Microsoft Cuts Forza Motorsport’s Development Staff by “Nearly 50%”

[emissary935]

They let go of Caviezel? Again!?

I feel for everyone affected by these, quite frankly, dumbass decisions

Yup. Absolutely nonsensical. Game was delivering again on the audio side of things and they let him go again.
Wasn't he laid off from Epic just a year ago too? Poor guy can't have a break lol

 

[Cayit]

So what is the Reason for that...? No Game Sales?

 

[Gt2344]

Hate it that other people like forza better than GT

Damn, I live around 40 minutes from the studio. I’ve never owned any Xbox hardware but I enjoyed the FM’s I’ve played (especially 4). While I’ve usually preferred Gran Turismo, having a major player in my favorite genre in my back yard has always been very special, and I’ve gotten to see the car collections of their long-term staff at community events. They even have a (barely) raced 919 in the lobby of their office, which was the first time I’d ever see a modern race car up close:

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Hopefully those affected are able to find more work soon, and the franchise is able to continue in some semblance of a healthy way. The tech sector out here is really messy these days.

 

[PJTierney]

Scrolling through my LinkedIn I'm seeing many Turn 10 people leaving.

Seems to cover almost every department: community, analytics, vehicle & track art, audio, physics and a bunch more.

Some of the people being let go were with Forza for well over a decade.

 

[SimTourist]

My man, you are actively denying the fact that Turn 10 were not the only victims of Xbox layoffs yesterday. First and foremost, there were cuts within a multitude of studios, including Halo Studios, Rare Entertainment, Raven Software and others. Hell, they even shut down The Initiative, cancelling the new Perfect Dark game in conjunction, and cut staff at King Division, the developers behind the proverbial Money Printer that is Candy Crush. You're purposely ignoring the broader context of what's going on here.

Secondly, we, and especially you, also don't know with any degree of certainty that Turn 10 and Forza Motorsport is actually done for, or that Turn 10 is, as you put it...

There's no denying that the current outlook isn't the greatest, but flying away with large, currently unsubstantiated claims in an effort to elevate oneself does not accomplish anything meaningful, nor is it actually helpful.

More than anything else, the fact that you're trying to minimize an event in which roughly 9,000 people actually lost their jobs in one day, and then twist it into a blatantly false narrative that Turn 10 was cut down solely because of FM23 underperforming, despite the fact that the game has actively received nearly 2 years of content updates after launch, very much hurts the "told ya so" that you're attempting to propagate.

The cuts affected either mismanaged studios that fail to produce products that sell well or fail to produce anything at all, studios that perform well aren't affected or barely affected. At King they probably cut down unnecessary bloat, why does a mobile developer need 2000 devs to make Candy Crush when such a game can be coded in a weekend by a single rookie dev making his first project.
MS always gives studios a chance to improve the game after launch, but after a certain point they cut their losses and move on, successful games like Sea of thieves continue for 10 years, unsuccessful ones get the boot after a few years.
You can guess the reason for Turn10's cuts precisely because Playground wasn't affected, one is successful the other is not, does Phil Spencer need to spell it out openly? You need to read between the lines because marketing speak is designed to hide the truth and smooth over harsh reality and uncomfortable topics. Spencer gave them a chance and they failed to deliver.

 

[Kelpy D]

So, are future updates already pre-planned months ago (for the third-fourth quarters of 2025)? What does this mean for future updates, especially if the replacements are not that passionate with motorsport and cars and all that? Will FM23 regress back to FH4/Early FH5/Early FM23, content-wise, with all the recycled cars?

 

[Meythia]

Spencer gave them a chance and they failed to deliver.

Wouldnt want to spin the wheel of blame, but most often devs only do what heads tell them.
But when heads decisions are bad and perfectly executed by devs, its the devs who are cut and the heads recieve a big premier for trying their best.

 

[GBalao888]

So what is the Reason for that...? No Game Sales?

Game Pass hurts sales and revenue in the long run, and I've said it a lot of times again that sales are more important than daily, weekly or monthly active users and engagement. One million copies sold has more value than one million active players.

You can brag about having how many players all you want, but how many of them actually bought and owned the game?

