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The notification flashed into my peripheral vision as I raced through the streets of Baku in a Formula 1passing in front of the monuments and minarets of the capital of Azerbaijan, the flags of the country and the billboards, all blurred to perfection.
“SCToken unlocked“, read the notification. I had no idea what that meant. I had downloaded F1 22 – the latest chapter in a long series of sports simulation video games that I have been experimenting with occasionally for decades – without delving into the new features of the Formula 1 title. I imagined that the cryptic message had somehow to do with the blockchain . As fast as you can go – I thought – you cannot escape the NFT.
In fact, the message marked my entry into what the game’s developers have dubbed the “F1® Life”. It is not about NFT, but about traditional ones in-game unlockable items, which can only be obtained through your skills or by paying with real money (which are converted to “PitCoin”, the in-game currency of F1 22). Although initially I was blown away, the more I thought about it, the more it began to make sense; as a sport: Formula 1 has always been at the mercy of commercial interests, and it was only natural that its official video game would do the same.
F1® Life
For my efforts – which mainly consisted of driving at full speed in a number of different landscapes – I was rewarded with a token that allowed me to unlock a supercar for my avatar’s virtual showroom. There are eight to choose from: McLaren, Ferrari and Aston Martin, models, in various neon shades that could trigger a seizure. They’re the kind of car you see in YouTube videos shot with a GoPro mounted on a selfie stick held too low, or that Formula 1 drivers could drive between sponsor engagements.
The requests for “F1® Life” are many and varied. A virtual garage requires a apartment – a minimalist hole – and a virtual wardrobe, which must then be customized. You can choose between anonymous decor and abstract works of art, or else create a pilot in his own image and likeness and spruce it up with Beats headphones and leisure wear branded (there are thousands of possible combinations, yet in one way or another all drivers end up looking like a cryptocurrency influencer on Instagram flying to Dubai, echoing the aesthetics of F1 with incredible precision). You can also invite friends and strangers to your virtual apartment to admire your own range of branded or officially licensed products: a disturbing preview of what the metaverse is destined to become.
Microtransactions and useless skins are nothing new, but they are usually incorporated with a little more effort into games. Beyond a few limited occasions during the season where it is possible to drive supercars on the track (such as the Pirelli Hot Laps challenge), there are few cases in which PitCoins have a practical or even a visual impact within the gaming experience.
The strengths of the game
Fans of the series could pin the blame on Codemasters, the developer of the game that was recently acquired by Ea, the undisputed kings of unscrupulous strategies for monetizing titles. Reviews argue that this is the only downside to a otherwise solid, visually appealing, and rewarding game, which succeeds in the rare feat of being accessible to newcomers without alienating hardcore fans, thanks to a wide range of customizable difficulty and assistance settings. You can activate all the functions and be guided smoothly to victory with the same ease with which you would go around your block, or deactivate everything and crash into the back of Yuki Tsunoda’s car when you don’t hit the braking point at the first corner (with all options in between).
Excessive fidelity?
It is likely that “F1® Life” will only increase the likelihood of the simulation. Formula 1 has often linked its popularity as much to the circus that surrounds it as to the sport itself. The human element was what made the sport so compelling in the 1970s, thanks to the rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt (brought to the cinema by Rush), and so boring during Sebastian Vettel’s four years of rule in the 1910s. This is why the sport has experienced a renaissance after the release of the series Drive to Survive on Netflix, which focuses on personal rivalries. “F1® Life” manages to restore this aspect in some way, although perhaps not as the developers had imagined: instead of adding a touch of glamor, the modality integrates the empty consumerism that surrounds (and finances) sport into the game.
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