GT Academy: Middle East Announced by IGN

No sooner have the four GT Academy competitions reached their conclusions than a new chapter of GT Academy is announced – and with Dubai long being the ultimate destination for GT Academy winners it should come as no surprise that the emirate is involved.

GT Academy Middle East starts at the GAMES12 convention at Dubai Festival City from September 20th-22nd with a wildcard competition. Shortly after that, Middle East gamers from eligible territories will get the chance to download a standalone GT Academy game, much as with the four GT Academy regions have already experienced this year. The 16 fastest gamers in the online test will be joined by 9 wildcard gamers from regional events like GAMES12.

These best 25 gamers will face a series of regional head-to-head gaming challenges to whittle the field down to eight before the familiar Silverstone final in March 2013 tests their fitness, personality and driving ability to determine a single winner.

Eligible territories are those within the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – and you can already find the event being discussed in our forums.

With thanks to Vette_Drift for the quick tip. Image courtesy of ShadowPeter.

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Comments (67)

  1. COLOSAL TOSSLE

    lol..lol..lol…none of your own thoughts allowed either…i wouldnt want to lose there….eewww..it would hurt!!!..

  2. SpeedyChilean

    I can see it now: Running a nurburgring race and you are in 4th like 10 seconds behind the leader. You get to the final straight and suddenly all 3 cars in front of you start saudi drifting down the straight and you pass them all for the win.

  3. Zuel

    With this news of another GT Academy event accounted is just proof that GT5 was nothing more than another test bed like GT Prologue. With more of the focuses on street cars rather than race cars due to the pleas from some many fans, now most of those fans are pleading again for more DLC car’s and tracks. Let’s see if there is another failing job with GT6. GT Academy hasn’t failed so far from what I can see.

    1. MeanElf

      What are you whittering on about? GT5 a bigger GT5 prologue – sorry but I don’t think your head is on straight. GT5, ignoring for a second its long development cycle, represents a lot of work, too much to be considered a ‘testbed’. It’s a game with added features such as the Academies.

      I am lost for words beyond that…

    2. Zuel

      Not a test bed, a very good test bed at that. Now where should I start, 1000 plus STREET cars that should have never been added to GT5, the countless items that were left out due to the 1000 plus standard, the fan base that cried for those cars are now crying for more DLC street cars to max out to run as a flawed race car and tracks. The number of Drag, Comfort Simulator, Street PP, Dirty NASCAR, Any car and countless other of rooms running on a maxed out car format then detuned. You show me one true motorsports open lobby that run on the bases of true performance and not the flawed PP system. Yes there are controlled series that are private and yes people are going to play the way that they want to. BUT 99.9% of all the cars are maxed out right, right. Now I say again “ A very good test bed”

      People will agree and disagree, though look at the other sim’s on the market and compare the car, track and motorsport bases.

    3. Tvensky

      I can say race cars should not be added in GT series in that case!

      I really mean that :) , but people who like them will and should disagree!

    4. MeanElf

      Ah, I see – but that’s just people and not PD/GT5’s fault for what those people want to do with it. GT has always been about street cars, so I’m not seeing a problem with the 1000+ normal cars in game. If folks want a sim version of NFS for tuned to the max races, that’s their call.

      There are plenty of groups using GT5 to race properly, without maxed out everything. The PP system is what we have to work with. It could be fairer but that’s all we have.

    5. Zuel

      Yes GT has always been about street cars. Taking your street car to the track learning the car and the track, building you STREET CAR INTO A RACE CAR, adding race body/race motor (RM). I remember this in the first GT now where is it? We only have a few cars to RM and what people call street/race car buy maxing them out and add body aero parts that don’t work. I need say no more.

    6. Zuel

      The only thing I can truly say PD has done with GT5 was to have us as test drivers, to give Sony boost in sales by teaming up with Nissan to make GT Academy to find talent to help them get another foothold on the GT racing classes like they did mid 70’ to mid 80’s.

    7. MeanElf

      So it’s the lack of race modification feature for all cars you’re on about. I don’t know why it’s not there – I don’t build games for a living but I imagine it’s something to do with that – certain choices made are traded against others.

      You are only now complaining about this? The game has been out for almost two years – if you bought it only recently, then I think you should have researched it a little more thoroughly. We are all responsible for our own actions.

    8. Zuel

      I have had GT5 since launch, I know how long it been out and I have all the others as well. Like I said before I’ve been with GT since day one (PS ONE day’s), GT has lost meaning of true motorsports in so many ways besides the forming of GT Academy which show cases MOTORSPORTS. GT should now fall in the line of SUPER TUNER cars, that’s all you see nothing more nothing less, unless you count the few of us that know a thing or two about true motorsports.

    9. MeanElf

      Okay, that’s a bit clearer now – it wasn’t at first.

      Yes, I saw what you said about GT1 but I didn’t know if you had bought GT5 recently or not, hence my question.

    10. Maddens Raiders

      “I have had GT5 since launch, I know how long it been out and I have all the others as well. Like I said before I’ve been with GT since day one (PS ONE day’s), GT has lost meaning of true motorsports in so many ways besides the forming of GT Academy which show cases MOTORSPORTS. GT should now fall in the line of SUPER TUNER cars, that’s all you see nothing more nothing less, unless you count the few of us that know a thing or two about true motorsports.”

