Quote from sgt.flippy :

When a company gives a contest out, with a nice prise, it'll always say that employees aren't allowed to compete, so this is kinda the same.

The reason for this is avoiding that people use insider information to get advantage (= cheating), or even manipulating the results.

I know, but I think it as a bit the same. If you know you're a very good skinner, and you go ask for a skinning contest, you do this because you know you have an advantage. Although I don't know if wheel4hummer is a very good skinner, never seen one of his skins.

Objectively speaking, I think a skinning contest for demo users is a really nice idea.

Produce a single team livery for the XFG, XRG and XRT. Merits awarded for consistency across the 3 cars, originality of design, strength of identity (how recognisable it is on second viewing), viability (looks like it could BE a team). Max number of sponsors 5, minimum 3. That would mean developing several corporate brands..

I think this could be a fun and constructive contest. Very few demo users understand the strength of the community behind LFS, and I think it's an attractive feature of LFS. This would give the community a good bit of exposure.

Top 3 placements get an S2 licence. First place gets a 23-seat team server for a year on S2? Lots of possibilities

Quote from ORION :

The reason for this is avoiding that people use insider information to get advantage (= cheating), or even manipulating the results.

OT: Orion, don't you think your avatar is a bit offensive?

one word "tight"

i dont make the most money in the world but what i do make i feel happy giveing some of it to the lfs devs for a s2 licence as its worth it.

The reason to skin your own car is a matter of style, not competition. There's no point winning if you don't look good.

If you agree with me that car skins fall into the category of art then you'll also have to agree that judging them is a subjective rather than objective business.

Sure you can say skin (a) is better than skin (b) because the author has done everything "right" [used high quality decals, compensated for skin stretching etc etc] but if skin (c) is also "right" then is not judging which one should win just a matter of which one you happen to like more than the other?

Master Skinnerz contests are a good example, in the last round 4 skins were chosen as "winners" by [judge's] majority vote. All of the judges made 4 choices, but it was the 4 skins that collected the most votes overall that "won". There were comments that the voting had been a little "subjective" and that in fact the 4 "best" skins hadn't been chosen.

I had some sympathy with the comments, since in my opinion the 4 best skins were not chosen, but the whole point of this essay is that all I'm talking about is people's opinions, that's why a racing contest with a licence as a prize is a much better idea than a skinning contest.

You don't win a race with a subjective opinion, either you cross the line first or you are the first loser.

Quote from Billeh :

one word "tight"

And that's coming from a Scot!

I agree though, no matter how little money I've had in the past, I've always managed to scrape enough together for my favorite game / sim.
In this case it's cheaper than most retail games, so it's an even smaller ask.

Go buy the game!