Le Mans 24 Virtual

[David Wright]

And they have been rewarded in the sales charts.

PC2 sales are still holding up well, even after the recent sale. Maybe those YouTube ads for PC3 are having an effect

AMS2 running at #19 - it hasn't taken off yet.

[rich1e I]

Of course providing the platform for such a huge event and get the exposure has to be the best advertising opportunity ever. i think people are shocked by what modern software is capable of. Some of the motorsport folks had never heard of Twitch before the Covid-crisis. These people travel the world all year, they didn't know what going on in the sim racing world. Many pros are also gamers and sim racers ofc but not the commentators and the guys and gals in the governing bodies. At some point people actually forget that it's just the virtual 24h of Le Mans. When one of the Corvettes pitted and restarted you could hear the rumble of the V8 and Martin Haven said he was absolutely loving it. They were deeply impressed.

[ShadowFalcon]

Of course providing the platform for such a huge event and get the exposure has to be the best advertising opportunity ever. i think people are shocked by what modern software is capable of. Some of the motorsport folks had never heard of Twitch before the Covid-crisis. These people travel the world all year, they didn't know what going on in the sim racing world. Many pros are also gamers and sim racers ofc but not the commentators and the guys and gals in the governing bodies. At some point people actually forget that it's just the virtual 24h of Le Mans. When one of the Corvettes pitted and restarted you could hear the rumble of the V8 and Martin Haven said he was absolutely loving it. They were deeply impressed.

Hell, the same can be said about the older generation of motorsports fans, like my dad.

He had nothing but disdain for the idea of e-sports before this, but he watched the Virtual Le Mans, and he was amazed at the level of fidelity that was possible with today's computers, and he at times forgot that, this was a sim race.

I think it can be said that, Le Mans Virtual really catapulted Sim Racing into the public spotlight in a good way.

[BabyDriver]

I’m not sure it actually is in a good way... The problem is that glaring issues are basically ignored or glibly excused while COVID provides a captive audience with no options to tune out.

Sure, anyone fresh to simming might be impressed by visual fluff and decent sounds (in truth, I doubt anyone watching other than race game players had seen any in game footage since GT4 days!) but anyone that into racing should also be shocked at how badly stewarded most race contact behavior was, being excused because of limited peripheral vision or netcode issues etc..

For me, that was the a absolutely immersion breaking detail. I could handle server crashes (real races have red flags too!) but the level of unawareness (and aggressive contact in other sim series as well) was of a level to put it all into the video game field, not sport simulation. A soccer game that allowed players to pick up the ball and run with it would be laughed out of the room if it tried to tout itself as a simulation.

But race contact was blithely glossed over with a shrug most of the time (Lando, anyone?) and in real racing, this is the #1 concern.

Maybe if we ever get a sim series that mandates full VR (or at least full triple monitor rigs), we might get driving standards up to full immersion level for actual race fans, but while drivers drive around with virtually no vision and get largely excused for the consequences of it, no amount of visual eye candy and professional commentary and packaging (or more stable netcode) is going to keep fans coming back once there’s a real racing scene.

[rich1e I]

I certainly didn't watch the whole race, but the stewards did hand out drive throughs to a couple of teams. Also, I highly doubt the awareness is bad and i doubt that most pros weren't at least on XL curved screens.

[BabyDriver]

I certainly didn't watch the whole race, but the stewards did hand out drive throughs to a couple of teams. Also, I highly doubt the awareness is bad and i doubt that most pros weren't at least on XL curved screens.

The vast amount of contact was blithely ignored. Yes, the absolute worst of it got some attention, but I have to say, I never was a huge BTCC fan, I’ve always been more a WEC, ALMS and F1 type fan. Low contact, high consequences.

Even an ultrawide doesn’t give you the FOV that triples do, and that’s the only thing short of VR that offers real life drivers an almost true to life FOV. I saw plenty of drivers on single screen systems, and it’s the mix of different screen types that exacerbates the problem, as someone on a triple expects the same degree of awareness from someone they may not know only has an ultrawide or even a 16:9.

I hate to say it, but the minute real racing starts back up I will be completely uninterested in watching pros race virtually. I’ll still watch the occasional league race on YouTube, that’s friends and players like me. But until online figures out how to get the level of contact and awareness equal to real life, I will be giving ‘pro’ simming a wide berth.