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"How Forza overtook Need for Speed to become the world's biggest racing IP"

Theorry

Member
Fun read from GamesIndustry.biz.


Yet there were other titles that went the other way and performed beyond what was expected of them, and Forza Horizon 3 was one of them. Its 91 on Metacritic makes it one of the Top Five highest rated games of the year. It shifted more than 2.5m units in just three months and was one of the Top Ten best-selling games of the year in the UK.

"There was a moment, probably in July time last summer, where I took a build home and played it," remembers Hartman. "Typically I sit there with my notepad and scratch a bunch of feedback to give to the teams. After playing the game for a while, I realised I had only written one note... and I ended up crossing that out and not even sending it. The product was just singing at that point, and it was clear that the quality, the craftmanship, the polish... it was just incredible. We knew back at E3 we had a great game; we knew before that. But that was the moment for me, in about July, when I realised the bar it was going to hit."

Raeburn agrees that he knew the game was going to be well received, but was stunned by the eventual scores. "We were expecting high 80s on Metacritic, so to get 91 was fantastic. And the sales... they have been greater than any of us had hoped for."


The performance of Horizon 3 fired the Forza franchise into that exclusive $1bn club, which it has achieved over 9 games and 11 years. Yet, what's perhaps most impressive is not so much the sales numbers, but the franchise's level of consistency. With the notable exception of Forza Motorsport 5 (which was still rated highly, just not at the usual level), every Forza title has achieved either a high 80 or low 90 score on Metacritic. Commercially, the brand just seems to be getting bigger with each passing title. That's quite an achievement in a notoriously tricky genre, where games can over-perform and under-perform without any clear understanding as to why (just look at titles in the various F1 or Need for Speed titles). One popular theory is that gamers don't buy many racing games per generation - perhaps one or two at most. However, we now have four Forza titles on Xbox One that say otherwise.

"I've heard that kind of chatter in the industry around 'the demise of the racing genre'," Hartman says. "I just don't buy into it. When you look at the history of the genre, Gran Turismo - the grandfather of racing sims - it came in and did huge numbers. It was the No.1 selling franchise. Then there was the rise of Need for Speed, especially during the last generation and the generation before. You can look at those two franchises and where they are right now and say: 'Well, we've had a decline in the racing genre'. But at the same time, we've done great in the last 15 years. We've been growing the franchise, growing the business."


Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt continues: "At the launch of Xbox One and with Forza Motorsport 5, we really tried to hit the reset button on how we thought about building our games, and who we thought our customers were. [We] and Playground [looked at] how we talk to our players and why they're playing. We do that more than look at the competition. The mantra we had was 'shaping the future of automotive entertainment'. We care deeply about cars and car culture, and we care about games and the genre. So rather than thinking about it as a competitive set, we really started to think about where we wanted this to be in four or five years, and what steps do we take creatively to come up with new features like Rewind, Green Line, ForzaVista, Forzathon, Blueprint... there's great technology coming in both games. There's innovation across the boards that both games benefit from. That ideation is coming from a different place than what people expect.

"I get asked a lot about competitors and the genre and what have you. [For us] there's hardly any inspiration coming from that space - it's all coming from our longer term vision."


Both Greenawalt and Hartman say the introduction of Playground has changed things entirely for Forza. It was Turn 10's idea to develop a Forza spin-off franchise, and they had clear ideas over what that might look like, but then Playground went off and delivered something altogether more unexpected.

And this relationship is different to how, say, the Call of Duty teams work together. Those studios report to Activision, whereas Playground report into Turn 10. As a result they share ideas, technology and even processes.

"It is not your typical publisher/developer relationship because Turn 10 is a developer as well," Raeburn says. "We speak the same language. We work with the same tech base."

Hartman then adds: "You wouldn't believe that these two teams are half a world apart."


The reason Horizon existed, Greenawalt later explains, is that they looked at who they were missing with the Forza Motorsport series. The game appealed to people that liked cars and hardcore competition, but wasn't quite so appealing to those who were more keen on exploration.