Think of it as like a Netflix subscription, you subscribe, watch a series and cancel when you're done. It works with movies, but not with video games.

It leads to an impression where gamers don't need to buy games and rely on their Game Pass subscriptions just to keep playing and to try other games, but this really doesn't support the studios at all. If your subscription expires, so does your access to the game unless you own it outright, whether physical or digital. Just paying for the subscription alone won't do enough to support the developers.

But for games before they're delisted (e.g., FH3, FM7, FH4), you're given a token to redeem to give you complete ownership of the game.

Designing a game around Game Pass also even encourages bad game design habits (FOMO mechanics, always-online requirements, incomplete and buggy games at launch, sometimes with a regression on features and content) revolving around a live service. Live services don't have to mean things like that.

Then there's this conspiracy theory that revenue from Game Pass, as well as the removal of UWP emulators on retail mode, were all in order for Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard.

The next would be their marketing scheme, "This is an Xbox", where PC's, laptops, smartphones, tablets, Amazon Fire Sticks and smart TV's could be capable of playing Xbox games, but because Forza Horizon 5 was released on PS5, this meant that the PS5 had then become an Xbox, if not, the proverbial Xbox.

All in all, I honestly think Game Pass is the worst thing to have ever happened to the Xbox brand, leading to these poor decision choices that's slowly destroying them from the inside out and killing off the identity of what made an Xbox, an Xbox. If this keeps up, the next Xbox would might as well be the last one.

Scrolling through my LinkedIn I'm seeing many Turn 10 people leaving.

Seems to cover almost every department: community, analytics, vehicle & track art, audio, physics and a bunch more.

Some of the people being let go were with Forza for well over a decade.

And because of this, this might as well be the last ever Forza Motorsport, if ever the updates still continue as intended, which we'll have to wait and see. Already many people are sparking rumors that Turn Ten have been reduced to a support studio or subsidiary of Playground.

Game Pass is the epitome of greed killing off creativity and human spirit when it comes to game development. Turn Ten could only do so much, but the greed of Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and whoever else is at the higher-ups at the Xbox brand and Microsoft are stagnating their true potential with whatever they're imposing on them.

This is basically the story of WipEout Fusion but with game development, grand, ambitious plans, only to cause major backlash and an inevitable doom and downfall.

So, are future updates already pre-planned months ago (for the third-fourth quarters of 2025)? What does this mean for future updates, especially if the replacements are not that passionate with motorsport and cars and all that? Will FM23 regress back to FH4/Early FH5/Early FM23, content-wise, with all the recycled cars?

Updates may likely come out slower and/or with reduced volume.

 

[Meythia]

Game Pass hurts sales and revenue in the long run, and I've said it a lot of times again that sales are more important than daily, weekly or monthly active users and engagement. One million copies sold has more value than one million active players.

Kindergarten math more complicated than a CEO and 10 strategists can comprehend ...
And of course because humans are (generally speaking) deciding without rational thinking, they support their own decline because it was the cheaper option.

 

[SimTourist]

Wouldnt want to spin the wheel of blame, but most often devs only do what heads tell them.
But when heads decisions are bad and perfectly executed by devs, its the devs who are cut and the heads recieve a big premier for trying their best.

Obviously the leadership is to blame, but they asked for more dev time after Forza 7, they got it and they completely wasted it. There is zero reason why this game took more than usual 2 years to make, it doesn't do anything new or better, all the improvements are in line with their previous achievements within 2 year constraints. And honestly I think the game would been better if they still operated on a 2 year deadline, or at least fans would know that the next game is coming 2 years later as always to fix issues, and it would make more sense financially for MS as well.

 

[TheAdmiester]

So, are future updates already pre-planned months ago (for the third-fourth quarters of 2025)? What does this mean for future updates, especially if the replacements are not that passionate with motorsport and cars and all that? Will FM23 regress back to FH4/Early FH5/Early FM23, content-wise, with all the recycled cars?

We don't know the answers, and I would imagine those who do are more concerned about securing their jobs and lives first.

 

[Famine]

You can guess the reason for Turn10's cuts precisely because Playground wasn't affected

Romero Games suffers from Microsoft layoffs

Following the layoffs across key Microsoft developers Blizzard, Turn 10, Halo Studios, Playground Games, Rare, Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Raven Software and more, former Romero Games employees confirmed that the studio has been let go.

