Real-life car ownership in real life isn’t fun without video game money cheat codes.
Many people around my age (20 and under) have played and dreamed of the perfect reality of having a collection of cars. It can’t be helped as most enthusiasts emerging now have grown up playing titles like Forza, Gran Turismo, and more especially in recent years.
Many games feature the concept of having more than one car. Most surface-level titles actually prefer the player to have a full arsenal of cars to choose from for specific use cases, plus to incentivize the player to use as much of the game’s collection as possible.
This combined with western influence of people owning cars at young ages or having several has definitely reshaped the newer enthusiast’s vision as to how ownership is.
But, aside from basic or advanced mechanical knowledge received from learning through car media, the actual mental hurdle of actually owning a car is super alien.
I mean, it definitely is for those who never owned a car before – there’s so many things to consider and live with that is hardly represented anywhere else.
I speak from a standpoint of co-owning and owning three cars before hitting the 2# age mark. I thought I’d be living the Forza Horizon or more accurately the old Gran Turismo dream (because all of my cars happen to be crapboxes that aren’t popular enough to be represented in newer games).
As different as an old and new-ish car is in terms of overall design and quality, they are generally the cars that enthusiasts want most. This appeal comes could derive from – viewership in games, movies, Tiktok / Instagram Reels, history, car media, the list goes on.
These cars being dated or will be dated when bought will all fare the same general issue – reliability.
Its a really common word, reliability, but what does it mean? A lot of us petrolheads do grasp the basic concept that any car is bound to break, and it will then have to be repaired. But how many said petrolheads, especially those who never owned a car before, actually understand it?
When you own a car, you will be reliant on it. If it does breaks down, is defected or for is unable to be used, you’re out of a form of transport.
Schedules affected, plans cancelled. On top of having your time spent (COE too in the case of Singapore), the additional inconvenience includes cost.
You could find something basic, common, and reliable and you will skip on most of the worry of heavy maintenance and bills, but those typically aren’t the poster cars enthusiasts want.
Make, model, trim, location of parts, shipping, currency differences, workshop charges, part shell-life – these are factors that either on paper are easy to choose and ignore, or are “everyday life” for owners which are rarely documented for fresh faces in the automotive space.
Many videos and games don’t portray it; like a restoration video, how can you make the viewer truly feel the months or years, sweat and tears, money and time spent? For a game, how do you make the player feel the part sourcing headache, downtime felt, repairs and more? (though video games might be able to do it in some genres)
Quoting Gabe Newell – president and co-founder of Valve, the company behind many titles like the Half-Life series: “I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun.”
These hard-reality aspects don’t get represented, which does greatly improve the flow and retention of the game. If a developer does add those hard elements (whose game doesn’t need it), it bores the player, dropping time spent or lowering the playerbase.
I think car ownership is more fun digitally – you enjoy the ups for the most part and you get to choose what car you want – the real world has it hard, definitely the hardest difficulty there is. Ouch.
~Efini
Read more: SG Archives: Lotus Elan SE (British Racing Green)
