21ST CENTURY DIGITAL FAN

ARE POSTER CARS A THING OF THE PAST?

5y ago
2K

As a youngster I didn’t have many posters on the walls. Ruins the paint so I’m told….parents eh?
Many of my friends however, did and in between the impossibly large frontaged Lara Croft and glamour shots of Pamela Anderson were cars. Or Sonic the Hedgehog.

It’s a boy thing mostly (though not exclusively). There comes a point when we all want a picture of a car on our wall. For one of my good friends it was a Lamborghini Countach. For another, a Ferrari F40. Both excellent choices except the one lad who had a Peugeot 205 GTI. I believe he’s since been assessed as predominantly blind. I not even sure where he found a poster of that!.
For me however it was two framed paintings. I know, how middle class right? The first was given to me by a close friend of the family. It depicted Donald Campbell’s Bluebird Land Speed Record car. The second was a painting of F1 cars that achieved podium results at Silverstone from 1995 to 2000.

There comes a point where we want a picture of a car on our wall

MH

The point here is - taste aside - we all did it. We all had images of cars on our walls in whatever guise. They inspired us, drove us and maybe even encouraged us to strive to do whatever it took to own or at least drive those amazing cars adorning our bedroom walls. Obviously not a viable option for me. I look about as well placed in a single seater as Donkey Kong in Mario Kart. Whatever. Time has moved on and a new generation of potential car fans has arisen with completely new ways of accessing information and entertainment. How then, can car makers and racing series attract new fans in the modern age? Particularly as 'traditional media' figures seem to be tumbling in certain areas and fans trackside also seem to be stepping away from particular types of racing for whatever reason.

Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt has often said that one of his goals has been to turn gamers into car fans and car fans into gamers. Is there not an additional side effect here? The ability to drive these iconic, aspirational cars in games is actually the modern day equivalent of a poster on the wall isn't it? I don’t think any of us really believe that driving a million pound Veyron in a game will in any way make us go out and buy one but is that the point? In terms of brand awareness it almost certainly does work. Look at the Nissan Skyline R32 or even the Subaru Impreza. Both fairly impressive cars in the own right but became part of what was dubbed the ‘Playstation generation’ of car enthusiasts and indeed owners. They developed the sort of cult status from the gaming community usually reserved for a slightly overweight Italian plumber with a penchant for mushrooms.

The Impreza and Skyline R32 developed the sort of cult gaming status usually reserved for a slightly overweight plumber with a penchant for mushrooms

MH

Increasingly we see game developers work directly with manufacturers to either jointly promote their products or to collect useful data for developing physics engines, tyre modelling and so on. Audi is a great example as they have worked closely with Forza Motorsport for a number of years and arguably some of their performance models are well within range of the gamer/future car owner with sufficient disposable income. There’s an element of developing brand loyalty something that is coveted by car makers and perhaps quite easily attained through the medium of racing games. Back in 2013 PriceWaterHouseCoopers estimated that in-game advertising was worth in the region of $2.8bn worldwide. The fact car manufacturers can probably spend significantly less on providing their vehicles for game use rather than in films will also play a major role in their choices.

Certainly contemporary features like Forzavista which allow the user to explore a car inside and out as well as pull up a host of facts and figures about their chosen ride in glorious detail will help develop brand awareness and potential demand from future buyers. Not everyone wants to - or can - hang around a cold race circuit or a corporate and often crowded car show awaiting a glimpse or a very rare close up moment with the car of their dreams yet in these new car based games it’s positively encouraged. The only thing you can’t do is leave sticky paw prints on the windows. Or lick them...I don’t recommend that, not even if you’re from Somerset. It’s a testament to the artists and developers that the cars now look so incredibly accurate and every tiny detail can now be replicated to concours levels of intricacy.

Does the digital car, then, becomes something to aspire to own or drive in the future? How many of these users actually do eventually own the car of their dreams is probably not all that high. I mean, how many of us average Joes are ever likely to own an Aventador? As I said before, maybe that’s not the point.

Perhaps it is more about having the chance to experience what it might be like to drive these amazing cars that in reality only a very few people ever will. It’s about getting a small insight as to what it might be like to hammer down the Mulsanne at 200mph in the dead of night, fly through a forest stage in a popping and banging rally car or even just cruising a beachfront in a million pound supercar. What will the ‘posters’ look like in another ten or twenty years? When you think of the advancement in VR technology even in the last year or so I can see a time when we really will be sitting in a virtual cockpit ‘driving’ whatever we can dream of and there being very little difference indeed to reality apart from the significantly smaller cost. Or fuel bills. Or risk of crashing.
Watch this area over the next 12-24 months. It’s a very exciting and interesting time to be a fan of cars.

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