DOOM co-creator John Romero’s entire Romero Games studio has been let go following Microsoft layoffs as Xbox cuts funding for new FPS

Microsoft layoffs have resulted in cut funding for independant studio Romero Games as the studio lays off its entire workforce.

www.videogamer.com

Does this change your guess at all?

 

[McLaren]

studios that perform well aren't affected or barely affected.

Call of Duty makes massive amounts of money yet Raven & Sledgehammer still saw layoffs.

successful games like Sea of thieves continue for 10 years

Sea of Thieves is run by Rare; they also saw cuts.

Sea of Thieves and Banjo-Kazooie game developer Rare has also been impacted by these layoffs. Its action-adventure game Everwild, which was first announced in 2019, was cancelled this week. Its game director Gregg Mayles (who also directed Sea of Thieves) and executive producer Louise O’Connor have been confirmed to have departed the company.

A list of games cancelled and studios affected by the ongoing Xbox layoffs | GosuGamers

Microsoft’s layoffs have impacted several Xbox teams and first-party games.

www.gosugamers.net

Just a reminder for the rest of the class that someone is still talking out of their ass instead of reading actual articles.

 

[Meythia]

Is this AI generated MS GaaS incoming, no people needed for coding but only for verifying? 🤔

 

[ArronWestley]

Microsoft had one goal acquiring ABK, that is, to cripple Sony by attempting to make CoD an Xbox exclusive. This didn't work, as it was neither economically feasible nor would be permissible by the regulators.

Now that they own ABK + Bethesda and the Xbox has continued to underperform due to their own past failures, they've decided to streamline and recoup losses where they can. This is why Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon (their most successful games) have madeit to PlayStation, and also why these cuts are being made.

With regards to Forza Motorsport specifically, as someone who had been with the franchise for a while before moving to Sony and Gran Turismo, the writing has been on the wall for a long, long time. Microsoft back in 2017, with the duet of FM7 and FH4, tried to create a "CoD" of racing games. This didn't work, due to FH cannibalizing FM. I remember many blunders were made during FM7's launch but they alone wouldn't have been enough to bring the game down if there had been high interest in it. After all, FH has tons of bad things as well, yet remains successful.

I'm surprised it took them this long to trim T10 down to critical levels, but the actual decision was expected. FM was a major flop, it has zero impact on the sim racing scene, and it does little to attract the more casual player. It was never realistic nor structured enough to attract the sim racer. From the casual POV, why play FM when there's FH where the game rewards me for anything I do, including bad driving, after all. Another sign it was a flop is that Microsoft was never too quick to port FM to PlayStation... no money to be made with it, unlike Sea of Thieves, Doom, even AoM.

There are still some people here not wanting to see what I saw years ago. There's no coming back from this. This 50% that remained is the skeleton crew that will keep the game afloat until licenses expire. From what I've seen, many people responsible for actual game assets have been let go, so there won't be any more actual development on the game, nor the franchise.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Series was the last Xbox, now that everything "good" from the Xbox is on the PS (and probably the new Nintendo too). Game Pass is still their prime service, but Microsoft has already started to put games like Diablo on other services as well. I wonder if Microsoft won't fully revert to third-party publisher within the next 5 years.

 

[GMMXX]

Microsoft had one goal acquiring ABK, that is, to cripple Sony by attempting to make CoD an Xbox exclusive. This didn't work, as it was neither economically feasible nor would be permissible by the regulators.

Now that they own ABK + Bethesda and the Xbox has continued to underperform due to their own past failures, they've decided to streamline and recoup losses where they can. This is why Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon (their most successful games) have madeit to PlayStation, and also why these cuts are being made.

With regards to Forza Motorsport specifically, as someone who had been with the franchise for a while before moving to Sony and Gran Turismo, the writing has been on the wall for a long, long time. Microsoft back in 2017, with the duet of FM7 and FH4, tried to create a "CoD" of racing games. This didn't work, due to FH cannibalizing FM. I remember many blunders were made during FM7's launch but they alone wouldn't have been enough to bring the game down if there had been high interest in it. After all, FH has tons of bad things as well, yet remains successful.

