I’ve noticed more and more “poor network connection” thing showing while in the lobby. I have 1GB/650MB fiber connection and it never happened before. Last night I was in the same lobby with AR12 Nick…he is Canadian, I’m Polish. If it has to connect me with overseas lobbies that it’s a problem.
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Here are some numbers I gathered from other places (Reddit; Discord) from other posters who cited different sources:
Forza Horizon launched with (reported) 500K Game Pass users.
Forza Motorsport 7 (2017) came to GP in 2020, and averaged 210K users.
Forza Motorsport (2023) launched with 141K GP users. I’m sure that number is even lower, now the casuals have moved on?
FM has an overwhelmingly negative (37%) reviews on Steam, due to the technical problems.
FM has a very low player count on Steam, too, as a result (avg. 800-1K players, daily)
Many of the achievements from tracking sites for FM, are very, very low, and/or haven’t been completed. Big ones that should be fairly easy to accomplish e.g. Finish your first race; Level Up One Car; etc.
Xbox has not made any celebratory player announcements on Twitter / X, like they did with Starfield, and other successful games. Hmm. I wonder why?
It’s safe to assume, FM is a fan and financial failure even with Game Pass subsidizing the majority of its cost.
Commentary: I’ve never seen a AAA developer screw up this bad. Ever. Not even BF2042, devs messed up this bad where people are actively avoiding it, not recommending it, and/or going to other games like GT7.
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So basically people don’t want to play broken games? That sounds correct. WAKE UP TURN 10…
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RIP forza, Devs have lost touch, if they ever were in touch with their former player base. Can’t wait to see how they ruin Fable
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Game is primarly being played on xbox and gamepass… its free on gamepass so why would anyone buy it on steam really?
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Game Pass is not meant to be a “free” access kind of thing - it’s supposed to drive more sales towards whatever games end up on there. Someone tries it out on Game Pass, likes what they see, and then plunks down their $70+.
That’s not happening. Go look at the Top Paid Games on the Microsoft Store, particularly for XBox: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/top-paid/games/xbox
The game is crashing and burning. Even the Premium Add-On Bundle, which outsold the actual game itself to a ridiculous degree, is far down the list now, in 234th place. Don’t ask where the actual game is - last I checked, it was somewhere around 460th place.
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This is a valid point, but if you search around, there is evidence to suggest it’s also not doing very well, there, either.
One of the most telling (in my opinion) is Xbox/Game Pass/MS has not made a big celebratory Tweet where they boast about the numbers of players Forza Motorsport currently has, or had at launch. They always use this press beat to do just that unless the game is a failure like Redfall.
This might seem inconsequential, but it’s a statistical and public acknowledgement of how many people are playing your game regardless, of what platform or how (Game Pass).
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That definitely isn’t how I view Game Pass. If a game is on there, then I’m not going to separately buy it. I’ll play it on there and I’ll buy the add-ons if I’m interested in them.
I’d be very surprised if many people have Game Pass AND buy games on there. That just seems like a complete waste of money unless they are coming up to EoL and you want to keep playing them.
That said, we can presumably do an easy comparison on Steam for FM against FH5, both of which are on GP. I anticipate, given FM has been such a complete mess for PC players particularly, that the FH5 numbers of players will massively outweigh those for FM.
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Even those people are largely staying away. Otherwise, as FTLFAM noted, there would have been crowing about things by now.
The Steam numbers and the Microsoft Store charts are the best indicators we have to gauge where a game is. Motorsport 2023’s being roundly stomped by - among other things - The Crew Motorfest, decades-old Call of Duty games, and Stray (in which you play as a cat). That is not at all a good look for a flagship racing game.
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This suggests it’s holding fairly firm just outside the top 10 on Xbox, just above FH5.
[nonsense]That’s pre patch statistics. I wonder what it is today. My playing stats have decreased significantly in the last few weeks. [/nonsense]
edit:
I watched some older chart. The one linked was post patch - so all good. It’s still hard to believe it’s above FH5. My brain refuses to believe that.
I have questions about how they compiled that data. Even then, however, that chart is essentially referencing eyeballs on the game. The Steam and Microsoft Store charts deal more closely with sales, which is the real concern. Motorsport 2023 is not pulling in the numbers it needs, and Horizon 5 is outselling it handily. Without those sales and the revenue that brings in, EoL for Motorsport 2023’s going to come much sooner than anyone wants.
EDIT: Speaking of those Steam numbers…418 players is the new low. That’s not great.
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This is how they make those charts: Introducing The Xbox Gameplay Chart
So far Steam charts are the most solid data we have. Real numbers that show active players and the overall trend in time. This trend has a very high probability to be similar on Xbox ecosystem, although overall player count is probably much higher.
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Slightly off topic, but since were in full Black Friday/Cyber Monday swing with deals…
Be careful of some of the Xbox bundles you can buy that include games you can get for “free” on Game Pass.
It makes no sense to buy a brand new Series X/S with a game that’s on Game Pass, unless you’ve already played it, and want to own it. You’re better off just buying the console and a Game Pass multi-month subscription because it’ll be cheaper in the long run beyond the console purchase.
Back to Forza Motorsport and how it’s performing sales-wise, or not…
It’s also a technical mess on both Series consoles… Which shouldn’t be a thing since it’s a console exclusive!
There are tons of reports on r/Foza, about how the game just doesn’t work in various ways on the consoles. In fact, one of the main things that was supposedly fixed in the second update was a progression bug that specifically effected console users. Bugs of that magnitude shouldn’t be happening, period, but especially not when a game is exclusive to one console and the hardware is known.