Yet, what has surprised both teams is the sheer number of Forza fans that invest in both sub-brands.

"When you look at the pure motivations of players, you can sort of extract it from the racing genre and start looking at things like exploration, competition, single player vs multiplayer... and not just what they want to do, but why they want to do it," Greenawalt says. "When you get down to that level, you won't be very surprised to find that people who like cars, and like open world exploration, gravitate towards Horizon. People who really like hardcore competition and like cars, they gravitate towards Motorsport.

"But then you have this massive group that just goes towards both, because they like playing with a community who like cars. It is a lot more simple than... what I hear a lot is people talking about are sub-genres, and whether things are sims or arcade-style games, and a whole lot of things that just doesn't prove out in the motivations of our players, nor in the numbers. We have a tremendous number of players playing both."


It is particularly important for Microsoft. It's easy to forget that the motivations for a first-party developer is quite different compared with a third-party one. Forza is one of Xbox's biggest brands and Turn 10 one of its best internal studios (and by extension, despite being independent, so is Playground). Turn 10 was one of the first studios that experimented with Kinect, the studio's technology director is involved with DirectX and the studio has direct input in the hardware Microsoft produces. Greenawalt wouldn't confirm anything - "I love my job and would like to keep it," he says - but you'd be surprised if the studio hasn't been playing with VR and HoloLens and Project Scorpio. Playground, too, gets access to all these toys (Fulton calls it a "Ridiculous level of access"). That's another reason why regular Forza releases are important, because they showcase Microsoft's latest tools and technology.


I've pointed that out to several racing studios this year and the answer is always the same. They'll tell me how it's good for the genre because it generates excitement, and I rarely believe the answer. We've seen time and time again what happens when you release too many similar games too close to one another.

Yet with Turn 10, although the answer was the same, it's more believable. Because competition is typically a good thing for a platform that wants to been seen as the home for that particular genre.

"We will be probably sitting here in a year from now and talking about the perceived resurgence of the racing genre, because of the number of sales that we have seen across all these titles," Hartman concludes hopefully. "Great games will find great big audiences. It maybe tough occasionally for small titles to get attention, but as part of being first party and part of the Xbox platform, I welcome them in. I want them. I love the Assetto Corsa team, I love what they're doing and the perspective they are bringing in and I'm excited for what they do next. I would rather be having this conversation about a load of great racing games coming out this year, than you saying that there doesn't seem to be any."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-speed-to-become-the-worlds-biggest-racing-ip
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
That title is wrong on many levels. Gran Turismo is the world's biggest racing ip by far..
Well I mean Mario Kart is bigger, but yeah. I don't know how this article makes sense. GT5 alone outsold every Forza game combined till Forza 5.
 

DopeyFish

Not bitter, just unsweetened
MS has been able to get the right people at the right time for all their racing games.

PGR, RalliSport, Forza and FH have all been fantastic series. It really sucks that Forza is the only thing left.
 

inner-G

Banned
I had fun with Forza 3, but it's so big and open, I eventually just stopped playing. It started to feel like Assassins Creed in a car.

I really prefer tighter, focused racing games like Gran Turismo. Never really liked the main Forza series as much.
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
Are people gonna read the article also?
They're basing it on releases. It still doesn't make the headline accurate. Not when Mario Kart Wii has outsold the entire franchise, and GT5 has outsold most of it put together as well. So if one developer releases a game and it sells 10m+ copies, and another developer needs 3-4 releases to match that number, the latter is a bigger IP because they have more games?
 

Sydle

Member
Terrible title for what's a pretty great article about how the relationship between Turn10 and Playground formed and how they work together.

I never thought about it, but the reason I prefer Horizon is because of the exploration and freedom of it. Has nothing to do with it being more arcade like in terms of controls.
 

Theorry

Member
They're basing it on releases. It still doesn't make the headline accurate. Not when Mario Kart Wii has outsold the entire franchise, and GT5 has outsold most of it put together as well. So if one developer releases a game and it sells 10m+ copies, and another developer needs 3-4 releases to match that number, the latter is a bigger IP because they have more games?

