People don’t care about leaderboards, says Blur dev

Blur lead designer Gareth Wilson has been commenting on one of the racing genre’s most obligatory features — the leaderboard — making a bold claim that, despite the appearance of leaderboards in nearly every game on the planet, the amount of people who actually care about being number one is minimal. Apparently, topping the leaderboard is a goal only a select few people ever strive for.

“I think the whole leaderboard thing is a bit of a red herring,” he explains. “I don’t think the majority of people really care that much about being number one in the world. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still going to have leaderboards of who’s the best on certain tracks. But PGR3 was a good example of this, you could download the world’s best ghost, and you could race against it and at the first corner, it’s gone. Mere mortals such as me couldn’t keep up with that sort of thing.”

Blur will make things a little more user friendly by allowing friends to send time attack ghosts to each other. By adding the ability to trade laptimes amongst those of a more comprable skill level, Bizarre Creation hopes that players will create their own personal leaderboards, giving them a lot more to care about. It’s a good idea for sure, and should pay off. Could make a great addition to our own Friday Night Fights. 

That said, how much do you care about leaderboards? Does being number one in a certain game get your rocks off? I reckon nobody cares about leaderboards unless they get to number one in something. Only then do leaderboards become important. I’m sure once they lose their position, gamers magically going back to not caring about them again.