Honest discussion about the public reception of this game and the community

Forza Motorsport Forza Motorsport 2023 FM 2023 Discussion
1

I’m fairly new to the forums, but I’ve been around since FM1. Missed out on FM5 (was young and spent most of my money on liquor until FM6 happened lol), but for the most part I’ve put a ton of hours into the majority of FM titles growing up.

Now to preface things, yes, this game has an absolute boatload of problems that need to be addressed. Also yes, I have put a bunch of hours in the game and generally am having fun when I’m not directly dealing with frustrations from the XP system, AI quirks, the (yes still existing) reverse aerowash effects, etc. Reading a lot of the feedback in these forums has been somewhat depressing since we all know that the last FM title was back in 2017, and there was a lot of anticipation leading up to this release. I (still) want this game to succeed. I hate a lot of the crap live service anything comes with, but I think that a racing game would be one of the few to actually benefit from the structure if it’s handled correctly.

With that said, we all have our opinions on the game at this point, and we either got here via gamepass or by MS Store/Steam. For all the non-gamepass people, had this game been advertised as an early access release and sold to us early adopters for a cheaper price (let’s arbitrarily say $30-40) without any extra charge when the game reached true 1.0, would that change your opinion of the current state of the game? And in the same vein, for the folks who already had gamepass going in (ie not paying any more or less than you would’ve been paying anyway), would your opinion of the game be different had it been advertised as a beta test with a continually rolling and fully transparent development roadmap leading up to an eventual release?

I ask these questions, because although all of the criticism this game is receiving is 100% justified, a huge majority of it seems to be primarily fueled by anger from promises of a complete game, deception/lack of transparency from the developers, etc. I’m one of the few who forked out for premium (I personally don’t like subscription based anything, and I’ve spent $30 on way dumber things, so it wasn’t difficult to justify), and I’m sorta disappointed (read: pissed), but I also am somewhat optimistic about the game’s future. I think a lot of us will complain first with no perspective (“what have they been doing for the last 6 years?”, etc.) because at the end of the day, we want our entertainment and we want it now. And yeah I agree, that’s 100% justified. When you lay out expectations, you have to deliver. But I’m unfortunately familiar with working in an environment where everyone’s shouldering the workload of 3-4 people, upper management is making unrealistic promises to customers, and we’re constantly failing to succeed on half of our deliverables on an almost daily basis. It sucks. I think these folks have been set up to fail from the start and have probably been scrambling since months before release. The dudes who did the monthly yesterday looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks while they robotically read their lines. They already knew what backlash was going to come after their segment was over. And although a lot of the discussion here is toxic, the community has a right to voice their frustrations. It sucks, and nobody wins. Anyway I kinda trailed off there, but yeah, I’m feeling extra conflicted. The monthly yesterday was disappointing, but I’m also deep in my 10th week in a row working 13-14h days, so I kinda get it.

12 Likes
2

Here’s the problem, and it keeps getting harped on, but it’s going to keep being said:

We don’t want to hear from those guys. Where are Chris Esaki and Dan Greenawalt? Drag them out from whatever BBC Network-shaped rock they’re hiding under, put them in an empty studio with cameras and streaming equipment, and make them have to justify and defend this “game”. Stop letting them sweet-talk through softball questions and stop letting them hide behind unwilling subordinates. Make them explain themselves.

33 Likes
3

When GT7 had those issues at launch, Kaz signed a letter to the community which addressed the issues and promised changes, most of which eventually made it to the game.

When FM had the issues it did at launch, Esaki and Greenawalt vanished from the public eye, ran to the BBC and patted themselves on the back.

29 Likes
4

The community are very patiently and reasonably explaining their frustrations. If T10 listens, communicates and fixes the issues then everyone wins. The players get a game which is fun to play and T10 will get much higher player engagement because the game will be fun to play.

