GT Sport Pikes Peak Goes Exclusive to PolyPhony Digital - Why?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Polyphony Digital have secured a long term exclusive licence to ensure the fabled Pikes Peak International Hill Climb becomes an exclusive event for future Gran Turismo games.

Revealed via a recent 'Ask me Anything' session with the makers of DiRT Rally, it appears that game making giants Polyphony Digital have secured a deal to have the Pikes Peak Hill Climb event licenced exclusively for their games in the foreseeable future, preventing an appearance in title's such as the DiRT series, which featured Pikes Peak as recently as 2015's immensely popular DiRT Rally.

First let's give you a bit of background on the event itself. The Pikes Peak Hillclimb event has been a semi regular fixture on the American and international racing scene since hosting it's first event back in 1916. The race takes place on almost 20km of twisting and winding roads consisting of no less that 156 turns. As is the case in hill climb events, the stage gradually winds itself up hill until reaching a height of 14,110 feet at it's very summit - so it's pretty steep, it's pretty challenging and it's pretty popular.

Nowadays the Pikes Peak highway is fully paved as apposed to the full and part gravel, part tarmac affairs that characterised earlier runnings of the Colorado race. With each yearly event hosting on average well over 100 competitors in a wide variety of machines and classes, the race can be considered a popular event, although still nowhere near achieving the international recognition received for such classics as the Daytona and Le Mans 24 Hour, Dakar, Nordschleife or the Indy 500 for example.

So why exactly have Polyphony Digital gone out and secured the rights to a track that most developers aren't exactly knocking on the door to secure in the first place, and what does this mean for future trends in sim racing if a particular track can be locked down for exclusive use in a specific sim? Nothing good that's for sure...

We are all no doubt aware of the negative press surrounding Porsche / EA Sports exclusivity debacle that has kept the famous German brand away from decent racing games these past few years, same with the Codemasters lock down on the Formula One licence, but has this happened in relation to a specific circuit before? *

Not to the best of my knowledge it hasn't, and for me this is a worrying sign of how things could progress in the coming years as the almighty dollar takes precedent over what's best for the sim racing genre as a whole.

Sim racing games, as in any commercially sold goods, works or services, can claim competition from rival development projects as one of the main motivations behind continually improving and enhancing their own products. The same applies to the content contained within those games. Without competition one can easily succumb to complacency and in those kinds of situations nobody wins. Content locked down under an exclusivity deal (in this case Pikes Peak) doesn't get represented across a wider audience base of different games, fans lose out on playing that specific piece of content in their simulators of choice, and of course no one has the need to push themselves in order to go that little bit further to achieve acknowledgement that their version is indeed the most satisfying and most accurate of those available. One only needs to look at the legendary Nordschleife as a perfect example of this. Just imagine if game x secured an exclusive licence for the track, we wouldn't then have the laserscanned Assetto Corsa and RaceRoom editions we enjoy today, or the extra special levels of detail and emotion that have gone into bringing this gigantic circuit to our favourite games.

So why then have Polyphony Digital, a development studio not exactly renowned for making off road racing games, seen fit to wrap up a licence to use the track exclusively in Gran Turismo, depriving such title's as DiRT Rally from continuing to feature the track in their future games? Honestly I've got no idea.

Gran Turismo has featured loose surface racing in past iterations of the series of course, however it's only ever really played at the dirty stuff, never actually having gone full out and produced a competent rally style simulation. So why the need to tie up a deal for Pikes Peak? Could this mean moves are afoot to branch out into rally racing in the coming year?

Actually that's not as long of a shot as it would first appear.

So could the licencing move by Polyphony be a first step towards seeing a standalone rally product from the developers, or at the very least an early indication that the Japanese studio might be looking to substantially increase off road content in future Gran Turismo releases? Well with the currently in development GT Sport marking a substantial shift in direction from previous games within the franchise, we now know Polyphony are perhaps more inclined to mix things up a bit compared to what was previously the case, so the timing could well be right for a change.

Many virtual drivers have been vocal about the quality of recent GT releases, and with greater competition than ever before in the form of fresh console games Assetto Corsa, Project CARS and the new for 2018 GTR3, perhaps the studio are looking to broaden their horizons in a quest to maintain the enviable position atop of the racing game pile Gran Turismo still maintains.

If GT now and in the future just want to bring Pikes Peak over to their game and decided the best way to do this would be to lock down the venue on a exclusivity agreement with the studio, then I think that's a rather sad outcome for sim racing as a whole, and something of a rather over protective move by the Japanese development team. One thing is for sure, with dedicated off road sims such as the DiRT series and Sebastien Loeb Rally having been denied the opportunity to replicate this monstrous event in future releases, whatever Polyphony do with the licence I hope they make it worth it.


