Let's drop the "Just A Game" thing
Daniel Abt has become the latest victim of the “It’s Just A Game” culture that is currently running rampant in motorsport sim racing. The Formula E driver has been suspended by the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler team over a cheating offence committed by Abt in last weekend’s ABB FIA Formula E Championship round.
If you missed the story, Abt was accused of calling in a ringer to run his race for him by fellow racers Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Eric Vergne. It later came to light that Daniel had allowed professional sim racer Lorenz Hoerzing to run the race for him. Abt made a full apology, but the damage had already been done – the 27-year-old had cheated in a top-tier esports race.
And this isn’t the first time that a scandal has hit the motorsport sim racing world recently. In early May, Simon Pagenaud and Santino Ferrucci were both accused of deliberately causing incidents with other drivers, with Pagenaud even admitting on his livestream what he was planning. Even before that, ‘ragequitting’ an eNASCAR event lost Bubba Wallace a sponsor, while Kyle Larson was ditched by Chip Ganassi Racing for using a racist slur during one of his streams of an iRacing event. And every time something like this happens, the same line comes out: “It’s just a game.” But is it?
There are definitely times when sim racing can be considered a bit of fun, or just a game – you just need to look at Lando Norris’ Twitch channel for examples of that. But, the events these drivers have been participating are far from being just a game. This isn’t Mario Kart. This is a professional event, with real teams, real sponsors and real reputations. In some cases televised, but always streamed live on the internet for everyone to see. Just because it’s digital, doesn’t make it any less official.
A few tweets explain this beautifully, for instance, one Twitter user compared this situation to the work Christmas party – sure it’s a bit of fun, but ultimately, your boss is still there and if you get drunk and throw up in a pot plant, they’re going to know about it. But, for a more serious explanation of why this all matters, presenter Louise Beckett sums it up perfectly:
The ABB FIA Formula E Stay at Home Challenge has a clearly defined set of rules that cover both impersonation and engaging in conduct that may be deemed harmful to the businesses involved. Abt broke those rules and therefore incurred a punishment. It isn’t down to Joe Public to decide what that is, it’s up to the teams and organisers who are affected by the actions of the individual involved, and in this case – I agree with Audi.
In any other esport, this would be a bannable offence, and if you did this in a real-life race, the consequences again would be severe. In all of these cases, you’re bringing the reputation of the companies you’re representing into question, so why shouldn’t the punishment be as serious? And if the stewards ignored Abt’s actions, or simply gave him a slap on the wrist, it would undermine the whole event even further.
Which brings us back to “It’s Just A Game”. And frankly, that argument is really getting rather old. Not only is it an insult to the esports industry, but it’s also belittling the work that people are putting into these events.
Professional sim racers put in hours, even days of work to perfect their craft, and this is a trend we’re seeing in some non-sim drivers too. Lando Norris has admitted to spending huge amounts of time learning new circuits and cars in his sim so he can participate in various different sim championships. And if Instagram and Twitch are anything to go by, he’s not the only one putting in the time. Not to mention the work that goes on behind the scenes. A lot of effort goes into developing the software, producing the livestreams, even generating the stills for teams to use in their media campaigns. It’s all done by real people, doing real, hard work.
Regardless of your opinion on esports, it’s time to acknowledge that it is a real sport, particularly in terms of these professional-level events, and it certainly isn’t going away any time soon. There is a time and a place for messing about with your mates on a racing game or pulling a prank for a laugh, but that’s not during an event where you’re representing your IRL race team. Some drivers are saying they’re scared of doing sim racing or livestreaming now. And the answer is simple – treat it as you would a real race.
