I don't really understand how you're equating this with automotive and racing enthusiasm.
Video games have nothing to do with futurology. They're entertainment, that's it. They are a way for players to escape the troubles of reality by doing whatever they want, be it fantasy worlds or battle or hearing the sound and passion of race cars we'll never be able to drive.
Unfortunately PD seems to have partnered with several car companies, all of whom
do have something to do with futurology, as they're not in the business of entertainment, they're in the business of selling products that comply with ever-stringent government regulations which are not compatible with a fantasy world full of the loud fire breating race cars of yore. All these car companies are currently wrestling with how to market products which are basically fake sports cars, and this particular car is Hyundai's first attempt. PD is partnering with these companies in a marketing exercise basically to see how real car enthusiasts react to cars like these. They're allowing the car brands to push their agenda within the game and gathering data in the process. I find that pretty ridiculous and an offensive waste of resources, as I didn't buy and play the game as some sort of marketing experiment, I bought it to be entertained.
Another layer to this is that as the car industry evolves rapidly and governments go to war against sports cars and race cars, these vehicles are going extinct at an alarming pace. Not only do we enthusiasts want to be entertained and distracted from the fact that we may only have a decade left to buy a new Miata that sounds and feels like a Miata, but PD could also treat us to a history lesson as they've done with some cars in the game, and make an effort to preserve all sorts of cars in a digital realm. Cars that are harder to find to day than a new Lamborghini hybrid, because most of them have rusted away in junkyards or been tucked away in collections. Classic cars that
don't cost $20 million (another ridiculous nod to a reality we all have to face) like old kei cars and various things that have appeared in previous games but aren't included anymore. PD could have a defacto digital database of automotive preservation which sounds extremely entertaining to me. If I want to see a new Lambo or a new EV all I have to do is go downtown. Seeing a 1985 crapbox from Japan is a different story. Seeing a Group B rally car that pits fire is a different story. Hell, seeing first-gen Toyota 4Runner with no rust holes is a whole different story.
Another problem is that cars like the Ioniq N are basically just results of midguided government freak-outs. Attacking sports cars, a miniscule market segment which consumes a fraction of a percentage of the automotive industry's resources and produces an even smaller amount of its emissions, and race cars which are a tinier fraction still, is a ridiculous injustice that is not truly driven by data. It's driven by emotional reaction and political greed. These tiny market segements are easy targets with small but passionate fanbases, so forcing them to evolve
looks like progress on a campaign ad but actually is an example of the minimum effort being taken by regulators and corporations while also pissing off as few consumers as possible. It's a farce. They're literally lying to our faces - sports car don't need to go electric at all because there aren't enough of them to matter, but school buses and semi trucks and ocean liners and millions upon millions of faceless grocery getters could all go electric with minimal backlash because they are primary contributors to emissions and there is zero passion attached to any of them. If they actually gave a damn about data and reason they would realize these tiny markets are a drop in the bucket. Their fanbases might be small, but they are passionate enough to mount counter-movements like SEMA and PRI, the latter of which I'll be attending this year. I've donated my money and time to supporting the Performance Racing Industry political movement, have you? Or are you not interested in data-driven regulation rather than politics for politics sake?
As for PD's contribution, I'll use this example because on the surface it seems ridiculous but it's pretty apt. We could be entertained by an extremely rare vehicle which began a whole new era of affordable and reliable capability and which lead to the rise of automotive enthusiasts using their vehicles to explore the wilderness. A whole new era of man and machine, a celebration of mechanical toughness, a tool for enjoyment and engagement, one of many definitive examples of automotive enthusiasm. And the foundation this vehicle laid continues to grow today as one of the most popular market segments that attempts to express the freedom of owning a cool, fun, capable vehicle. I've got one of this vehicle's successors sitting in my driveway next to my sports car, in fact. We could've had this historically significant machine:
Instead, we're getting a government-mandated corporate marketing experiment with
fake gears. By submitting to Hyundai and including the Ioniq N, PD is enabling the political farce that is destroying sports cars and race cars and replacing them with refrigerators and I find that highly offensive.