*to the best of my knowledge exclusivity agreements with specific tracks outside of series licences haven't happened before. Despite my research however I could quite easily be wrong!

Gran Turismo 6 is the current latest title from Polyphony Digital. GT Sport is scheduled for release during 2017 for Sony PlayStation 4.

Don't forget to check out the Gran Turismo Series sub forum here at RaceDepartment to keep abreast of all the latest news and discussion around these racing games. We have a dedicated section for GT6 and for the upcoming Gran Turismo Sport release, so stay tuned for all the information as and when it becomes available.

Are you pleased to see the exclusive licence to use Pikes Peak has been secured by Polyphony Digital? Do you thing the move to licence a particular event is in the best interests of sim racing? Do you expect Polyphony to make produce an impressive version of the stage? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Epistolarius]

Yay... if that is indeed the case and sets a trend it's getting even harder for small sim racing developers to get track licenses.

 

[InsaneOzzie]

WHY indeed?

PD are dreaming if they think having exclusives on Pikes Peak is going to bring them increased sales, It might land them a few more US sales due to the fact its a growing US event, but globally the franchise has suffered due to the growing list of dissatisfied PS simcaders. GT is on the decline, it's the same release each year with just a few new bells and whistles. Gamers are getting bored of the repetitiveness of car collecting in GT, plus I think they will struggle to match AC on PS from here on in,
I played 5 half a dozen times and it hasn't seen the light of day since. Having 600 cars doesn't impress anyone anymore.

The only peeps who did well out of this deal are the Pikes peak organizers, hopefully it was lucrative for them and they now have the finances going forward to make the event even bigger for their US fans.

 

[InsaneOzzie]

Never pleased to see exclusive licence of any kind, just makes for a kind of split community. Just like the Porsche+EA deal, if you wanted to drive porsche, you had to play an NFS title.

But even EA's exclusive didn't stop Porsche's from becoming available in other games/sims, whether they where scratch built or ripped they still appeared elsewhere regardless of the licensing deal. Wasted money by EA, and Porsche suffered due to not being able to do licensing deals with other devs, exclusives hurt both parties financially in the long run imho.

 

[TheReaper GT]

So, I kinda wonder just how you can get "exclusive rights" for a "track" that is basically run over public roads?

I'm not really sure just why the ppl who run the pikes peak race would want to even have an exclusivity contract. Back in the day, I would remember watching the hill climb on Wild World of Sports and such. When I heard about some electric cars/cycles trying to break records at Pikes Peak I went to go see if I could find some streams online or at least some coverage.

There were no streams, and IIRC there was really no live timing and any coverage of the climb was sparse. Maybe they are desperate for some money and this is the only way they could get a chunk. The lack of finding info about the hill climb was a sign to me of its lack of relevance. Locking away content from other games is definitely the wrong way of trying to make your event relevant again.

They licensed the name.... The track, as you said, is made of public roads, so anyone can use it, as long they use a different name. The event is organized by a museum and I bet every penny counts on that front...

 

[Alex72]

"Exclusives"... One the most immature words we have in gaming these days. Its for the kids to taunt each other with "i have it on my console and you dont na na na na na naa naaaaa ha ha ha ha haa haaa". And i guess a big short term big wad of cash to the track/brand owners. But why not open up instead and reach out to more developers? It will look better and potential to make even more money. With 1 single developer being able to represent a track or brand it means there is no competition for that specific car or track, and we all know what can happen when someone has monopoly right? Right, they dont have to make a superb representation of it since no one is allowed to compete.

Bad bad bad immature bulls**t.

 

[Patrik Marek]

I don't really care about Pikes Peak, but it's sad to see exclusive license of any kind imo, because that removes pressure (a bit) of doing it right

 

[RichardHessels]

It proved to be big mistake for Porsche, once the Sim market started to take off , some thing that many would not have seen coming back in the days they signed for EA & the NFS series.

This deal Pikes Peak have made with PD will also fail , no Track or Car brand can any longer risk throwing all their egg's in one basket.
Even more so with PD & GT . a fine game until the major cracks started to appear in GT4 , got worse in GT5 & some got fixed but the most still remain in GT6.

GT Sport needs to at least match the standards of all those rivals now sharing the same PS4 platform , in one way PD has a mountain to climb just to get level with its rivals these days
It is going to take a lot more to realize that goal than trying to buy up exclusive rights to tracks or events

GT would also be better served now has cross platform game, though Sony would never agree to that Idea.

What big mistake for Porsche? My guess is EA payed more for an exclusive deal than all others combined. Porsche sales are at a all time high. That people who can never pay a real Porsche would not buy one because it was only playable in NFS does not make much sense.

