers. Also, how many are you referring to when you say 'few'?

 

[Simon Roberts]

Have you seen a price for the Dream DLC?

Just wondered with you saying it will only cost the price of a few beers. Also, how many are you referring to when you say 'few'?

Id look at it like this, even if it costs you £35 then it's a bargain, heck! If you go out for a meal you are looking at £60 and that lasts what, 2.5 hours?! The amount of content you will get in the DLC will last for years worth of enjoyment.

 

[zuikki1]

There is only one answer and thruth to this thing to say: If we want full modding possibilities there is no way we can avoid conversions. People going to make those anyway. Another option is not to have full / easy modding possibilties. I gues we all want so we just have to live with that. Don´t play tracks you don´t like. And what comes to this first mod, its a good thing that it was done. No question about that. It showed that its possible to do track mods and assetto corsa makes even 10 year old game track look really good! So think this conversion more as a test. Thats the reason I bought assetto, as I want to make track mods to it. From the scratch one day..
STTF - Jukka from SavoStageTeam Finland , RBR modding croup..

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

There is only one answer and thruth to this thing to say: If we want full modding possibilities there is no way we can avoid conversions.

Really, why is this the truth? Is it so hard for people to simply not touch stuff that isn't theirs?

So people like me have to look the other way so others can just continue to rip content because they lack creativity and skills to create stuff themselves?

I refuse to accept that sim racing really had to come to this point. There must be other ways to get modding back on track.

 

[Chris]

What about simracing websites placing a ban on the uploading of conversion tracks, and as soon as one is uploaded it gets deleted immediately?

Atleast that way they've done something on their part to help eradicate it.

 

[Chris Partridge]

Have you seen a price for the Dream DLC?

Just wondered with you saying it will only cost the price of a few beers. Also, how many are you referring to when you say 'few'?

Yes, €30 isn't cheap but for a project like this it cannot be. And €30 is a cheap round in London :O

 

[Radek Zukowski]

Really, why is this the truth? Is it so hard for people to simply not touch stuff that isn't theirs?

It's not hard for me and not hard for you, but ultimately there will be someone who will do it. Can't do anything about it if you don't want to hurt modability.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

If you want to know why there will always be ripped tracks from one game to another just look a few posts up from this....People are complaining about the price of a laser scanned Nords before we even know what the price is.

I really don't think that a ripped track here and there is going to end sim-racing. A year or so ago somebody ripped a couple iracing tracks for Netkar..Iracing is still making money and people are still sim-racing.
Of all the things that are most likely to kill sim-racing, cheap sim-racers are what I would bet on killing the niche. Everybody wants the dev teams to pump out quality content but many seem to think that the $40 or $50 they initially spent should keep the content flowing for years. People are already complaining that a laser scanned Nords and 10 cars might cost them almost as much as what they paid for the game; most of these same people will spend hundreds of dollars on a new video card in order to get 15 more fps than with the one they had. There are also people that haven't upgraded a damn thing on their rig in over 5 years that expect every new game to run as good on max settings as the games they bought 5 years ago. These people for sure aren't paying a dime more than the initial game cost yet will expect free updates for years.

Bram Hengeveld said: ↑
Really, why is this the truth? Is it so hard for people to simply not touch stuff that isn't theirs?

If it was this simple there wouldn't be hundreds of torrent sites with tens of thousands of pieces of content on each of them. If it was that simple there would be 0% crime rates in every country. The fact of the matter stands that in the real world there are people who will take what isn't theirs without batting an eye. The world still continues to revolve and life goes on.

I downloaded the track in question...I do not currently own RBR and I don't know if it matters or not but I have owned a copy in the past. If somebody was to make the same track from scratch I would download it; If the scratch made copy (which to me is just as illegal as the rip; no permission to use and artistic freedom will not hold water if a lawsuit was actually filed) was of lower quality than the ripped version I would probably delete it and use the higher quality one. I am sorry if you view me as somebody that is killing sim-racing and if you do feel this way about me please let me know so that I will know not to renew my premium membership. I will not support a site that doesn't want me as a member.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

@Michael Hornbuckle If we would convert the laserscanned Monza or Nordschleife of Assetto Corsa and make it available for RACE 07/rFactor2 you would still find it normal and download it without a hesitation?

 

[Nox]

Yes, €30 isn't cheap but for a project like this it cannot be. And €30 is a cheap round in London :O

I have often paid good money for a good flight sim add on like a scenery package, or an aircraft - some of them can be as much as 35/40 GBP (and there are some higher that I haven't gotten round to yet). I've had my fair share (and continue to) of use of each one. When you divide the money I've spent on my flight sim set-up against the number of hours I've flown it, it's a pretty good hourly rate.

To me, buying the DLC isn't a problem - the cost will be offset by the quality, and hours of pleasure I'll get from it.

Going back a little more on topic and modding - I am new to the sim racing scene as of 2013, so my opinion of mods and what not has been formed from that side of things and granted I don't know all the history of modding and the ins and outs. But I thought it good to share the effect this 'issue' is having on newcomers like myself too.

