FIA Vegas eRace - Was it good for SimRacing?

Chris

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2017 is now well and truly underway, and for many months prior to this day, a select group of SimRacers have been practicing their rear end's off in order to have the best shot at winning the 200,000 dollar cash prize on offer from the inaugural Vegas eRace.

Whilst the chance to see the worlds best SimRacers going head-to-head with real life professional drivers is a tasty proposition, did the Vegas eRace really capitalise on SimRacing's very first mass-market production?

In some respects, yes it did. It gained far and away the largest viewership that SimRacing has ever had, and given the money that was thrown at it, that's not surprising. It had the backing from large corporate entities such as VISA, the FIA and the Formula E teams themselves, which meant that out of all the SimRacing events that have taken place over the decades, this one was far and away the heaviest hitter. Utilising the real life commentary team of Jack Nicholls and Dario Franchitti also helped boost the cause of the event and gave it more credibility. It really wasn't too distant from a real life Formula E race.

However, the driving standards were what the majority of those of us in this little niche were curious to see. In the past, Formula E has run similar events, albeit on a smaller scale, at race events with the fans. A couple of real Formula E drivers would go head-to-head with a fan (or several) at the Simulator-zone, which every single time, would result in a crash-fest so bad it made public lobby racing look cleaner than a vacuum-sealed laboratory, as the everyday fan had no clue what they were doing, and the drivers themselves simply didn't care as it was all a big joke.

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Given that 200,000 'Big Ones' were on the line, the drivers taking part no doubt had to take things a little more seriously, but would there be enough time for them to get up to speed with basic SimRacing skills in order to avoid taking someone out and potentially costing them a life-changing amount of money?

Well, the driving standards from the real life drivers had improved. The only massive incident coming when David Greco tried to go three wide through the fast chicane, causing a large pile-up and significant damage. This is no different to any pro-league race you'll find. Driving standards are never going to be perfect. But with so much money on the line, and more eyeballs on the race than SimRacing has ever had, every incident is magnified and scrutinised just that much more.

As for the presentation of the race, well I actually thought it was pretty impressive. The on-screen graphics were well done, the commentary was, as expected, good, and the replays all fed into a nice production that can definitely be learned from and improved upon in future events. However, since Formula E had chosen rFactor 2 as their simulator of choice, the graphics of the actual cars, the track and it's surrounding were simply not up to par with what e-Sports expects and demands from it's productions. rFactor 2 is not the worst looking game, but it's certainly not what you'd call 'Eye Candy'.

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Sure, the cars and the track they used were a massive step up from previous e-Races they've done (which, let's be honest, looked like they were straight out of a PlayStation 1 game), the images seen from the race were a far cry from the beautiful images you see coming from the likes of Forza and Gran Turismo.

But rFactor was chosen for one simple reason. It's pretty much the only simulator that can pull something like this off given that iRacing does not have a Formula E car lying around. Had iRacing actually had a Formula E car at it's disposal, then that would have unquestionably been the platform of choice for this event. But even so, the best was made with what they had available.

But already there is controversy brewing. With just a handful of laps until the end of the 20 lap race, Bono Huis and Felix Rosenqvist were running one-two and had amassed a fairly substantial lead over the rest of the pack. However, Formula E uses a thing called "Fan Boost", whereby the fans watching at home can vote for a driver to receive a horsepower boost for a limited period of time.

Enter third placed driver Olli Pahkala.

The average race pace for this event was a 1 minute 28 second lap. This is what the majority of the front runners were able to produce. When Olli received fan boost, it was supposed to only be for six seconds, instead, it appears he received fan boost for six laps. This meant he was able to lap in the 1 minute 26 range. This was not supposed to happen. Either that, or as Dario Franchitti said several times "He must've found a shortcut somewhere!".

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As Huis and Rosenqvist left their pitstops very late, they emerged behind Pahkala, who was still lapping at the abnormally quick pace. With only a couple of laps left, Pahkala had well and truly checked out and was on his way to winning the $200k. Why he received fan boost for such a long period of time, you ask? Well, that remains to be seen, but one thing was for certain: Bono Huis was not a happy camper.

The final podium ceremony was cringe-worthy to say the least as Felix Rosenqvist was the only driver to actually look happy. Huis and Pahkala both took hugely long periods of time before coming out on stage and at first I put this down to being shy, or something. But could there perhaps have been some more serious discussions going on behind the stage regarding Pahkala's miraculous pace?

Whether or not the details come out remains to be seen. There were some things that definitely need improvement for subsequent holdings of the event, like the unbelievably awkward post-race awards ceremony along with it's poor execution, but by and large, this was a positive boost for SimRacing to gain traction (pun intended) in the eSporting world, and to be taken more seriously. If real drivers are beginning to take it more seriously, then the rest of the motorsport community will sit up and take notice.

In terms of getting the sheer number of eyeballs on the event, yes it absolutely was a success, however the overall presentation of the race along with pre and post-race events, definitely needs more work. But it was a decent first go at it, and there is definitely the potential for a huge improvement in what is delivered at the next event.


Over to you!
What did you think of the Vegas eRace? Was it good for SimRacing, or are we destined for niche-ism?



***Update:
Olli Pahkala has taken a post-race penalty, demoting him to third place. This means Bono Huis takes first place for the Vegas eRace.
 
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The racing was dull, but that's another issue. IMO one priority should have been to make the broadcast look good on a technical level. It didn't succeed, rF2 leagues have been organizing broadcasts with better quality and overlays since around 2010 (see for example this). A top quality broadcast and a track that has more polygons than rF1 stock tracks from 2005 would have been a good start. The sporting side is a bit tricky as it takes a long time to tune in a mod to get the slipstream/dirty air etc. effects ideal for overtaking, it takes a bit deeper understanding of rF2. That can maybe be excused as it was the first time, the technical side and plugin glitches cannot IMO.
 
