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?

 

[Lars Bargmann]

*sigh*
Let me try to explain the problem as simple as I can :

Kunos go to Germany and scans Nordschleife, and afterwards spend tons of man-hours in making this awesome track drivable in AC.
Then someone rips those data from AC, and converts them to a rFactor track, and puts that on the internet for everyone to download.

This is theft of Intellectual Property in it's purest form, almost.
Not only will Kunos NOT get any money for their huge amount of work, they will most likely also lose out on a significant amount of AC sales, since one of the big arguments for buying AC is this laser-scanned version of Nords.
How anyone can fail to see this, is beyond me.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

So how many sells did having joux plane ripped into AC cost RBR?

 

[Lars Bargmann]

So how many sells did having joux plane ripped into AC cost RBR?

Probably none, but the point here is the principle.

You cannot argue that illegal actions are ok, as long as nobody gets hurt.
A bank robbery is not ok either, just because nobody gets hurt.

 

[Ho3n3r]

So how many sells did having joux plane ripped into AC cost RBR?

You are seriously missing the point. Copyright theft is copyright theft, even if it costs the author $0.

 

[Bernhard Schreyek]

*sigh*
Let me try to explain the problem as simple as I can :

Kunos go to Germany and scans Nordschleife, and afterwards spend tons of man-hours in making this awesome track drivable in AC.
Then someone rips those data from AC, and converts them to a rFactor track, and puts that on the internet for everyone to download.

This is theft of Intellectual Property in it's purest form, almost.
Not only will Kunos NOT get any money for their huge amount of work, they will most likely also lose out on a significant amount of AC sales, since one of the big arguments for buying AC is this laser-scanned version of Nords.
How anyone can fail to see this, is beyond me.

sure this will happen....but also mods from rfactor or even temp content will come to ac if its possible. When people see this part is better in that game and this part is better in the other both will get advance from this. So many things happen that are not measureable with money. Like ever since. This is just a new generation of sims. Technical step forward - human stay. If you dont want that, then you must concept your game like iracing and not as fully moddable. but i guess modders will also perfection the nos and other stuff from ac like it is even today with all the new skins/sounds etc. or look at gpl with all this hd-stuff. who thought that this game will ever evolve like this?

 

[cerebus23]

SIm racers still spend way way more in kit and well look at iracing costs if you just get into that.

Sim racers tend to be older and have more disposable income,

Bare bones sim racer? a 60 to 300 dollar wheel. a decent pc.their sim of choice costs.

Hardcore sim racer? 300 to 500 for a wheel, 120-300 dollars for a racing seat, triple monitor setup say 200 per monitor, occulus rift maybe 300, a uber pc to run all those monitors and hardware, sli, tons of ram, now toss in a iracing subscription and tracks cars and etc, and the half dozen or so other sims they may own and play at any given time.

Your sim racer spends a boat load more on his games than your shooter kid does. And they have money to spend, same as hardcore gamers dangle something like star citizen in front of they and they will put together monster rigs to run the stuff in 4k res 3d etc etc.

How many sim racers are building around AC atm? or rift?

Either way i thought the whole grey area in this sordid mess was the lack of people making money off this stuff, If any of these mod sites were charging people to dl this ripped stuff EA would be all over them, but as long as its register put up with a few ads and no CCs changing hands they got no real motivation to anything about anything.

While it would be nice if everyone were so talented and had the time and money to build all these mods from scratch its somewhat unrealistic to enforce that especially when you bander about vague generalities about standards.

quality, accuracy, physics, textures what mods should be graded on if you want to research where they got their assets and start a holy crusade to stop them ripping off EA or w/e more power to you, just remember that EA basically charges people for the same assets over and over and over with its sports games and fps games and hell its driving games, nickles and dimes the sims and resells the stuff over and over and over, has bought up licenses like porsche and nfl and ncaa and so on so they could only develop games or use those brands exclusively.

My heart is so touched some of you want to look out for EA's valuable IP. They certainly not been looking out for gamers or games for the longest time.

 

[Bernhard Schreyek]

Probably none, but the point here is the principle.

You cannot argue that illegal actions are ok, as long as nobody gets hurt.
A bank robbery is not ok either, just because nobody gets hurt.

But you still dont figured out that its clear said that this is a rbr conversion. So rbr is the winner. And every rallyfan who dont know about rbr yet but is onboard with ac now cause of the hype will check out rbr. and when they figure out what rbrr is they will freak out when they see what content is in that. So again the winner are modders. Why do i read in every counter against conversations etc. MONEY, LAW, RULES...its like im in a lawyerforum and not a simracerforum

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

You are seriously missing the point. Copyright theft is copyright theft, even if it costs the author $0.

If illegal is illegal no matter has asinine or trivial then I take it none of you have ever drove a single digit above the speed limit? Absolutely nobody is getting hurt out of it but breaking the law is breaking the law you know.

I doubt that any of our moral compass' have always pointed due North with no variation.. How about this: The only people that can post any more replies in this thread are the people that have never voluntarily broke any law of any kind. Go.

 

[MRX]

*sigh*
Let me try to explain the problem as simple as I can :

Kunos go to Germany and scans Nordschleife, and afterwards spend tons of man-hours in making this awesome track drivable in AC.
Then someone rips those data from AC, and converts them to a rFactor track, and puts that on the internet for everyone to download.

This is theft of Intellectual Property in it's purest form, almost.
Not only will Kunos NOT get any money for their huge amount of work, they will most likely also lose out on a significant amount of AC sales, since one of the big arguments for buying AC is this laser-scanned version of Nords.
How anyone can fail to see this, is beyond me.

