Which means ultimately that they are dangerous, right? They drive too fast to be safe with the other slower beginners and they don't have the experience needed to be trusted to make good decisions with the people who drive in the faster circuit. It doesn't seem wrong, it just seems like a natural consequence of learning in a simulator.
To those who complain about the title, don't blame me. Many times in the past I've created a more informative title and used it, only to have to "reverted" by the mods.
I realize it is for better sensitivity and control, but the lack of shoes in the picture is amusing.
On a more serious note, maybe taking that talent and having them move up through the ranks on lower series to get the experience to go pro is a viable option. If the talent is as good as they say, then they'll do well on smaller carts and get the experience to race professionally quicker. Nissan should just make it the "senior-class" part of their program.
Eventually, market pressures will result in new accepted standards for training with greater utilization of simulators. Hopefully, there won't be any deaths resulting from using too much simulator training.
The type of games these players play, how seriously they take them, and the advanced setups they use mean a more honest headline might be: "The best amateur racers with countless hours of simulator time are sometimes better than professional racers."
I wonder how much of that could be due to being less sensitive to danger than they should be. If most of the conditioning was in a context where there were never any severe consequences for failure, you'd expect trainees that were considerably more aggressive than those conditioned in contexts where consequences could include death.
It's a weak title for at least one more reason than that. Clicking through obviously isn't a Herculean effort, but without doing so I (and I suspect many others) would have had absolutely no idea what sort of competition was being described.
This is cool, but shouldn't be all that surprising. The article doesn't go into any metrics used to test beginner racing candidates.
It's essentially like pairing astronauts who have done extensive virtual testing with people who have limited field experience. You expect the former group to outdo the latter, but obviously they will underperform against those who have done extensive field work in space.
And so on. Many programs use virtual testing as a precursor to field work. So I'm not surprised that expert gamers who have probably clocked in near 10,000 hours of virtual racing can beat comparatively greenhorn racers who know how to drive a car but don't have much actual racing experience.
> One might suspect the same could become of other genres cough FPS cough ;)
Like America's Army?
I remember reading an anecdote about the development. Apparently the intent was a game that could be used to train real soldiers and it received millions of tax dollars of funding. However, as it was also intended to be sold to the public, the developers 'gamified' it because in playtests gamers saw it as 'boring' and even 'unrealistic' (because the basis for realism is usually Hollywood). This in turn made it too unrealistic for use as a detailed training program within the army.
[+] [-] naner|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] efnx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylangs1030|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vbl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ColinWright|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batgaijin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prsutherland|13 years ago|reply
On a more serious note, maybe taking that talent and having them move up through the ranks on lower series to get the experience to go pro is a viable option. If the talent is as good as they say, then they'll do well on smaller carts and get the experience to race professionally quicker. Nissan should just make it the "senior-class" part of their program.
[+] [-] stcredzero|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gilrain|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stcredzero|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shorel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] obviouslygreen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylangs1030|13 years ago|reply
It's essentially like pairing astronauts who have done extensive virtual testing with people who have limited field experience. You expect the former group to outdo the latter, but obviously they will underperform against those who have done extensive field work in space.
And so on. Many programs use virtual testing as a precursor to field work. So I'm not surprised that expert gamers who have probably clocked in near 10,000 hours of virtual racing can beat comparatively greenhorn racers who know how to drive a car but don't have much actual racing experience.
[+] [-] ceautery|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrkmcknz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradleyjg|13 years ago|reply
Not that our meta-comments are much better.
[+] [-] ryanaghdam|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shousper|13 years ago|reply
One might suspect the same could become of other genres cough FPS cough ;)
[+] [-] teamonkey|13 years ago|reply
Like America's Army?
I remember reading an anecdote about the development. Apparently the intent was a game that could be used to train real soldiers and it received millions of tax dollars of funding. However, as it was also intended to be sold to the public, the developers 'gamified' it because in playtests gamers saw it as 'boring' and even 'unrealistic' (because the basis for realism is usually Hollywood). This in turn made it too unrealistic for use as a detailed training program within the army.
[+] [-] brownbat|13 years ago|reply
It's not like they're incapable of driving slower.
[+] [-] ckluis|13 years ago|reply