Sony: GT Academy round two ruined by cheaters, won't count

by Randy Nelson on Feb 8th 2011 12:00AM

Sony's GT Academy competition, which was intended to provide the world's best Gran Turismo 5 players with a chance to win a spot as a real race driver using their virtual driving skills, has hit an ugly speed bump. The game's publisher has announced that the second round of the five-round tournament is being stricken from the records -- and the third round delayed -- because some participants were taking advantage of flaws in the game in order to achieve seemingly impossible lap times.

Specifically, cheaters were able to cut corners on the Rome and Madrid courses without being penalized by the game for doing so. Rather than reward the cheaters or end the competition entirely, Sony has decided to allow everyone who participated in round two to proceed to round three. Developer Polyphony Digital says that it's working to fix any potential exploits before conducting the third round of races, but can't put an ETA on the completion of the patch. That being the case, the planned start of round three on February 14, 2011 has been delayed indefinitely.

We're glad that the competition is (hopefully) being made fair for everyone, but have to admit that it would have been pretty funny to see one of the "winning" cheaters cutting corners on a real race track.

Via: GTPlanet
Source: Official Gran Turismo site

Tags: cheating, competition, Gran-Turismo-5, GT-Academy, gt5, playstation, polyphony-digital, ps3, sony

Reader Comments (40)

convenient to call them cheaters.

@Jack Kevorkian i just call them douchebags.

@Jack Kevorkian

also convenient its not on valentines day

@DokiDokiBawanga I call them douchealouches

@Jack Kevorkian

WTF. Do you know what convenient means?

@PR0F3TA I sure do. Its convenient to call it cheating 4 or 5 during an article instead of calling a spade a spade. Its a failure of the game on a major sponsored event. I am sure Nissan is thriled that their product line is now associated with cheating.

@Jack Kevorkian
It's not cheating at all. They are simply playing the game in a way to get the best possible lap time. It's 100% the game developers fault if they think this screws up their contest.

If the exploits are there, then its their own fault - but true, no one should benefit in this kind of competition from doing so.

If only PD had assessed the tracks fully before starting this tournament, ie. their QA dept doing their jobs, they would have known about these exploits and stopped it from happening.

Ahh well - can't win em all.

Hate to be that guy, but THEY HAD SIX YEARS

@DigitalFortress
Does QA still exists? because it seems that this gen. every game that comes out has to be patched on day one. Ever since the ability to patch games has been available games come out worse and worse.

@Unvrfd

I'm glad I didn't have to be that guy. I came in here intending to be that guy. Thanks for beating me to it. Yes, they had 6 years to get the obvious things right.

@Walo

Amen to that bro...this gen in my opinion is not better than last gen....the amount of patches and glitches and flaws in games is astronomical and they don't care because they can just send a patch update whenever they please to "fix" the bug...smh It only gets worse from here onward....but their are some developers that don't have this issue because they take their time with games.

@nesinvaders

Good thing they realized this and, instead of being lame they did something smart and acknowledge a mistake they made that enabled people to gain an advantage that isn't in the spirit of the competition.

@nesinvaders

While using exploits in the game might not be considered technically 'cheating' its still giving an unfair advantage over other players by taking advantage of a glitch in the game. Reminds me of PC players in several online games i've played using glitches to take the advantage. Those players themselves are just noobs who need to take the advantage to win, and to me are classed as badly as hackers. Play the game the way it was meant to be played, play fair, on a level playing field like everyone else. Simple.

@nesinvaders
I agree with you. They're exploiters not cheaters. People exploit every system to their advantage.

Joke is on Sony for thinking their high stakes competition wouldn't be picked apart.

Still sucks for those that played legit but that's life. Truly.

Expecting people to be honest is like expecting a tree to grow an elephant.

@Foetoid

Could not have said it better myself. Here! Here!

Welcome to the world of competitive video gaming, where the "winners" generally 'win' by using game exploits.

I was at one time invested in Virgin Gaming with FIFA 10, I am a pretty good player in the level 29 range and I win most of my matches that I play online (I'd say at around a 4:1 W/L ratio)

Then I go and compete for some money on the virgin gaming site with players who generally have half my skill and rank, but use game exploits and issues to their advantage to win. I still ended up making some money and won more than I lost, but those couple of losses alone made me hate the concept of playing FIFA (and gaming) for money and I never went back. Not saying that everyone is a cheater, I legitimately lost about 4 matches to skilled and good conduct players, those matches were the most intense and fun, but were too far and in between.