There are so many mods out there, so many tracks, so many cars, that it's tough for a newbie to discern which are good and which are not. I have rFactor 1, but I've hardly touched it. The huge list of mods available are overwhelming; I don't to spend my racing time vetting mods and testing which are good and which are not (and heck, as a noob, sometimes I don't have the skills and experience to tell you whether car A is handling as it should or if I'm just crap, or whether track B is as it should be.). I hadn't even considered that some tracks may be illegal until I read about it on RD. I'd downloaded a lot of tracks for Race 07, for example, then went back and removed the ones I worked out were illegal later.

I'm personally not touching any mods for GSC, AC, whatever, unless they are required for an RD event. Which, perhaps, is sad - there's bound to be some great, legal, mods out there but all these crappy ones that come along have put me off. That's the down side - all the mess that the lazy modders are making is actually detrimental to people like me trying to get into the hobby, and in turn detrimental to the good modders because people like me aren't willing to 'risk' trying their stuff out.

I don't know the solution, or whether devs taking a stand would help or not, but there's definitely an issue I don't think they can pretend to ignore any more. And I do know that RD has helped me personally become aware of the issue; some would argue that the devs should have done that job.

 

[Requiem84]

This discussion shows a good intention and spirit, but honestly, it is pointless since the start.

If you have an open modding sim, there will always be conversions. What will this thread do? Stand on the moral highground and make an appeal to the morality of everyone who intents to convert content from others sims? Will this make them stop? Come, what do you honestly think...

It's problaby best to ignore conversions, as everyone should ignore 'trolls'. Look at the 35+ pages on the Nordschleife thread, not one single 'naysayer' has been conversed in thinking differently by the 'fanboys', and also the other way around.

So, despite the sanity of the words said here, please open your eyes and get a sense of realism.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

@Bram Hengeveld Here is my take on that:
No. If you ripped Road Atlanta from iracing to AC I would not download it (even though I have purchased it in iracing and will probably never use it again) because iracing is currently in business and a competitor to AC.

Technically ripping a track from iracing and ripping a track from a long dead 10 year old game are both illegal..jaywalking is illegal but most of us have done it.

If a track from AC got converted to RF2 (and it will) it really wouldn't concern me. Don't get me wrong, I would hate it for Kunos but I don't work for them, I'm not a lawyer, so the most I could do is tell people to please not download it. Pretty much the same thing you are doing here. It would be up to Kunos to have their legal team proceed with whatever options they have just like now the people behind RBR are the only ones that have the ability to bring legal charges against the guy that ripped their track.

You are doing the right thing in not allowing it to be in the downloads section just like you won't allow tracks ripped from kunos to be there but that is really the most you can do. (plus letting everybody know your stance on the situation) Locking threads that discuss ripped tracks and claiming that they will be the end of sim-racing and that anybody that would actually download them is a cancer to the niche (not your words but I bet you wish they were) is going a bit far IMO.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Your reasoning is so flawed. I really am trying to understand at least a bit of it, but I honestly can't as it is inconsistent and makes no sense at all if you look at the principle that you do not touch things that aren't yours.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

I can understand your dilemma because I am having the same one when it comes to "artistic freedom"

I don't understand how it can be so wrong to rip a track yet so right to make the same track without permission.

Using your logic every single content download for every game should be gone through and if the track, car, or livery is not 100% fictional it should not be here. Artistic freedom sounds good when you write it but the reality is it would not stand up in court if the broken copyright law was being contested. Damn near every download available on this site breaks the rule of not touching things that aren't yours. Even using artistic freedom as a scapegoat do you think that every logo on every livery in the downloads section was handmade pixel by pixel or is there a very good chance that the majority of them were ripped from the internet?

Anyway, it really doesn't matter; I'm not going to change your mind any more than you are going to change mine. I'm sorry that you feel I am killing the niche that we love and will have to do some serious thinking about if I want to be a member of a site that feels this way about me.

 

[Dietmar]

I guess the only way preventing it, is somebody manages it. And I think, that's a good way doing it in multiple ways, as it will also prevent version mismatch and other things in older moddable plattforms.

Havent thought long about this, but why not allowing everybody everything in a 'Dev' mode to get going, but once you go multiplayer/server, you need to register your mod with Kunos, they provide some kind of hash tag / certificate for the mod, which is checked everytime you create a session.

(Maybe even with an online source, so once you try to join a session and you do not have the mod it automatically offers to download the mod, unavailable mods get removed from the system).

 

[Tim Ling]

Could Kunos be sued if/when someone converted a track from another sim, such as iRacing? I'm not so sure they could, as the conversion would be done by a third party with no affiliation to Kunos.
If Kunos invested in a system to vet the tracks, then they could be held liable, as they, Kunos, would have control over what goes into the sim.
Whatever side of the "converted tracks" argument you support, there will be (already are) illegally converted tracks, and it's only us as individual sim-racers that will show whether we are prepared to use low quality, illegal mods converted from old games (Race, rF) or wait for new, high quality mods, and new content from Kunos.
Personally, I hope modders like DerDummerklemmer and the VLN team get to work and produce some brand new, top notch tracks

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Stop playing the personal drama card @Michael Hornbuckle as that not even relevant for the discussion we are having here.

Artistic freedom has nothing to do with copyrights indeed. I can get my sketchbook and paint pictures of Ferrari's as much as I want without violating any copyrights.

Becomes a different story is I sketch a BMW M3, make it a blueprint and actively starting to sell BMW's that are fabricated in China for a fraction of the cost.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

If I make a fantasy track for AC I am going to be just as mad if somebody scratch makes the same track or rips it.