I'm surprised it took them this long to trim T10 down to critical levels, but the actual decision was expected. FM was a major flop, it has zero impact on the sim racing scene, and it does little to attract the more casual player. It was never realistic nor structured enough to attract the sim racer. From the casual POV, why play FM when there's FH where the game rewards me for anything I do, including bad driving, after all. Another sign it was a flop is that Microsoft was never too quick to port FM to PlayStation... no money to be made with it, unlike Sea of Thieves, Doom, even AoM.

There are still some people here not wanting to see what I saw years ago. There's no coming back from this. This 50% that remained is the skeleton crew that will keep the game afloat until licenses expire. From what I've seen, many people responsible for actual game assets have been let go, so there won't be any more actual development on the game, nor the franchise.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Series was the last Xbox, now that everything "good" from the Xbox is on the PS (and probably the new Nintendo too). Game Pass is still their prime service, but Microsoft has already started to put games like Diablo on other services as well. I wonder if Microsoft won't fully revert to third-party publisher within the next 5 years.

Yup. This guy knows his stuff. First paragraph tells you pretty much everything. The more you read, the more you learn. Well done, sir

It's a shame it took you so long to join the PlayStation camp. There's millions like you but, welcome home, dude

 

[ClydeYellow]

Microsoft had one goal acquiring ABK, that is, to cripple Sony by attempting to make CoD an Xbox exclusive. This didn't work, as it was neither economically feasible nor would be permissible by the regulators.

Now that they own ABK + Bethesda and the Xbox has continued to underperform due to their own past failures, they've decided to streamline and recoup losses where they can. This is why Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon (their most successful games) have madeit to PlayStation, and also why these cuts are being made.

With regards to Forza Motorsport specifically, as someone who had been with the franchise for a while before moving to Sony and Gran Turismo, the writing has been on the wall for a long, long time. Microsoft back in 2017, with the duet of FM7 and FH4, tried to create a "CoD" of racing games. This didn't work, due to FH cannibalizing FM. I remember many blunders were made during FM7's launch but they alone wouldn't have been enough to bring the game down if there had been high interest in it. After all, FH has tons of bad things as well, yet remains successful.

I'm surprised it took them this long to trim T10 down to critical levels, but the actual decision was expected. FM was a major flop, it has zero impact on the sim racing scene, and it does little to attract the more casual player. It was never realistic nor structured enough to attract the sim racer. From the casual POV, why play FM when there's FH where the game rewards me for anything I do, including bad driving, after all. Another sign it was a flop is that Microsoft was never too quick to port FM to PlayStation... no money to be made with it, unlike Sea of Thieves, Doom, even AoM.

There are still some people here not wanting to see what I saw years ago. There's no coming back from this. This 50% that remained is the skeleton crew that will keep the game afloat until licenses expire. From what I've seen, many people responsible for actual game assets have been let go, so there won't be any more actual development on the game, nor the franchise.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Series was the last Xbox, now that everything "good" from the Xbox is on the PS (and probably the new Nintendo too). Game Pass is still their prime service, but Microsoft has already started to put games like Diablo on other services as well. I wonder if Microsoft won't fully revert to third-party publisher within the next 5 years.

And in all of this we can kiss the car-ownership simcade genre goodbye - killed by corporate greed and cannibalistic myopia. There's very little hope of FM surviving this, and Gran Turismo, which already "isn't what it used to be", will follow suit the moment Yamauchi retires.

Who else can give us any hope for the survival of the genre? PMR? Milestone seeing a market niche opening up and finally turning its expertise to car games?

It's a shame it took you so long to join the PlayStation camp. There's millions like you but, welcome home, dude

And here we see the corporate bootlicker in his natural habit, after making a fatal mistake: he forgot to log into his sock puppet account before licking the boot.

 

[GBalao888]

Microsoft had one goal acquiring ABK, that is, to cripple Sony by attempting to make CoD an Xbox exclusive. This didn't work, as it was neither economically feasible nor would be permissible by the regulators.

Now that they own ABK + Bethesda and the Xbox has continued to underperform due to their own past failures, they've decided to streamline and recoup losses where they can. This is why Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon (their most successful games) have madeit to PlayStation, and also why these cuts are being made.