Its just the damn exploiters and cheaters that made me hate it.

Just my .02 when it comes to competitive gaming for money, which in this case with GT academy is pretty similar.

I guess the MLG works because you're on TV, and its pretty hard to exploit bugs in a shooter on national TV.

@BoBsS

Just to clarify, the argument that "exploits are an issue with the game itself" is crap and only used by cheaters to defend themselves.

The spirit of competition, which in this case is both parties having an equal amount of money invested in winning is that neither side is to cheat or exploit technical flaws in the game.

If you believe using exploits to win, especially a game for money is right, then you don't understand the concept of competition or betting. Its up to luck, determination, and skill, not finding loopholes.

@BoBsS

Totally agree. People with that kind of mentality are bringing the country down. No sarcasm. Whatever happened to "I'll be the best by beating the best by training harder than anyone else?"

If you cheat, it proves you have a 3 inch penis. Scientifically proven.

@wallywallas

agreed with both of you... even someone like Lance Armstrong is cheating somewhat. I don't know if bud gives you a competitive boost underwater so Phelps is safe for now

@PR0F3TA

If anyone in this world is allowed to try smoking one time it should be someone who has trained 10 hours a day for his entire life and won 8 gold medals in one year.

It's an interesting debate, because on the flip side is Quake 2 and 3.

In quake 2 strafe jumping was unintended, and was by all accounts an exploit, but its skill to reward ratio was just perfect to the extent that ID intentionally included Strafe jumping in Quake 3 and it quickly became a staple of high-level competitive first person shooters in the last 1990's and early 2000's.

Exploits can sometimes add to the game and sometimes detract from the game, it all depends on the skill to reward ratio, an exploit that killed everyone on the map with little skill would naturally detract from game play, contrary to trick jumping in Q3 era FPS's.

I really don't agree with calling these people "cheaters" or even "exploiters". In real racing you take any advantage on the track you can get. These people took advantage of something on the track. Granted this wouldn't have worked in real life, but they were able to use it to their advantage.

To try to label them with a negative connotation for something that is Sony's fault seems pretty poor. Sony should be taking full responsibility for what has happened for not adequately performing QA on the track before using it in a major competition like this.

i dont get how they couldnt set it up to automatically DQ you like it does in special events or license tests when you go off track, hell even in practice mode if you go off track it doesnt count the lap

I'm so tired of people arguing that these people are not cheaters, they're "exploiters." The contest is this: get the best clock times you can within the boundaries of the rules of the game. One such rule is "stay on the track." If you go off the track, you cheated.

Arguing that the ability to go off track makes it legit is a facile argument. In football, I can punch a wide receiver in the solar plexus to keep him from catching the ball, but that doesn't mean I didn't break the rules (no pass interference).

Video gaming is the only so-called "sport" where people feel that the ability to cheat somehow obviates the illicit nature of cheating.

@JCDoe In real racing, if you drive off the road and cut corners you get a time penalty or disqualified. Is Sony not good enough at programming to implement that in GT?

My favorite racing type is Rally, so driving off road and cutting corners is a perfectly legit way of racing. If Sony disagrees, they can program in some penalties.

@AirIntake They do disagree, and they will program in penalties. Polyphony Digital did the poor job of testing the track properly, but that doesn't magically mean going off the track on a non-rally race is automatically OK.

It's about common sense. When people try to come up with silly technicalities ("I can PHYSICALLY do it without getting caught, so it's not cheating!"), they're just grasping for straws.

@AirIntake

Pointless Puppy is teh right. Polyphony Digital /did/ intend for you to stay on the track. They /did/ program the game to function in this way. People are cutting corner via a software bug, not via a legitimate, intentional function of the software.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you may. Athletes /can/ juice up on steroids. They just aren't /allowed/ to.

Bouncing off of walls and cutting corners with no penalty is a staple of Gran Turismo since the beginning. If Sony doesn't want players doing this, they can easily make the walls hurt more, and make cutting corners slow you down and damage the car.

