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Spielt gerade: GT7 | 60fps FTW
How Forza overtook Need for Speed to become the world's biggest racing IP
Playground and Turn10 directors discuss where the series goes from here
Playground and Turn10 directors discuss where the series goes from here
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.
...
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. Today, it is the market's most popular racing franchise, a crown previously held by the likes of Gran Turismo and Need for Speed. 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."
...
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."
...
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."
...
"You can look at the whole thing and say it is a microcosm of the whole racing genre. New games will come in and move out, but it is hard for people to see how many players are playing racing games, because people will be playing these games for several years.
Hartman adds: "We are always releasing - whether it is a car pack, or a Forza Racing Championship event, or a Forzathon event, or an expansion. We - both teams - are actively engaged with working with the community and releasing all the time.
"At the same time, the big game releases are more important in terms of them being the marketing event. We get to go to E3 and talk about what we're doing, and the innovation and try and reinvigorate the community. That is an important part of building the franchise and the community around it. Even as we evolve into service, and I would actually say we are a service today, I think those big releases are still important."
...
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. Today, it is the market's most popular racing franchise, a crown previously held by the likes of Gran Turismo and Need for Speed. 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."
...
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."
...
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."
...
"You can look at the whole thing and say it is a microcosm of the whole racing genre. New games will come in and move out, but it is hard for people to see how many players are playing racing games, because people will be playing these games for several years.
Hartman adds: "We are always releasing - whether it is a car pack, or a Forza Racing Championship event, or a Forzathon event, or an expansion. We - both teams - are actively engaged with working with the community and releasing all the time.
"At the same time, the big game releases are more important in terms of them being the marketing event. We get to go to E3 and talk about what we're doing, and the innovation and try and reinvigorate the community. That is an important part of building the franchise and the community around it. Even as we evolve into service, and I would actually say we are a service today, I think those big releases are still important."
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