Kunos wont lose much at all. You are overreacting. Why would i go back and play rFactor when i can enjoy Nordschleife in AC superb graphics.

Id rather give Kunos the money for Nordschleife and enjoy beautiful graphics, nice controls, apps, skins etc. Than downloading the Nordschleife track for free and playing it in rFactor where it will look like crap and feel no joy playing it. Not to mention it can be end up a crap conversion too.

And the person downloading it for rFactor will end up saying : this looks and feels like crap in rFactor. Screw it, im gonna buy the AC DLC.

 

[Ho3n3r]

If illegal is illegal no matter has asinine or trivial then I take it none of you have ever drove a single digit above the speed limit? Absolutely nobody is getting hurt out of it but breaking the law is breaking the law you know.

I doubt that any of our moral compass' have always pointed due North with no variation.. How about this: The only people that can post any more replies in this thread are the people that have never voluntarily broke any law of any kind. Go.

OK, so just because somebody once broke the law and got away with it, everybody should now be able to get away with some kind of criminal activity?

These arguments are getting more and more ridiculous by the minute.

 

[Bernhard Schreyek]

My heart is so touched some of you want to look out for EA's valuable IP. They certainly not been looking out for gamers or games for the longest time.

Mine too....ea for sure checked this stuff out and the calculated: Sue modders -> earn nothing, cost much, bad reputation
Let them do -> no costs, free advertising of "old" software, good image for ea, more sells for next ea racinggame

 

[MRX]

Mine too....ea for sure checked this stuff out and the calculated: Sue modders -> earn nothing, cost much, bad reputation
Let them do -> no costs, free advertising of "old" software, good image for ea, more sells for next ea racinggame

EA already has a really bad reputation. I totally sure it will be the worst company this year too. They are in so much deep s**t with NFS Rivals garbage, MoH franchise is dead, BF4 is 90% broken, Mantle API has been delayed (giving AMD a bad rep too) going after modders is the last thing on their mind.

 

[Simon Roberts]

EA already has a really bad reputation. I totally sure it will be the worst company this year too. They are in so much deep s**t with NFS Rivals garbage, MoH franchise is dead, BF4 is 90% broken, Mantle API has been delayed (giving AMD a bad rep too) going after modders is the last thing on their mind.

Stop calling them modders! They are thieves.

 

[cerebus23]

Mine too....ea for sure checked this stuff out and the calculated: Sue modders -> earn nothing, cost much, bad reputation
Let them do -> no costs, free advertising of "old" software, good image for ea, more sells for next ea racinggame

Or they do not have a real legal leg to stand on as long as people are not charging for mods. or they are not wholecloth ripping off an ip like NEED FOR SPEED mod for ac with the tracks cars etc. if someone is boosting a mesh here or model there they are not going to bother because the cost to pursue it would be high vs the proof of loss which would be near nil.

And yes there is the pr angle to consider and they have been trying hard of late to remake their image, but even the old EA under the old ceo under the old bleed em till they dry policies did not go after mods and it was not out of pr concerns i assure you.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Stating that ripping a track from a 10 year old dead, abandoned game is the same as ripping a track from AC is like stating that driving 5 MPH over the speed limit is the same as driving three sheets to the wind drunk. They are both illegal but are they truly the same?

 

[Ho3n3r]

Where's the *sigh* button?

 

[Simon Roberts]

Read this from one of the devs of RBR, looks like he will make sure AC now suffer -

http://www.reddit.com/r/assettocorsa/comments/1u3eez/whats_good_for_the_goose_please_read/

 

[Ho3n3r]

Read this from one of the devs of RBR, looks like he will make sure AC now suffer -

http://www.reddit.com/r/assettocorsa/comments/1u3eez/whats_good_for_the_goose_please_read/

And that is EXACTLY what Bram is trying to protect RD from - not to get a bad reputation in terms of providing illegal content.

Also, according to the copyright laws, the devs of RBR is 100% entitled to nail the illegal parties, whether anyone likes it or not.

EDIT: OK, after reading the complete post, he does seem a bit emotional, and no better than any other rippers. Ironically, as he says, what's good for the goose.

But it's still theft.

 

[Bernhard Schreyek]

EA already has a really bad reputation. I totally sure it will be the worst company this year too. They are in so much deep s**t with NFS Rivals garbage, MoH franchise is dead, BF4 is 90% broken, Mantle API has been delayed (giving AMD a bad rep too) going after modders is the last thing on their mind.

lol yeah but how knows what they will do. companies like ea always act like a psychotic soziopath. when they in panic if they see water is standing at throatheigh they grab everything and if it is not able to pull them out again they take them with them into the grave But i guess this will not happen soon....as long thesims and fifa sell they will survive

 

[cerebus23]

Read this from one of the devs of RBR, looks like he will make sure AC now suffer -

http://www.reddit.com/r/assettocorsa/comments/1u3eez/whats_good_for_the_goose_please_read/

Good luck to him, the game is was and still is dead, i am sure if anything his game got some publicity, a thing its not had in ages, and might have even made a few sales out of this whole thing. he will have a long road to tow if he is going to argue his game lost sales, or he was right in the middle of a ks thing to remake that track by some stroke of sheer luck, and now he is boned because someone ported it.

He is going to lose in court the studio is no more, they did not lose sales because of this, you have no idea who this guy is or what if anything he worked on, or it could be a complete troll.