You had a point at the beginning, but your dismissive comments about the quality of anything besides rFactor and LfS quickly buried whatever good intentions you had starting this thread... Those comments are based on the errant believe that no other controller than a wheel is worthy of a sim... It is the best controller, that's right, but in the end it's just an interface, not a measurement of quality...
Unlikely... You see, all those RL car deals have been made by someone establishing a promotion without having to start from scratch... I don't see Monza or one of its affiliates wanting to promote the track - it's famous enough to be recognized by every race fan in the world...
It would be interesting to get some facts and figures on how it all works, how does rfactor and the others manage to have these tracks and cars? It would be interesting to hear what LFS want the sim to be in 5 years I'm sure their is exciting times ahead either way as LFS is just superb piece of work.
rFactor' tracks and cars are free, everything that is user created is (almost always) free, and rFactor developers don't need to deal with any licenses or something, because the full rFactor game doesn't come with any of these cars or tracks. If modding wasn't enabled on rFactor, that game would suck so badly IMO...
That's your opinion. My opinion is that it's not an exact and defining "proof" of quality, but it's a pretty good yardstick. Can drive a 600hp racing car with a gamepad? Safe guess it's probably not a "simulation". I'm not being a smart-arse here, it's a pretty simple and obvious deduction.
Really, by going on about Gran Turismo, some posters are only proving their complete ignorance of racing. Drivers have to take into account things like driving fast enough to get the brakes up to working temperature, let alone the tires. Also driving fast enough to get the downforce working.
Really, after viewing that you'd have to think it's pushing the definition even to call Live for Speed a real "simulation", ... and you're going to tell me driving a Ferrari F1 on a rally track, catching air with buggy suspension and a playstation gamepad is a "simulation"? The average playstation-head might like to think that his skills powersliding a ridiculously-high horsepowered racing car with his gamepad directly corelate to his real-life driving expertise, but that don't make it so. Really, if you're convinced there's nothing I can do to change your mind. As long as you're having fun I guess it's not important.
A wrong one, just plain and simple... Where your theory falls terribly short is that it doesn't matter what controller you use, when all the computer/game recognizes is "throttle position=25 %"... It'll still be 25 %, whether you use a wheel, a joystick, a gamepad, a mouse or even a keyboard... The only difference is the resolution (the steps) between min and max, and that's it...
So if you're able to adjust to a possibly lower input resolution, it is perfectly reasonable to drive a 600 HP racing car...
The interface doesn't matter one bit, it's the result of your input that defines whether you're playing a game or a sim...
One quick comment;
Internet racing with rfactor is horrible. If you dont have the servers level of mod, you wont find a race. Infact, I found it frustrating to even find a server with people on it, with out using a mod.
At least with LFS, the servers are usually very active. And very easy to find a pick up race. No need to keep up with a mod, or a mod level.
Money i'm sure is a biggy. But then there could be an aspect of contracting or licensing a track. Think of the huge headaches of going through all of that. They might need lawyers that would watch their backs and in the process might even suck them dry with legal fees. Final approval of the track from the owners. Especially in the beginning because it would be their first attempt of recreating a RL track for the public. I would expect any owner to have a contract with a dev to have final product approved before the deal was carved in stone. God knows what else is involved. This is a lot of work for 3 people. The LFS dev team is 3 people and for a good reason called quality control. This is why LFS can produce a kind of product other 'big' racing sim devs can't. If anybody judges a racing sim based on it's real world content LFS is not for them. If they love the drive and live for a good race then LFS is for them.
I don't doubt that the LFS devs have thought about RL tracks for LFS. I'm sure they would love to see it in their sim. If they haven't done it yet, it is for good reason.
A final thought of LFS and I define it for me. I think others may see it in similar ways. This is not an attempt to degrade LFS as a game even though some might see it that way. I have the highest respect for LFS from what I have witnessed so far. Please keep your mind open to what I am attempting to convey:
LFS is in a way a subculture. From what I see there are many of us here that don't conform or don't conform to much of what popular culture is telling us. LFS is really in it's self it's own little world. XFG, FXR, LX6, South City, Fern Bay....get my drift? These are symbols of our subculture. To others these mean nothing and I think a lot of members here like that. These are some of the things we love about our subculture. If you would like to see how I defined LFS as a subculture, please read this. Read it carefully though and with an open mind. There are six things written here. These six will not apply to all, but all will apply to some to a certain extent.
This really caught my eye as well:
"If a particular subculture is characterized by a systematic opposition to the dominant culture, it may be described as a counterculture. As Ken Gelder notes, subcultures are social, with their own shared conventions, values and rituals, but they can also seem 'immersed' or self-absorbed—another feature that distinguishes them from countercultures."
Is that right? I'm sure the F1 teams who pay up to $40,000 for the steering wheel in their cars would be interested to know they are wasting so much money. You should write to them and tell them all they need is a $20 playstation gamepad. I'm sure they'd be very grateful to receive your advice.
What this video shows is that a professional racing driver is completely unable to drive even a tiny little, low-powered hatchback effectively with an R/C remote.
Give a 14yo kid a playstation gamepad and a Ferrari F1 car though ...
I just watched that GT5P formula one video on YouTube for the first time.
Seriously. You guys must be joking. If you think that looks even remotely realistic then you must be smoking crack. Watch especially the front suspension at around 1:30 when he launches the F1 car. It looks so stupid it's funny. ... and note also that it's set on "professional" physics with all the driving aids turned "off", so no excuses!
Seriously lads. If anybody here watches both those videos and still insists that it's a realistic simulation, all they are doing is proving their own complete ignorance when it comes to racing cars.
I'm honestly amazed that there's even any debate about this. But anyway, I'm opting out. I'm sure it's a great fun, high quality game. But some of you obviously just want to believe it's a realistic simulation so much that there's nothing I could say that would change your mind. So have fun.
P.S. Beautiful graphics. I love how the pit crew are moving around the car etc. before the session.