Not talking about that. Talking about some nice insight inside the article.
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
Not talking about that. Talking about some nice insight inside the article.
Yeah that working relationship between Playground and Turn 10 is nice, and I'm a big Forza fan (having bout every game in the franchise). But the headline is just...weird.
 
Pretty interesting read. I.dodnt realise playground reported to Turn 10. And the synergy is obviously working very well based off how good both series are.

It'll be interesting to see where they go next. I.cant see both teams churning out motorsport/horizon every other year. Oversaturation is bound to happen.

Edit: the title has successfully rustled a lot of jimmies already haha. Let the console wars commence!!

Yawn.
 

Theorry

Member
Pretty interesting read. I.dodnt realise playground reported to Turn 10. And the synergy is obviously working very well based off how good both series are.

It'll be interesting to see where they go next. I.cant see both teams churning out motorsport/horizon every other year. Oversaturation is bound to happen.

Yeah was surprised about that also.
 

wodomon

Neo Member
Gran Turismo - the grandfather of racing sims - it came in and did huge numbers. It was the No.1 selling franchise. Then there was the rise of Need for Speed, especially during the last generation and the generation before. You can look at those two franchises and where they are right now and say: 'Well, we've had a decline in the racing genre'

Seriously wtf. Even poorly recieved GT6 sold 5.5mil. copies. Never mentioned GT's massive presence in motorsports in the article. God this is an advert clearly.
 

bidguy

Banned
well it is the biggest racing game if you consider the fact that polyphony cant be arsed to release a game in timely fashion and mario kart released on a flopping fish on water of a console
 
Creative Assembly reported to 343 too I think, MS build these studios to house everything in the franchise, the internal management team working with outside devs doesn't get involved in halo/gears/forza afaik, except perhaps marketing
 
This gen? Yeah, I can see that.

Of course, Gran Turismo Sport isn't out yet, and the franchise is a fucking juggernaut. I still consider it the biggest racing IP, even though Forza has two hit series under its belt.
 

rrs

Member
forza is my surrogate gran turismo as I don't have a sony console anymore

also, trying to play hot pursuit 2010 and most wanted 2012 only makes me want to play Outrun2 and Burnout 3 instead
 
well it is the biggest racing game if you consider the fact that polyphony cant be arsed to release a game in timely fashion and mario kart released on a flopping fish on water of a console

Is this a joke? MK8 has sold almost 8.5m units. No, it's not. By any metric unless you flat out ignore MK and GT
 
Is this a joke? MK8 has sold almost 8.5m units. No, it's not. By any metric unless you flat out ignore MK and GT
aside from mario kart 8 it is the biggest racing ip, and many would argue mk8 is karting rather than racing. gt hasn't even come out this gen yet, i don't know why people keep mentioning it.
 

T.O.P

Banned
MS has been able to get the right people at the right time for all their racing games.

PGR, RalliSport, Forza and FH have all been fantastic series. It really sucks that Forza is the only thing left.

Yup

I'm still hoping to see Rallisport make a comeback at some point

Anyway

tumblr_m874v6fL0L1qdez4ro17_500.gif
 

Sydle

Member
Are people gonna read the article also? There is some nice insight in that.

You've been here long enough to know how these things go down. If you wanted meaningful discussion you probably should have made your own title that reflected the content you thought was interesting.
 
It's still GT I assume even with no sales in a while. I know why it is technically as far as a game people know/want will buy. Just will change after gt comes out.

NFS hasn't been good for a long while even with the HPS games imo so it isn't a surprise to see those go down
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
aside from mario kart 8 it is the biggest racing ip, and many would argue mk8 is karting rather than racing. gt hasn't even come out this gen yet, i don't know why people keep mentioning it.
Because the title doesn't say (nor does the article) that they are specifically talking about this gen exclusively. So Mario Kart doesn't count because it's a kart racer (weird but ok), and Gran Turismo doesn't count because there's been no gen 8 release yet. So essentially this is like when American sports franchises call their trophy victors "world champions". So play by yourself and crown yourself king.
 
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