This is relevant to the new sources of data being brought in because it only tracks users who “own” the game… Game Pass probably being the major source… Versus those who are actively playing it.
I know it specifically states “active” players, but then goes onto say, even if someone doesn’t unlock an achievement, they’re still counted.
Well, logic suggests if they aren’t unlocking achievements, they aren’t actively playing, right? This can be interpolated as some people downloaded FM on Game Pass, maybe played a few minutes or a couple of hours, and then moved on… But it’s still counted in that pool as “active”.
Regardless of semantics and statistical gymnastics, Forza Motorsport isn’t doing well in the court of public opinion… Even from casual gamers who tried it and got sick of the grind fast (Reddit, Discord).
Not only did FM launch an unacceptable technical state across all platforms, but it also has in-game systems people are negatively commenting on more than the game itself. This is basic Crisis Management that T10, needs to start addressing sooner rather than later if they genuinely want to keep supporting Forza Motorsport for years to come like they initially claimed.
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The worst part of these metrics is an opinion will form at Microsoft that people “just dont play these kinds of games anymore” when thats not the case. Racing might be niche, but its proven over every console generation that good ones sell and can sell consoles.
I cant help but look at pcars 3 and what a whiff that was, this cant be much better. Certain things have a snowball effect, this game being an absolute disaster in almost every way whether its the bugs or overall game design is going to take major work ie money to even get it to an accepatable state and i just dont see where that money’s going to come from.
Releasing one patch a month isnt going to cut it. The Nordschleife is not going to save this game. They need a road map of things/changes in the pipeline and maybe then enough people will stick around just to keep the lights on. They took too long to fix motorsport 7 and let it bleed out, a game with a much better base than this game. I hope theyre quicker on the trigger with this one.
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There are people out there trying to defend the game using that TA stat page and saying that “oh but in France, Germany and Japan it’s one of the most played games” without realizing Xbox sells very poorly in these countries…
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Yep I said this is another post, there will not be another motorsport after this. Really no coming back from this kind of disaster after they had 6 years to create something great.
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This is a point I keep making. Whatever their post-launch plans are (actual quote from Chris Esaki: “We have no plans for the game after launch…”), it’s not enough. They have to do more, and they have to do it faster - much faster than may actually be feasible, unfortunately. That’s the bed they made for themselves.
I maintain that this game will be dead on PC by the end of the year. Not even holiday sales will provide enough of a boost to save it. The competition is simply less expensive and better executed, and depending on the game you choose, the community will happily supplement the work that the developers do, in stark contrast to a game like Forza Motorsport 2023 where everyone is hopelessly dependent on what Turn 10 does. On console, the outlook’s probably not much better. I think, proportionally, the numbers there are just as bad as the Steam numbers and they know it, which is why they’ve refrained (so far) from even trying to celebrate anything. It’s not going to crash and burn like it will on PC, but it still may crash and burn yet.
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I agree, theyve put themselves in a horrible position. Even if all the bugs were fixed, where do they even start. If they can change the upgrade unlock system that would certainly alleviate a lot of problems, but its not so simple as not only would buying parts need to change to credits, but the credit system and car prices would all neednto be changed.
Career mode is also a problem, its extremely lackluster and their plan to change one series every month while removing another is not enough. I dont even know what they can do with it.
Freeplays issues seem a little easier to fix, they need to add a tire wear/fuel use modifier. They need to add an option for qualifying and they should think about allowing people to create their own championship series. Set their own own class starting and end point if they want to “build” their way through.
Ai is obviously a mess, i dont see this changing much as theyve had quite some time to make it yet its worse than ever. They can lap faster which would be fine if this was a hot lap simulator, but their racing ability is truly nonexistent. They have zero awareness not only for cars around them, but their situational awareness doesnt exist, like what they should be doing in any given situation. This is a programming/processing issue, either theyre not programmed correctly or theres not enough cpu bandwith to allow them to function properly.
Multiplayer is barebones. The plan to have less types of lobbies to concentrate players is having the opposite effect as people want to play what they want not what they tell them to. The penalty and saftey systems dont work properly, so theres another 2 major systems to redo.
Theres numerous ui issues that i dont care to talk about but they are there. Sounds are also hit or miss again. Graphics are hit or miss, dont really know if they thought this game looked next gen but it doesnt. No radar is a problem, the weather is useless what good is dynamic weather if its never dynamic. All they had to do is play gt7 for 10 minutes to see what the bar for these things were.
I dunno, i just think theres too many things missing or barebones. If it took them this long to make what they released, how long would it realistically take to remedy these things when the game is already released. If it was pc only where hotfixs’ can go out whenever maybe a couple of years, but a console game even one made by a microsoft studio requires a lengthy certification process.
This game isnt a battlefield or a halo where their worst selling game is forzas best. They dont have the player base to mess around. This game is truly a disaster, only time will tell what the future holds but i cant say i have any faith that the team that made this game will be able to fix it.
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The bad outweighs the good by so much that I can’t imagine anybody internally involved with it ever truly believed it could be successful.
I don’t see how anyone who has played any major racing game in the last decade could have looked at this before launch and been genuinely convinced it would impress anyone or captivate audiences.
It looks to me like they abandoned this series long ago and they’ve merely been going through the motions doing the absolute bare minimum perhaps just to fulfill some contractual obligations or something.
I get the impression that there might be some internal parties who want to kill off this series, like it’s a pest they can’t wait to be rid of, so they’re letting it wither on the vine.
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