Parenting and the driving game

Recently I have started to let Abe play a driving game that I have called Burnout Paradise. He sits on my lap and we take turns. My turn is always about 30 seconds and his a few minutes. I would let him play the whole time, but I can't pass up on a solid opportunity to learn to share and also I want to make sure he understands that it is an activity that we do together.

Burnout is an open world driving game and so we just hop into a vehicle and we don't do any races; we just driving around the city. You would think that playing a driving game, a parent could kind of shut down their parenting for a few minutes and just enjoy the fun, but that isn't the case at all. Abe loves the driving game, but more than just driving around, he loves driving that car straight into walls and other cars. He loves crashing. I have to wince as he just speeds up and rams, head-on into other cars, buses, and any solid wall he can find. Every time he crashes, he is penalized with a 3 second load and a brand new car to smash into the next city bus he comes across.

Now, my instinct is to tell him to drive within the lines and quit hitting cars, but I remind myself that it's a video game and he should just have fun. Should I reinforce real rules within a virtual world or can my kid discern? As I have time to think about it, I want to say my opinion is that I shouldn't try to subject my child to real world rules in a virtual environment because that is treating it as real and it should be treated as a game and nothing more. Driving games can certainly be a teaching tool (especially more simulation type games that really feel like driving), but for now if Abe wants to trash his virtual car, I will just be glad I don't have to pay the insurance.