The only way that there is no winner is if T10 continue to bury their head in the sand, don’t fix the issues and don’t communicate with the community. Basically, if they continue to do exactly what they’ve done over the last 2 months.

25 Likes
5

…over the last decade.
This decline has been long in the making.

7 Likes
6

It’s purely about communication. Open the sprint board for us to see… heh no chance

2 Likes
7

It’s honestly aggravating how completely garbage Turn 10 has been at communication and being honest every step of the way through this game’s lifecycle. There have been at least a dozen points in the last two years alone where acting like developers and not sleazy used-car salesmen would have mitigated or even prevented so much of the tire fire that Turn 10 currently sits in the middle of, and that fact really grits my rear end.

10 Likes
8

The only thing I find their absurd sound bytes to be good for is a laugh.
By now, I think it’s 100% guaranteed that whatever they say was, is, & will always be nothing but utter fluff.

The sheer immensity of the growing canyon between how they talk about the game/series & the reality of the game/series is staggering.

I’ve seen/heard more than enough from them to be convinced that their fairy tales are not accidental or just “hype.”
I’m certain they know they’re pitching a fantasy, and the joke’s on everyone who buys into it.
…And shame on every outlet that helps them perpetuate their narratives.

17 Likes
9

I mean, if pitching crazy fantasies truly happies them, then they can go wild for all I care…

…after they answer for the game’s current state. As leaders are supposed to do.

If they don’t want to do that, then Microsoft needs to step in and promote the people who are speaking on their behalf. And Chris and Dan can either assume those persons’ positions, and not have to worry about responsibility ever again. Or they can clean their desks out. I’m cool with either one, really.

3 Likes
10

The state of this game, as silly as this might seem, made me order a Playstation and Gran Turismo…
I waited for so long to couch play a up to date semi-sim racer, but what we got was a big fat load of nothing. And the way they sold us snake oil about what game was going to be like, really grinds my gears…

Forza Motorsport is nothing but a major letdown and it’s not any fun to play with all it’s shortcomings.

13 Likes
11

They already answered for it in their typical fashion: this is fine… this is better than fine… this is great, with even more greatness to come in their vision of “shaping the future of automotive entertainment.”

To them, there’s nothing but success to answer for because they’re so pleased with it & with themselves.

I’m with you & I completely agree that leaders should step up & take responsibility for mistakes & failures, but that won’t/can’t happen when they don’t acknowledge any mistakes or failures.

They’ll maintain that they’re not wrong - the audience, & the metrics, & the market, & the universe are all wrong… or their grand “vision” is just so far ahead into the future that they’re waiting for reality to catch up to them.

It smells like pure, unmitigated gaslighting to me.
Every time they speak, it feels to me like they’re insulting the intelligence of their audience & mocking the loyalty of their fans.

They’ve been banking on people clinging to hope that this series will eventually live up to the “potential” they’ve hyped, but the downward past-to-present trend-line over the last decade shows that the only potential is for it to keep getting worse.
It’s just a game of how far they can keep riding the hype train.

11 Likes
12

The public perception depends on who you ask and what metrics you use to judge “success”.

Steam (PC) users hate the game. Thirty-nine percent negative reviews, with the rest being mixed. That’s justifiable because the game just does not function properly for the majority of players. Even those with the most expensive and cutting edge rigs.

The Microsoft Store reviews are similar. Forza Motorsport has a rating of 2.1 out of 5. Very low rating and the same comments as the Steam, reviews. They mostly center on performance (or lack thereof), bugs, etc. The MS store includes the Xbox Series X, and S, consoles as well as PC. So it’s a cross-platform sample of how FM is being received versus just Steam.

Forza Motorsport is currently ranked 459, of paid games being played on Xbox, as of today (12/5/2023).
It just happens to be part of Game Pass, so this means games that are not part of GP are beating it. Games from five years ago, like Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), that people have to go out and buy.

