Porsche has been doing a lot of brand recognition since 2017, with lots of their cars, both new and old, joining in various racing games and recently, dipped their toes in esports as both hosts and sponsors of the many esports competitions.
Recently, they partnered with Forza to find their champion in the Asia Pacific Region and bought together cars from their history for the esports racers to battle with on legendary tracks like Bathurst, Nurburgring, and Le Mans
We asked their Experiential Marketing Manager, Jaine Dietzel, why they would include their lineup of cars in the many various racing games. “We believe that because racing games and esports connect the real and virtual worlds, they enable us to gain further access to the young target group. It means that they can develop a passion for Porsche even before buying their first sports car”.
Cars are the racers’ tools of dominating a race but, it also comes down to the driver and how they use them to beat the others. But as we have seen in the lockdown, the virtual line blurred between a real race driver and an esports driver is almost non-existent anymore. Could it see a local James Baldwin joining our ranks soon? We asked Porsche’s own Carrera Cup driver, Yuey Tan, to share his thoughts on it.
“It’s a new world out there and there’s no doubt that motor racing on esports is going to be a thing of today and the future. For sure new talent will come in as the sport is so much more accessible than raising funds to go motor racing and I think that 90% of it is very relatable to real racing. Though it is still fairly far away from the real thing.
The physical side and the business side of being a racing driver are also of equal importance, so the life of a driver between esports and real life is still quite large in a way!
To that end, we come towards what forms a gel between both racers and cars: the software that is played. Forza is perhaps one of the bigger series on the market right now and thanks to this effort made by the Asia Pacific team, Forza travels to our side of the world.
So would this type of event translate to more local and recognizable tracks coming to Forza? Turn 10 Partner Development, Wes Eckhart thinks so.
“It’s exciting to see the passion for racing esports in Asia! When looking at which tracks to bring into the game, we always pay attention to what our current (and future) fans are looking for. More recently, you can look at Suzuka as a track that had a lot of support from our fan base.
It had last been seen in Forza Motorsport 4 and by popular demand made its way into Forza Motorsport 7. I can’t tell you what tracks we’ll include in the future however I can tell you we are paying attention to our community”
An esport event as big as a magnitude sees racers being as clean while battling for supremacy. Forza has been working on that aspect of the current title for nearly 2 years now, with drastic changes made for both Motorsport and even Horizon, all thanks to the feedback of the community. Mr. Eckharts expands on this more:
“The Forza community has been instrumental in helping us improve our online racing experience. We developed Forza Race Regulations in conjunction with our esports community to reduce track cutting and encourage clean laps.
While we have seen positive results, there’s always room to improve the system – either through changing track cutting boundaries or layering in more complex collision detection systems. Progress has been great, and we will continually look for ways to improve.”
All in all, it has been quite exciting seeing Porsche and Forza strive to do stuff around our neck of the world, Perhaps soon, when all the stars align, we might see a familiar face on the track-list of the next Motorsport.