      So much rubbish in such a poorly constructed, run-on paragraph. When are you haters gonna give it up..? No matter how much you visit this site and try to convince the world that Gran Turismo 5 sucks, it’s not going to work. You have failed and are failing. Pitiful.

    11. grazbro

      Exactly. I wonder how many of them will make it to the final 16 using a controller on a driving sim? That’s why these things have no credibility.

  4. Rage0329

    Perhaps it’s just me but really none of the news has interested me lately, the only news I really want to see out of PD is the ’13 SRT Viper as DLC.

  5. Maddens Raiders

    Gran Turismo Forever. Push it to every corner of the Earth I say and then some. Kaz & PD have created the greatest console racer known to man and there’s no denying it. Also for you people mentioning Flopza 4 in a GT thread goes to show how mad you truly are…and I mean every definition of the word mad. Don’t stop though…we love the lulz.

    1. Maddens Raiders

      It’s ok. No need to get mad because an incredibly large amount of people disagree w/ your staked out position. Really.

    2. mobiletone

      i have both games and GT5 got stale pretty quickly after i finished all the A and B Spec races, At least Forza has decent AI and allows you to race against other tuned cars in the Events list and has decent close racing, GT5 you can buy yourself a win in every race. i also prefer the handling model in Forza when everything is set to Simulation, the tyre physics on GT5 are a joke. GT had the lead still with GT4 (best game of the series) but lost the plot with 5.

      Also, i get Forza Horizon this year, and PD drops GT Academy!? i know what i’ll be buying. I’ll probably still buy GT6 when the PS4 comes out and be crossing my fingers that Kaz-san hasn’t ballsed it up even more.

    3. Maddens Raiders

      ^ I know it’s hard to deal w/ facts sometimes because they are afterall, facts, but people the globe over have seemingly disagreed w/ you two blokes by using their brains and their wallets by nearly 4:1.

      GT5is the Console Sim King bar-none. 15 years running (on whole) as a matter of fact.

      http://www.vgchartz.com/game/7678/gran-turismo-5/

      http://www.vgchartz.com/game/45656/forza-motorsport-4/

      No matter how badly you want it to be so…… it just isn’t true. GT5 is #1.

    4. MuoNiuLa

      @Madden: Yeah, because sales determine how good a game is. Stop being ridiculous.

      And I’m mad? I’m not the one who has so much hate for a series that I have to bash it by using corny names like “Flopza.” Nice try though.

      Keep living in La-la land. I’m done.

  6. LR-MR-Cole

    all hope is gone for this game. all focus is officially on gt6 and it better BLOW me away but they will need more that a veloster turbo, silverstone and bathhurst to do that after the disapointment of gt5. gt5 is toast and forza is cooking and is the ign guy looking at the camera or the driver

    1. Pit Crew

      IMO, I would be foolish to point out GT5s negatives in every blog Jordan/Famine creates, even if the topic of complaint fails to apply to the initial subject matter.

    2. MeanElf

      “…is cooking and is the ign guy looking at the camera or the driver”

      One pupil is looking at the driver, the other is looking straight ahead – use your own eyes and you’d see that ;)

  7. justquality

    for who may be a lil ignorant just see us all on here as a driver we need to beat! more people racing, more competition to beat! look forward to GT Academy around world! see how good each region is!

  8. justquality

    can not wait till they have all GT players competing and multiple leagues to keep rising up the ranks and pushing all machines to the limits as we do in the simulator.. but not to jump off topic, welcome to the great world of autoracing GT style ^_^

    1. notStig

      It could take a loooong time. Maybe in GT7?
      Unfortunatly some companies (and some musical bands) only seem to remember us when they want some extra cash or when they are near the end of their lives. Maybe we could get some attention now that the world cup and olympics are both in Brazil…

  9. Xamado7V

    Nice 370Z photo (Top)

    All I have to say is, Who actually cares?!

    GT Academy Middle East?! Seriously??

    *pffft*

    Arabic GT Academy…just a little lol…

    1. Sphinx

      Who cares? How about the Middle East for one. This is an international site, or do you think we should just cater for little old you.

    2. Famine

      Also Nissan does. The Nissan SUV and 4×4 range sells in numbers you’d scarcely believe – it’s no coincidence they did the global launch of the Patrol in Abu Dhabi… And guess where most of the Juke-Rs are going when they’re built?

      Remember, one of the functions of GT Academy is to find an ambassador for Nissan in each territory (alongside being a good enough racing driver to win major international championships in your rookie year).

  10. Turkey :D

    I can guarantee you there are more supercars in the Middle East than Canada or Australia. They’re tapping a huge market there.

    1. jd42

      Ok and…. many of them also end up totaled as proof shown on wreckedexotics.com. many of those cars are wrecked and left abandoned. It was even on that had ran out of gas the owner just left it when it was found it had all but been basically covered by sand. So..it doesn’t take taken to destroy what may of us normal people could only dream of.

    1. Lambob

      I didn’t try too hard to win top rank for the GT Academy sessions a few weeks ago, because had I won, I know I’d get a cease and decist letter from Lotto Quebec telling me I can’t accept the win. So yeah, pretty much everywhere else my friend.

    1. kogunenjou

      Sorry, sorry. I thought I had read a bunch of comments about Australia getting left out during the GT Academy this year.

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