rFactor is a motor racing video game that runs on PCs, it is an accurate simulation, rather than an arcade game. And it has gained a formidable reputation despite not coming from a major publisher and so not having massive marketing support.

rFactor is probably the most accurate motor racing simulator there has ever been. The attention to detail is phenomenal, hardly surprising when the developer, Image Space Incorporated (ISI), come from a background of developing simulators for commercial and military use.

Here are some features that I like:

* Distributed mainly online. Little old fashioned cardboard and plastic distribution.
* Really brilliant physics, the best of any racing game to date.
* Does not require the latest and most powerful PC. Just a 1.4 GHz processor CPU, 512 MB of RAM and 128 MB of video RAM.
* Lots of tools released by the developers to the users.
* Extremely modifiable and extend-able.
* Which in turn means that there is masses of user generated content, add ons and mods. A staggering amount.
* There is a really strong and active global community supporting the game.
* Well organised and extremely popular online play.
* Realism, realism, realism. No other racing game comes remotely as near to the real thing.

ISI have done many of the things I have written about on here before and as an online niche publisher with massive community input they are a great pointer to the future of video games.

It is a fundamental aspect of human nature that most people will steal something if there is no danger of getting caught. And this is what has happened to the recorded music industry. Most music residing on MP3 players in the world is stolen, it has been downloaded over the internet using peer to peer filesharing. In fact most young people today think that it is quite normal and acceptable to steal in this way and they kick up a fuss when someone tries to stop them.

With the advent of broadband this stealing spread to movies. So now every movie is available online before it is in the cinema. And many millions of people are regularly stealing from the film industry. To these thieves it is the acceptable norm.

Which brings us to games. To a large extent these have the DRM protection of being on a console. Where this breaks down, as in boxed PC games, the market is decimated and the supply of new products dwindles to a trickle. http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/04/23/game-piracy/

The thieves make lots of excuses for their thieving. Such as the fact that one incremental copy does not cost the producer anything. But they miss the fundamental moral point that they are benefiting from another person’s work without contributing towards it. And if everyone steals, then who will pay for new music, films and games to be made?

The only way to stop this stealing is to stop the illegal traffic on the internet. It currently comprises well over a half of all internet traffic, so widespread is the stealing. The French have introduced a law that thieves will have their internet connections stopped if they offend repeatedly. This approach is what a lot of governments and a lot of the industries involved want. So if it works in France it will be rolled out to other countries.

This stealing is not victimless, the recorded music industry has been decimated, the film industry is suffering from a huge loss of revenues and the games industry has just about deserted several gaming platforms. All this means people losing their jobs and less content being produced.

In the UK the creative industries contribute £112.5 billion (or 8%) to the economy and provide 1.8 million jobs. It has been researched that half of this is at risk from illegal file sharing. So something has to be done. Peer to peer downloading is the biggest epidemic of theft in the history of mankind. The law has not kept up with the technology and everyone will be a lot worse off until it does.

Last week at the IGDA meeting in Leamington Spa I saw a presentation and then a demonstration of 3D gaming from Andrew Oliver and Aaron Allport of Blitz games. Most of us are familiar with old B movie 3D, with cardboard blue and red glasses. Well technology has moved on a long way since then and we are at the cusp of it going mass market.

Just now the movie industry is producing 3D films at an unprecedented rate. Partly because they now can, with digital distribution and digital movie projection. And the TV manufacturing companies are switching to a variety of 3D technologies in their latest models. So there is a groundswell out there and gaming will be a part of it.

Blitz have developed proprietary 3D software that enables 3D games to work on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. There were a number of hurdles to overcome in the sheer amount of information that needs to be delivered to the screen, so these consoles are being stretched to their absolute limit. It is only with the next generation of consoles that the power will be there to do 3D easily and well across all game genres.

The 3D game I saw was using active glasses and was far more effective than the old coloured lens technology. And the results were deeply impressive. It was like going to the theatre having only previously seen the cinema. The whole experience was vastly more immersive. And as this is one of the things we strive for in gaming Blitz would appear to be on a winner with their technology.

I am told that the journalists who have tried this have written it up very positively but then their readers have responded with very negative comments. This is because you really are in no position to form a judgement on the experience till you have tried it yourself.