The game was in development for ages, so Sony has no excuse for not having appropriate speed, damage or time penalties when driving off road or into walls.

@AirIntake Driving into walls disqualifies the current lap or if you are close to the finish line, disqualifies your next lap. Going off the track for like 5 seconds also disqualifies you. Going off track on some corners also disqualifies you.

@Kodros Then what is the issue?

@AirIntake The issues were software bugs. There were certain spots on the track at which the penalties weren't registering. The participants through trial and error and accident found these bugs and exploited them.

What made them proliferate is the ability to watch the replay of everyone else. So if someone accidentally finds a place at the track you can bounce off the wall and not get caught, it shows up on his replay. The smart participants watch the replay and incorporate this bounce into their own trails.

The reason this is a big deal is the end result of this competition is someone becoming a professional racecar driver for Nissan for at least one season. This competition is supposed to be narrowing down the 16 best candidates to be put into real Nissan 370's on a racetrack. You cannot use the wall in real life.

If this was just a virtual competition, I can see the exploits being ok, but the point of the competition is put someone in a real racecar.

In all honesty, even if they fix these exploits, the competition is still flawed. The quickest way around most tracks involve using a high speed drift. This will work in real life, but only for one or two laps. Then your tires are toast, literally.

This is why I gave up in the 1st round after reaching ~400th place. As an SCCA club driver, I'm not going to drive unrealistically. I can't wait to see the winners drive a real car. $10 says the first one puts the car into the wall on the first turn.

@Nich10solo If they don't want people drifting around the track, they can program in some realistic tire wear. I played games over 10 years ago that had that.

@AirIntake The tire wear in GT5 is only active in endurance races. But in the GT academy the time trials are only for 1 lap, so even if realistic tire wear was active it would not really matter. It's a flaw is the design of the competition.

I play GT5 a lot and enjoy it thoroughly, but I agree it should have been much better after 6 years of development.

I love racing games but when I watch replays of fastest times, usually it's because the player has some sick car and exploits game mechanics (cutting corners despite penalties is a common one).

If Polyphony Digital wanted to keep this real, then real racing rules should have applied. As mentioned previously, in real racing there are severe penalties for not staying on the track. The use of exploits to achieve top racing/lap times in video games is nothing new. PD should have known better.

@nesinvaders

No offense to you bro but its thinking like that that makes people do these "exploits" and think they are actually good at playing that game and thus deserve to win that round of the tournament. That is really shameful and takes all the fun away from the game. That is why games like call of duty are terrible.

@nesinvaders So just because everyone can do it, it's not "cheating"? That's terrible logic.

Cheating is basically not following the intended rules to do better in a game. You've got it backwards. If everyone does it, then EVERYONE'S cheating.

GT 5 just sucked i want my 64.96$ back please.

@nesinvaders
You're not very smart are you.

Gran Turismo 5

Sony: GT Academy round two ruined by cheaters, won't count

Reader Comments (40)

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 12:08AM Jack Kevorkian said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 12:11AM DokiDokiBawanga said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 12:18AM The BZA said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:24AM pandaSmore said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 5:26AM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 10:39AM Jack Kevorkian said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 3:19PM thenutman69321 said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 12:09AM DigitalFortress said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:19AM Unvrfd said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 8:17AM Walo said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 12:03PM c0bra95 said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:03PM Streeks1984 said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 12:22AM Credge said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:05AM Foetoid said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:15AM Mmmmz said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:17AM DigitalFortress said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:30AM BoBsS said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:34AM BoBsS said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 4:20AM wallywallas said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 5:29AM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 11:37AM eat it said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 9:21AM Fascia said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 9:34AM rchapoteau said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 9:43AM 2000GT said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 10:43AM JCDoe said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 10:47AM AirIntake said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:32PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:46PM JCDoe said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 10:44AM AirIntake said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 11:23AM Kodros said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 11:33AM AirIntake said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 3:27PM Nich10solo said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 11:04AM Nich10solo said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 11:12AM AirIntake said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 11:26AM Nich10solo said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 12:03PM StrangeDNA said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:07PM Streeks1984 said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 1:29PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Feb 8th 2011 5:28PM Resident Evil 6 Puppie Madness said

Posted: Feb 9th 2011 10:33AM VeeDeeVee said

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