Why Le Mans Ultimate’s upcoming joker system is controversial

Between the publishing of the Version 1.4 features, the US Track Pass and recording (earlier than release and under embargo) interview with Stephen Hood yesterday, the news was published, and the sim racing scene exploded, apoplectic with rage and fury.

Replies to Traxion’s social media posts and the general chat in our Discord were heated. The wider internet’s response was even more ferocious; even a cursory glance at X and Reddit and you’ll easily find disgruntled players.

Well, X and Reddit generally are always angry, but this was a new level, especially for a game that, while not without its quirks, has seen a groundswell of positive sentiment.

On the face of it, this looks like a significant misstep for one of sim racing’s leading lights.

What is the Le Mans Ultimate Joker system?

The joker system for Le Mans Ultimate is slated to arrive in the next game update, where a driver can select to wipe driver rank and safety rating from a particular (solo driver only) race.

Race results will remain unaffected. A joker can be played every 10 races, with a maximum of three held at any one time.

Could it be a useful feature?

Being disconnected from a race, and it impacting your ratings, can be just as frustrating as your team scoring a winning goal, only for a questionable VAR decision to rule it out.

You can put in the hard work, be leading the race, only for your equipment to let you down or Virgin Media to cut your internet. For the third time in a day. Ask me how I know…

So the joker system, temporarily setting aside concerns, could mean what feels like an “unfair” ratings drop is eradicated.

At the recent SimRacing Expo Charlotte, we chatted to a Le Mans Ultimate player who was trying to get a result reinstated after his game crashed towards the end of a race. A joker can’t eradicate this result, but it could have prevented a ratings dip which rubbed salt in the wounds, and without a lengthy dialogue with a busy development team.

It smooths over the constant complaints and aggravation caused by unfortunate hardware issues outside of the Studio 397 creation team’s remit.

Why are sim racers circumspect?

There are two elements to this.

The first being if you drive like an angry Dan Ticktum before crashing, then your Safety Rating deserves to be lowered. This is the fundamental nature of a competition system that tracks not just your results, but behaviour and relative performance.

Hypothetically, however, could someone use this system to drive aggressively, make mistakes, crash and then avoid a ratings hit? Theoretically, as it stands, it seems possible, unless there is some form of preventative system we’re not aware of. Naturally, your actions could be protested by any aggrieved drivers, too.

Further adding to the debate, however, is a paywall. Jokers will only be available to those with the RaceControl Pro and Pro+ subscriptions.

For those not familiar with these optional subs, they provide additional features over and above the base game. These include online championships, custom livery creation and incident protests, while Pro+ includes access to all paid downloadable content (provided you remain a member).

Pro is $48 per year, and Pro+ is $84.

This has led to the, and I think somewhat understandable, response of the joker system being ‘pay to win’.

Is it? Well, you are not buying a win per se, or a quicker car or altering race results. But you are purchasing a membership where one of the features is to artificially alter your driver and safety scores, or rather remove a negative impact, and these are directly related to the split you’re placed within.

Now, I happen to think it’s a stretch to say one joker every 10 races will mean the world’s best drivers then get entered into lower splits, but when it is estimated the majority of drivers are within one of the several bronze tiers, smaller changes could tangibly impact race lineups.

“The thing about the Joker – if it were for everyone, it’d be a regrettable idea that would go against any competitive system,” posted Spanish sim racing YouTube content creator Xabier Sánchez on social media.

“But the fact that it’s paid on top of that leaves me speechless, unable to find an adjective to define it.”

“Ask anyone out of the bubble about this joker system, and they would have been told: ‘ARE YOU MAD?’,” said Traxion Discord member Terje Helle.

Verdict, so far

I think the decision to create the joker system was based on generally good intentions to avoid frustrating moments when connections can drop out or direct drive wheels throw a wobbly.

I do have some concerns, however, that, perhaps due to Le Mans Ultimate’s relatively recent success, an element of hubris has snuck in. Did the development and publishing team consider the feature from an outside perspective enough? It doesn’t look like it, to me at least.

I’d like to see this feature removed from the paid tiers, and further consideration as to its rollout. Perhaps it could be seen as a ‘test’ or ‘beta’ feature in a limited number of use cases to gather feedback and tweak elements.

It would be best to avoid the sunk cost fallacy, where people persevere with a project due to the resource already spent despite possible harm, should the majority of the community dislike the feature.

With many other positive features in Version 1.4 on the way, and CEO Stephen Hood recently talking to Traxion about promising upcoming features such as the career mode, there’s still much to like about Le Mans Ultimate. Presently, however, this joker feature is overshadowing the great work elsewhere.

It’s not quite as unwelcome as the leader of the free world stood awkwardly during World Cup celebrations. But it could be if there’s radio silence. There’s still just under one week until the game update arrives for Le Mans Ultimate; Motorsport Games and Studio 397 would be best advised to make the most of the next seven days and consider their options.

Traxion has reached out to Motorsport Games for comment. We’ll update this article if appropriate.

Traxion recently conducted an interview with Motorsport Games CEO Stephen Hood, covering fundamental multiplayer changes, DLC pricing, console versions and community feature requests. We’ve released the whole interview on YouTube and Spotify.