To Elias, a high schooler with a budget of zero and a passion for flat-out speed, it looked like a miracle. To the internet, it was a siren song. "One click," he whispered.

The immersion was instant. The gravel sprayed against the undercarriage with a metallic ping-ping-ping , and the force feedback jerked his arms as the car fought for grip on the mud. He was flying. He wasn’t a kid in a cramped bedroom anymore; he was a rally god taming a 500-horsepower beast through a tunnel of pine trees. But then, the screen stuttered.

Elias gripped his budget steering wheel, the plastic humming as the game launched. The title screen surged with the roar of a turbocharged engine. He skipped the tutorials and jumped straight into the driver's seat of a Lancia Delta S4 in the middle of a Welsh forest.