Bug / cheat / hack, same ****.
Not necessarily it isn't. If the game's broken, the game is broken. If an "impossible" time is posted automatically by that broken game, this is not the same as deliberately using a glitch to cheat.
Even if it isn't automatically posted, earlier in the thread we hear how the game skipped a corner somehow. Clearly the guy didn't realise the time was impossible until after the fact.
One feature all Simbin games lack is any feedback that might tell you how good your lap is. Perhaps you think you know, but is 45 seconds, 47 seconds or 55 seconds good with a particular car / track....the simple fact is, if you don't know, you've little reason not to believe the game.
It's one of those things that if they thought "we write games" and stop kidding themselves that they're realistic, they might add a feature or 2 worth having.
wtf is going to know how fast you /should/ be able to go? Less so if the game is so badly written that it can give a silly time that isn't possible.
Are folk really supposed to analyse their own replays / times, find a forum somewhere to discuss the possibility it might not be valid with others before posting it? Common sense says that's not really a solution.
Assuming cheating because of a broken game is a fallacy. As is comparing cheating with what is entirely the fault of the game author.
Simbin always makes a farce of racing simply because they can't write solid code. It isn't as if this game engine is actually new. They should have figured out race 07's glitches by now given the number of times they've repacked or added to, it, calling it something new. They should have found a way of solving track cutting without manual intervention by communities.
After which, the times could then be trusted and legit. (Worse, but perhaps not for this game, many folk myself included who have paid for race 07, and read advertising and blurb from simbin talking up the online leaderboards it has can't even race to get on those leaderboards since afaict there is no way to do so)
Again, you can't imagine such a farce in a game that sold to more than the 50 people whose names they put in the game. But I feel cheated. I can see the mini challenge times at, say, brands hatch indy on simbin's leaderboard, but I can't post my own. Yet I paid for the game that advertised these boards as a feature of it. imo Simbin have a duty to provide the things they advertise as features.
Early Race pro TTs were similarly ruined (and probably still are wrt track cutting) and yes once accusations of cheating are thrown, whether it's the game or not. The bottom line is, the game isn't trusted...and if you can glitch 45.x seconds you could have glitched any slower time too...the idea that someone's 47.x is legit simply because it seems possible is obviously not necessarily true. As someone said, a clever cheat would post a time that was just quick enough...but even someone who isn't cheating may have got a faster time with the same glitch / bug, without realising it.
As I say the bottom line is, you can no longer trust the game or any of the times. Which is a pity for a racing game
Folks having to manually check laps in some communities (but if you imagine a popular game, with potentially thousands and thousands, if not millions of users this would just be completely impractical)
Of course, you can give away, free of charge, any old crap code you like, I guess. But if they seriously want to be players in the racing game market, they need to up their game, literally and, with the pun intended. It's frankly stupid to have a racing game where either your leaderboards aren't usable or where they can't be trusted. It makes it a farce that they even consider their game to be somehow a great simulation)
The game, and the leaderboards need to be trusted, not the people entering the competition. For obvious reasons.
Thankfully a handful of cheap prizes that nigh on everyone entering either owns, or doesn't really need (4 tyres, just provide your own car. Sheesh. Should have called it 4 tyres the game) largely makes this mess academic.
Potentially messy if there'd been something worth winning up for grabs though.