 

[RichardHessels]

Yay... if that is indeed the case and sets a trend it's getting even harder for small sim racing developers to get track licenses.

It's public road, so nobody stops you from making your own. Track is fully covered by streetview and there is really useful height data on Google Earth for perfect reference.

 

[Peter Hooper]

Very disappointed to hear that. I really enjoy the Pikes Peak challenge in Dirt Rally so to find that it will no longer be available is a great shame.

I've never liked exclusivity deals as it simply just reduces the number of people that can enjoy something and also learn about something they may not otherwise have been interested in so it's a lose/ lose scenario add fat as I'm concerned.

 

[Epistolarius]

It's public road, so nobody stops you from making your own. Track is fully covered by streetview and there is really useful height data on Google Earth for perfect reference.

I'm not talking about modding, I'm talking about developers not being able to license a track or public road because someone is holding an exclusive licence.

 

[Juliusz Baczynski]

There are so many other hillclimb races worth to be portraited in game out there...

...and eventually, the ways of modding are infinte and Dirt Rally' Pikes Peak could be magically appear someday.

Well the amount of combinations are 10 to the power of a number that is unimaginable, so technically it is possible but haha nice thought!

 

[TheReaper GT]

I'm not talking about modding, I'm talking about developers not being able to license a track or public road because someone is holding an exclusive licence.

No one is talking about mods, any developer can make pikes peaks, they can't use the name, that's all..

 

[Epistolarius]

No one is talking about mods, any developer can make pikes peaks, they can't use the name, that's all..

Read the post I was responding to.

 

[TheReaper GT]

Read the post I was responding to.

Same thing, you can make it as a modder or developer, you can even put it in a commercial product. The only thing you can not do is call it Pikes Peaks....

 

[Epistolarius]

So that makes this acceptable. Good to know.

 

[thatmotorfreak]

Well...I guess this is a good reason to keep DiRT Rally installed.
(Still haven't gotten around to actually finishing a whole run on it though, the cars are an utter nightmare to drive)

 

[Joerg Baermann]

How exclusive can such rights be?
Wouldn't it be considered monopoly if only one company can use certain popular tracks because the license giver denies to sell the license for the same price to another company?

 

[speedrcr]

The odd things about all this is the "road" is actually a park road and the only people benefitting from this is PolyPhony and a promoter. Granted the PPIHC isn't well funded and it's good to see they found possibly some funding to keep the event alive each year but it's now becoming costly. After attending in 2015 I didn't realize how expensive it can be, but also understood then first hand the logistics that is needed for the event. They have tried to find ways to be self funded and without using tax payer money so perhaps in order to keep it alive for years to come I'm kind of for this deal.

I'm one of the few that have driven the track/road and I'll say it's breathe taking and I'd like to see how PD does it. I remember one of the pinnacle moments of GT was the inclusion of Pike Peak (either GT2 / GT3?). I'm glad they have a deal to do it finally again, but to be sole licensee, or a monopoly; think that's bad business for the sport promoters (PPIHC) and PD.

But then again I'll bet you 99% of the people buying GT:Sport or whatever the GT iterations that come later, will really care. We're the 1% if you think about it.

As you can see there was already a partnership:

 

[SiL3nT-GaMeR]

No please... That means that we will get a updated version every 5 years... c´mon Polyphony r u serious ?

 

[Driver01?]

View attachment 171119
Polyphony Digital have secured a long term exclusive licence to ensure the fabled Pikes Peak International Hill Climb becomes an exclusive event for future Gran Turismo games.

Revealed via a recent 'Ask me Anything' session with the makers of DiRT Rally, it appears that game making giants Polyphony Digital have secured a deal to have the Pikes Peak Hill Climb event licenced exclusively for their games in the foreseeable future, preventing an appearance in title's such as the DiRT series, which featured Pikes Peak as recently as 2015's immensely popular DiRT Rally.

First let's give you a bit of background on the event itself. The Pikes Peak Hillclimb event has been a semi regular fixture on the American and international racing scene since hosting it's first event back in 1916. The race takes place on almost 20km of twisting and winding roads consisting of no less that 156 turns. As is the case in hill climb events, the stage gradually winds itself up hill until reaching a height of 14,110 feet at it's very summit - so it's pretty steep, it's pretty challenging and it's pretty popular.

Nowadays the Pikes Peak highway is fully paved as apposed to the full and part gravel, part tarmac affairs that characterised earlier runnings of the Colorado race. With each yearly event hosting on average well over 100 competitors in a wide variety of machines and classes, the race can be considered a popular event, although still nowhere near achieving the international recognition received for such classics as the Daytona and Le Mans 24 Hour, Dakar, Nordschleife or the Indy 500 for example.