My best argument is still, that games like WCIII, CS, Starcraft or anything else for that matter have been really successful in eSports despite being some of the most ugly games on earth for a long period of time for the simple fact, that they offered good competetive gaming and have been proven to work stable and balanced. And that's the aspect where Cloudsport failed.

Those games were released and gained popularity in esports at a time when they were considered good looking or at least respectably good looking. That they aged out of this condition is because they had a following. To capture people you need a higher standard than to maintain that following.

If your argument is that sim racing isn't about physics we should go with a Need For Speed shift or trackmania mod next time around. Sim racing is about many different aspects, physics simulation being one of them and it makes me wonder why we are even discussing this.

I never said physics is irrelevant, but within the framework of available sims it is. Whichever you pick it won't matter, it'll all represent simming as is and create good racing. The differences for the sake of racing are minimal and mostly its to do with racing features that allow good online events. That doesn't mean trackmania, because this is about simming, but there is no established current gen sim that wouldn't do, even PCars would be satisfactory if its features could match that needed for the event.

The question is whether the sum total presents well, and rF2 doesn't seem to have any professional grade developers working to create content for it on contract. Maybe another dev could on contract, but in the end rF2's pedigree as a great sim, perhaps above all the rest, doesn't matter. The best sim shown off as a shambles is inferior to a less advanced one polished and looking stellar. rF2 already though has the issue of being relatively ugly so when its done badly it looks quite terrible.

Now if Cloudsport can't find anyone to work on any sim platform for them for reasonable money that can make things look and play better than they did then this idea is pretty much dead in the womb.
 
I never said physics is irrelevant, but within the framework of available sims it is. Whichever you pick it won't matter, it'll all represent simming as is and create good racing. The differences for the sake of racing are minimal and mostly its to do with racing features that allow good online events. That doesn't mean trackmania, because this is about simming, but there is no established current gen sim that wouldn't do, even PCars would be satisfactory if its features could match that needed for the event.

The question is whether the sum total presents well, and rF2 doesn't seem to have any professional grade developers working to create content for it on contract. Maybe another dev could on contract, but in the end rF2's pedigree as a great sim, perhaps above all the rest, doesn't matter. The best sim shown off as a shambles is inferior to a less advanced one polished and looking stellar. rF2 already though has the issue of being relatively ugly so when its done badly it looks quite terrible.

The differences for the sake of racing are not minimal, they are cruicial within a frame of top competition. That is something if you don't know it you never will notice on a stream of a simrace in rf2 nor in a stream or of a normal race.
If you run of the rubber on the marbles and flatspot your tire in a braking zone or a failed attempet to overtake your race is more or less done, you wont win that race anymore, your times drop exponentially in worst case.Or if you flatspot them just by misstake or overshooting a wet track. If you overcook the engine whilst in pits or on track your race is done. If your brake ducts are not open wide enough for cooling your race at Montreal is done and you will not win. If your setup is crap for tires you will not win. If you start at Interlagos on the dirty line (second place) you will most likely be overtaken by the guy starting on third place. If you missmanage a rain race and your strategy or your setup simply sucks in rain you wont win the race. All those little details, and there are more of them not to mention that driving alone has an impact on tires material etc, are performance related and you will not see it if you do not know it neither can you explain the importance of them to somebody how cruicial they are, the only thing you see is the winner and the winner will be called lucky or not for winning but it is not luck, it is perfect prepparation and excecution. All failures you see are most of the time performance related by underestimating the consequences of pushing to far or not enough testing.
The failures you experience in competition for tenths are which makes racing emotional and a perfect execution far far more rewarding. Racing teams have "team crews" for a reason and not only to clap in case a team wins. I feel sorry for you and some sunday drivers which have never experienced that but that is not your fault. I also feel sorry for the devs which claim all those features are just for keyboard warriors and have no point in sims. Quite an irony that is in fact. They simply don't know better and will produce good sunday driving games with paganis at the nordschleife but nothing more than that considering what is possible today. That was suited to represent simracing in 2005 where a sim could reproduce a static lap of one race pretty well but not more than that.

As for your second paragraph I don't think you are aware how wrong you are. You can make every sim look crap, that is a fact. rF2 is highly dependent on conntent and your settings and that has not much to do with the time of day used either. If you take the Star Mazda at LRP in iRacign for example with crappy settings it looks worse than a good looking rf1 race and the same can be done with AC aswell. I have seen streams where the game looks like rf1 simply put. Now I am not saying rF2 looks best or anything like that but it certainly can look decent. However if cloudsport could have contracted anybody I am sure they would have done that.
But to say rF2 has no proffesional grade devs is if anything just delusional.
 
  • Deleted member 130869

This might be old hat by now, but Spike tv in the UK is showing highlights of this in a hour long show tonight midnight just before the football show.
Be interested to see how it appears as a program.

That's very cool! So it's been a positive thing, then.

Racing games aren't broadcasted or attracted mass attention outside of Gran Turismo's GT Academy. But there, there was a lot of focus on real racing so the game took a backseat. A lot of people don't know what the baseline is or can be, and the age demographics may be higher than ours. They may see the cars on TV and think, first of all, that is a cool thing. So often I've seen non-gamers or very casual gamers see a racing game and only think of the car and track, and thinking it's nice - because they don't really play or because they have a connection (followed) the series in real life.
 

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