Sim-Racing Community Outraged by Paid Feature That Nullifies Race Results
Another game is getting caught up in some sneaky subscription tactics, but this one takes a unique approach. Instead of the typical “pay to win” model, the sim-racing title Le Mans Ultimate offers a “pay not to lose” advantage for players who opt for a monthly subscription. Did you finish last? Did another racer take you out? Or were you the one causing the chaos? Just pay the fee, and all will be forgiven.
In this competitive online racing environment, Le Mans Ultimate assigns players a “driver rank” and a “safety rank” that reflect their driving skills and penalize reckless behavior, respectively. So, if you’re a top-tier driver but prone to crashes, your driver rank might soar while your safety rank plummets. These rankings play a crucial role in matchmaking and serve as a point of pride for players.
Accidents are part of racing; drivers can lose ranks due to crashes, connectivity issues, or even a playful pet. To address this, Studio 397, the developer behind Le Mans Ultimate, has announced an “Event Joker” system set to launch on July 28. After every 10 races, players will earn a Joker (up to a maximum of three), which can be used to erase one race result. While the result will still count in championships, it won’t negatively impact the player’s driver and safety ranks.
However, the Joker system has sparked outrage among the player community, with Reddit flooded with comments like “The new ‘Race Joker’ is the worst idea ever” and “New joker system is P2W.” The YouTube comment section introducing the Joker system is similarly filled with reactions like “Surely you’re joking about the Jokers,” “[Jokers are] the worst idea I have ever seen in an online game,” and “We shouldn’t accept this type of nonsense.”
While some criticism targets the Joker system itself, arguing that unfair outcomes also occur in real-life racing, the primary concern is that Jokers are exclusive to players with a paid monthly “Pro” or “Pro+” membership. Essentially, anyone willing to pay $8 a month can erase their worst result from every 10 races. Even if none of those races involve a mishap, they will still accumulate more rank points compared to their non-subscribed counterparts by discarding their least favorable race.
As one Reddit user pointed out, “[Driver rank] gains would no longer be based solely on your performance against other drivers. They would also depend on how strategically you can use your Jokers to negate results. This would uniquely reward inconsistency, as those negative results are prime opportunities to use Jokers.”
The Jokers raise more than just a pay-to-win debate; many Le Mans Ultimate players see them as a potential safety risk. The safety rank is designed to promote sportsmanship and ensure that skilled drivers are matched with others of similar ability. With a Joker in hand, a player could potentially drive recklessly without facing consequences. While intentional bad driving should ideally lead to a temporary ban, a loss of safety rank is the only punishment when intent is ambiguous.
If the developers of Le Mans Ultimate want to quell the backlash against their Joker plans, a straightforward solution would be to make Jokers accessible to all players. However, that might not incentivize ambitious racers to subscribe to the “Pro” plan. Alternatively, they could scrap the Joker system altogether and lessen the impact of a DNF (“did not finish”) result, regardless of whether players are paying a monthly fee. As it stands, the Joker system adds an intriguing layer to the ongoing conversation about what should and shouldn’t be locked behind paywalls in gaming.