So why exactly have Polyphony Digital gone out and secured the rights to a track that most developers aren't exactly knocking on the door to secure in the first place, and what does this mean for future trends in sim racing if a particular track can be locked down for exclusive use in a specific sim? Nothing good that's for sure...

We are all no doubt aware of the negative press surrounding Porsche / EA Sports exclusivity debacle that has kept the famous German brand away from decent racing games these past few years, same with the Codemasters lock down on the Formula One licence, but has this happened in relation to a specific circuit before? *

Not to the best of my knowledge it hasn't, and for me this is a worrying sign of how things could progress in the coming years as the almighty dollar takes precedent over what's best for the sim racing genre as a whole.

Sim racing games, as in any commercially sold goods, works or services, can claim competition from rival development projects as one of the main motivations behind continually improving and enhancing their own products. The same applies to the content contained within those games. Without competition one can easily succumb to complacency and in those kinds of situations nobody wins. Content locked down under an exclusivity deal (in this case Pikes Peak) doesn't get represented across a wider audience base of different games, fans lose out on playing that specific piece of content in their simulators of choice, and of course no one has the need to push themselves in order to go that little bit further to achieve acknowledgement that their version is indeed the most satisfying and most accurate of those available. One only needs to look at the legendary Nordschleife as a perfect example of this. Just imagine if game x secured an exclusive licence for the track, we wouldn't then have the laserscanned Assetto Corsa and RaceRoom editions we enjoy today, or the extra special levels of detail and emotion that have gone into bringing this gigantic circuit to our favourite games.

So why then have Polyphony Digital, a development studio not exactly renowned for making off road racing games, seen fit to wrap up a licence to use the track exclusively in Gran Turismo, depriving such title's as DiRT Rally from continuing to feature the track in their future games? Honestly I've got no idea.

Gran Turismo has featured loose surface racing in past iterations of the series of course, however it's only ever really played at the dirty stuff, never actually having gone full out and produced a competent rally style simulation. So why the need to tie up a deal for Pikes Peak? Could this mean moves are afoot to branch out into rally racing in the coming year?

Actually that's not as long of a shot as it would first appear.

So could the licencing move by Polyphony be a first step towards seeing a standalone rally product from the developers, or at the very least an early indication that the Japanese studio might be looking to substantially increase off road content in future Gran Turismo releases? Well with the currently in development GT Sport marking a substantial shift in direction from previous games within the franchise, we now know Polyphony are perhaps more inclined to mix things up a bit compared to what was previously the case, so the timing could well be right for a change.

Many virtual drivers have been vocal about the quality of recent GT releases, and with greater competition than ever before in the form of fresh console games Assetto Corsa, Project CARS and the new for 2018 GTR3, perhaps the studio are looking to broaden their horizons in a quest to maintain the enviable position atop of the racing game pile Gran Turismo still maintains.

If GT now and in the future just want to bring Pikes Peak over to their game and decided the best way to do this would be to lock down the venue on a exclusivity agreement with the studio, then I think that's a rather sad outcome for sim racing as a whole, and something of a rather over protective move by the Japanese development team. One thing is for sure, with dedicated off road sims such as the DiRT series and Sebastien Loeb Rally having been denied the opportunity to replicate this monstrous event in future releases, whatever Polyphony do with the licence I hope they make it worth it.


*to the best of my knowledge exclusivity agreements with specific tracks outside of series licences haven't happened before. Despite my research however I could quite easily be wrong!

Gran Turismo 6 is the current latest title from Polyphony Digital. GT Sport is scheduled for release during 2017 for Sony PlayStation 4.

View attachment 171120 View attachment 171121 View attachment 171122

Don't forget to check out the Gran Turismo Series sub forum here at RaceDepartment to keep abreast of all the latest news and discussion around these racing games. We have a dedicated section for GT6 and for the upcoming Gran Turismo Sport release, so stay tuned for all the information as and when it becomes available.

Are you pleased to see the exclusive licence to use Pikes Peak has been secured by Polyphony Digital? Do you thing the move to licence a particular event is in the best interests of sim racing? Do you expect Polyphony to make produce an impressive version of the stage? Let us know in the comments section below!

So now we’re 7 years in the future and nobody has seen a single light on the horizon. No Pikes Peak at all not from Polyphony or someone else (because it’s impossible I know) but why the heck have you done this polyphony and now you’re doing nothing sitting on the license for nothing because what, it’s nice to have… this isn’t fair!

Just go on and do something or please at least sell it to someone who actually cares enough about to deliver a decent product to us who really loves the pikespeak race!!