MS will never release Game Pass user statistics, but I was able to gather some from various sources like gaming new articles cited by others on a gaming Discord, I frequent:

Forza Horizon 5 debuted with 500,000 Game Pass users in 2021.

Forza Motorsport 7 (2017) debuted on Game Pass in 2020, and averaged around 210,000K users.

Forza Motorsport (2023) launched with 141,000 Game Pass users in 2023.

FM has the lowest average GP users (mostly Xbox, but including PC Game Pass) of any Forza game in the history of the franchise since the series has been a part of Game Pass.

Comments in various YouTube videos about the current state of FM, show the majority of people are disappointed.

More specifically, the majority of comments are not about the car leveling system, good or bad. The vast majority of comments condemn the game for being launched in an almost unplayable state and with very little content since it’s a Live Service, game. Other comments say, they’re glad they tried it on Game Pass, instead of spending $70 USD, or more.

So, while it’s easy to project nobody likes the Car Leveling, this isn’t 100% accurate, and some of the comments I’ve seen, say they rather enjoy it, or aren’t bothered by it. Granted, these are probably casual gamers, so they’re used to gamified systems like this, for better or worse. They aren’t hardcore fans like us, their opinion is still valid, but I haven’t seen enough actual comments on the system to make any real conclusions, if I’m going to be honest?

If we take all of these things together… I think it’s safe to assume Forza Motorsport is not doing very well, financially?

This is apparent in a lot of the YT comments and Discord discussions where people wrote, they’re glad they didn’t spend full retail price on FM, because they don’t feel it’s worth it at the present time.

The good news (from my own discussions & observations) is many are willing to come back if significant changes are made aka The majority of performance issues and bugs are corrected.

The car leveling isn’t as big a deal compared to the game just not working which makes sense for non-hardcore players. If they can’t even play the game without it crashing, or saving progress, they’re not going to be concerned about grinding car levels until they reach that part of the game play loop.

12 Likes
13

That’s the carrot they dangle on a stick with their slow trickle of incremental updates and their “vision” of an “eVoLvInG pLaTfOrM.”

carrotOnStick

The fact that this is where the series is after 18+ years of “eVoLvInG” is proof enough for me that its best years are not ahead of us but far behind us.

10 Likes
14

1000012920

4 Likes
15

Exactly and perfectly said. Those who have said, there needs to be change, have stuck around with many good ideas for change. There are many old timers to forza going back as far as FM1. What we want is a good game. We’d love to be part of the process to move this game forward. But T10 needs to open a door for that to happen.

4 Likes
16

Your post is good in general. I think though, that sometimes frustrated people voicing hard truths is taken as toxic unfairly. That’s not to say toxicity doesn’t exist. I’m just saying sometimes truth is just hard to swallow.

3 Likes
17

People are disappointed and angry. Disappointed because they wanted to like the game and angry at the lies prior to release of the game, or whatever you can call this. The bugs and stability issues are one thing but releasing a game with barely any playable SP content without telling us first, well that’s just wrong in my opinion. Then we come on to the ‘creative direction’ of the game. Nothing more to add to this at this point it’s just a farce. The game is dead in the water now, and I don’t think there’s anything they could do to pull it back, or regain the lost players. A sad situation for a once great franchise.

10 Likes
18

I enjoy this game. Everything i hoped for was done. Most here dont play the game anymore. Thats what they told us for weeks now. Seems they only lurking around to spread negativity in the Community while enjoy playing grand tourismo. Dont understand this.

4 Likes
19

That’s nice. Do you recognize that a lot of people not just hoped for, but expected more based on what was advertised? Do you recognize that the game was released in a barely playable state for those on PC? Do you recognize that for many people the CarXP grind is detrimental to gameplay? If you do, why be glib? If you don’t, you clearly need to work on those empathy skills.

14 Likes
20

Oh, he knows. He just doesn’t care. Like several others before him (who I probably can’t name) he’s just here to run hype.

4 Likes