With regards to Forza Motorsport specifically, as someone who had been with the franchise for a while before moving to Sony and Gran Turismo, the writing has been on the wall for a long, long time. Microsoft back in 2017, with the duet of FM7 and FH4, tried to create a "CoD" of racing games. This didn't work, due to FH cannibalizing FM. I remember many blunders were made during FM7's launch but they alone wouldn't have been enough to bring the game down if there had been high interest in it. After all, FH has tons of bad things as well, yet remains successful.

I'm surprised it took them this long to trim T10 down to critical levels, but the actual decision was expected. FM was a major flop, it has zero impact on the sim racing scene, and it does little to attract the more casual player. It was never realistic nor structured enough to attract the sim racer. From the casual POV, why play FM when there's FH where the game rewards me for anything I do, including bad driving, after all. Another sign it was a flop is that Microsoft was never too quick to port FM to PlayStation... no money to be made with it, unlike Sea of Thieves, Doom, even AoM.

There are still some people here not wanting to see what I saw years ago. There's no coming back from this. This 50% that remained is the skeleton crew that will keep the game afloat until licenses expire. From what I've seen, many people responsible for actual game assets have been let go, so there won't be any more actual development on the game, nor the franchise.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Series was the last Xbox, now that everything "good" from the Xbox is on the PS (and probably the new Nintendo too). Game Pass is still their prime service, but Microsoft has already started to put games like Diablo on other services as well. I wonder if Microsoft won't fully revert to third-party publisher within the next 5 years.

This, and not to mention shoving Game Pass down the throats of both the players and developers with overall game design.

Game Pass can just be renamed "Greed Pass".

Like I said, Turn Ten can only do so much, but then again... the first sentence.

 

[ArronWestley]

And in all of this we can kiss the car-ownership simcade genre goodbye - killed by corporate greed and cannibalistic myopia. There's very little hope of FM surviving this, and Gran Turismo, which already "isn't what it used to be", will follow suit the moment Yamauchi retires.

Who else can give us any hope for the survival of the genre? PMR? Milestone seeing a market niche opening up and finally turning its expertise to car games?

This makes me sad, because I'm convinced one of the issues with Gran Turismo right now, and the major reason it lacks some of the hottest new cars, is simply funding. Sony prefers to throw money into things like Concord than funding interesting content in their proven games.

It's not just the simcade genre that's suffering, IMO. The whole racing game genre is. In the space of 20 years we went from a blooming scene with tons of titles to a landscape where the only arcade options are Forza Horizon and its clone (The Crew), simcade has underfunded and slow Gran Turismo and nearly dead Forza Motorsport, and the rest is all sims/smaller titles.

I blame the changes in gaming but also the spike in licensing price driving away most would-be competitors.

 

[Meythia]

is simply funding. Sony prefers to throw money into things like Concord

Sonys decision to try to jump the hypetrain was - simply said - stupid because it was late and oversaturated.
But PD isnt lacking the funding, it is lacking the incentive in doing things a vocal playerpool expects them to do.
I dont like SUVs, but they are everywhere + GT isnt a strict racing game but a car game (as scapes is showing wiht quite a big impact).
Nothing of that is related and all it comes down is decisionmaking and plans that already have been laid out.
Gran Turismo isnt dying, but instead not derailing.

 

[Vinylshark]

I guess there goes the hope of the latest Forza Motorsport to ever get into a great state.
On another note, I bet none of the leading positions even got a cut in their salaries, while the normal working staff get's the boot. Would be the classic corpo bs where the ones at fault don't suffer any consequences.

 

[Famine]

February 2025 (cued up to an appropriate spot):

You okay there, champ?

 

[GlamFM]

It sucks for everyone who lost their job - no one deserves that, and I hope they land on their feet.


But the reality is, Turn 10 had this coming. As a studio, they lost their mojo. That happens when you’ve been doing the same thing for too long.

Microsoft gave them time (SO MUCH TIME), money, and a real shot to reboot Forza Motorsport, and they simply didn’t deliver.

What’s left of the studio will probably just keep the game alive until its end of life. After that, they’ll either get folded into another team, turned into a support studio, or quietly shut down.

 

[juanffy18]

My god this is sad. I guess no more Forza motorsport in the future.

 

[sirjim73]

It sucks for everyone who lost their job - no one deserves that, and I hope they land on their feet.


But the reality is, Turn 10 had this coming. As a studio, they lost their mojo. That happens when you’ve been doing the same thing for too long.

Microsoft gave them time (SO MUCH TIME), money, and a real shot to reboot Forza Motorsport, and they simply didn’t deliver.

What’s left of the studio will probably just keep the game alive until its end of life. After that, they’ll either get folded into another team, turned into a support studio, or quietly shut down.

Lost their mojo? I blame Dr Evil!

 

[kjb]

 

[Miroku]

Sorry for the employees, that sucks, but honestly tech is going to get rocked super hard with AI around the corner.

That being said, modern racing games suck so it isn't really a big loss. I think we need the return of smaller studios bringing out fun games and not chasing after simulation and graphics.
I was playing Dirt 3 last night and wow....how fun racing games used to be. All the rally games on PS4/PS5 don't get anywhere near as a good as the Dirt series was on PS3 era.

The only good racing modern game I find is Gran Turismo 7, but even than, it's a long ways away from GT4/GT5 career mode.

 

[Ryan81]

It's quite a sad day if you're a racing and car fan. But like some people have said, T10 didn't really do much between FM7 and the latest iteration. I'm just thinking was it rather prophetic that it wasn't called FM8 but just "Forza Motorsport" Almost like they already knew what was coming and that this was the last Motorsport in the series....

The other problem is that, relatively speaking, the racing genre is a very small niche in the general gaming sphere. So, if they make cuts, it won't affect a large number of gamers.

 

[SimTourist]

DOOM co-creator John Romero’s entire Romero Games studio has been let go following Microsoft layoffs as Xbox cuts funding for new FPS

Microsoft layoffs have resulted in cut funding for independant studio Romero Games as the studio lays off its entire workforce.

www.videogamer.com

Does this change your guess at all?

A few people vs 50% of the studio, not comparable at all in scale

 

[meganinja]

Looking at LinkedIn many people associated with Cars, Tracks, Live Service and Community Management have been let go. So it will pretty surely be the End of Life of the game...

I would not hold my breath that Horizon is safe either, on LinkedIn in Looks Like many of the Environment and car people from PG have been let go, too

actually as was mention on the news, part of rumors also say that support for Motorsport support will continue althogout slower and that teams would be streamlined, showcase titles (i assume horizon 6 as well) were unaffected

if i would bet, i would say that they are streamlining the teams more and likely more than ever the same car team that works on FH will help with FM updaes as well

remember the new FH is supposed to use the FM engine updates

With the head of audio gone, that says to me (in my opinion) no new cars to come [cars can't be released without audio attached].

think this way; why have 2 audio heads when you can get the horizon one and make him work for two games at once at lower cost?
i know, it sounds stupid, but that is how average corporate mind works

This, right here, is what gives me just a little bit of hope.

other people and rumors also confirm it, they are just streamlining Forza team (FM/FH) for better efficience, for better or worse

MS did give them like 5 years for the new FM and it flopped

it doesnt
they only give 3/4, project started at end of 2019 as reported on this very website
they keep updatting FM7 for a few years

Flight Simulator runs on Asobo's inhouse engine, nothing to do with Turn10.

they use forzatech, in fact, motorsport is shaped to flightsim using the 10 year support model in a single game

Asobo Studio says it will maintain content support and updates on Microsoft Flight Simulator for 10 years

Company CEO says Microsoft is investing in the studio and its general infrastructure

www.madinfinite.com

If anyone had even the slightest hope (However missplaced I felt it was) that Motorsport was coming to the PS5, I don't see any of it being left now with this.

it was never meant to come out for PS5, it was first and before hand a xbox console title that happened to come out on PC beacuse it doesnt have a better sim-cade track racer option (is ethier this or full sims)

PS already has GT for years and i doubt people would replace it for Forza even if was FM4 during its prime

A few people

romero games staff was around 120 people, T10 was assumed to have 100 pre-layoffs
if you want to hate on forza, at least do your homework for freaking sake....