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

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Saidur_Ali
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Wouldn't be surprised to see it absorbed into Playground.

I saw it written on the wall back in 2018, when FM7 was getting poor DLC packs, because the good content was being saved for FH4. They even used FM7 as a test mule (tons of FH4 assets in leaked FM7 builds).

The salt on the wound was when the YT channel was renamed "Forza" after Microsoft acquired Playground (previously it was "Turn 10 Studios"). It meant Playground had equal say in the franchise and T10 had lost its position as lead developer.

If you're an Xbox fan, this is the end of an era and you should be lamenting it had to end this way.

Draugnimir
Yes, I don't like the looks of it either... :(

However, with some sound designers or environment artists left at the studio, I still have a glimmer of hope that some sort of support for Forza Motorsport could be maintained.
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Yes, bug fixing and keeping the live service going until licenses expire.
 
Chikane_GTR
A former Turn 10 employee posted this on FB.
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The same one or a different one?

As others have noted, this guy is close to but not within the situation and while what he says might prove accurate it's not something that is reliable enough to take as fact just yet.

Edit: Not that this stopped outlets reporting on it. Single-source reporting is BAD, people.
 
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Ah, those good old days when everything was so beautiful

Forza_Motorsport_Coverart.png
i1UkJZak4T1rSEc.jpg
 
Aphelion
This is a really good point! Although, I still think the AAA industry being massively over-inflated is a large part of the problem, as evidenced by the fact that despite the insanely ballooned budgets of video games in the last 10 years or so (particularly since the HD generation began), all the games we remember so fondly are from before this time. Surely we can have great car games that don't require the absolute cutting edge of technology.
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To be entirely fair, there are also plenty of AA or indie developers using that same cutting edge of technology. After all, licensing UE5 is not that expensive, and at this point you can't throw a ball at an industry conference without hitting at least two UE5 developers. So I don't buy the commonly floated idea that the pursuit of better an' shinier graphics, alone, is the sickness that plagues modern gaming.

No, I think the real problem is that, in the days of the hype around "the growing industry" of gaming, the vulture capitalists and megacorps have arrived in force, with their absolutely unsustainable profit margin expectations, and the willingness to take the axe to companies that work perfectly fine just because they're not earning enough. And in the past four or five years we've seen the consequences of that: games and studios don't need to sell well enough, they need to make mega-billions, otherwise they're worthless.
Meythia
No.

There are real masterpieces put together by rather small teams with more believe in their vision than skills, and with a budget that in terms of a corporate could fill a single contracted employe for monthes.

e.g Balatro already went black numbers 1h after its release. Too bad graphics?
Kena?
Stray?


Stop thinking only cash can create something good, most often it is reverse (yes, subjectively speaking, but sales numbers are not lying).
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It's almost as if you decided reading a sentence off a rather long post was good enough for you and countered an argument I didn't make. Do better.

And yes, there are many great games being released even in this dreary landscape, often against the trend towards more graphical realism and polish, by small teams, even single guys working in a basement. I'm not too torn up over the state of the gaming industry in general - at the end of the day, videogaming as a media of entertainment and artistic expression is too established to ever disappear.
But the topic being discussed was not "the death of gaming", but rather, "the death of the Gran Turismo-style simcade". And that is a subgenre based on a premise (having a large car list composed entirely of real-life, licensed cars) which comes with its intrinsic and inescapable costs, that put the whole genre well behind the reach of an indie studio.
 
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Forzilla
I don't realize too much about game production, but why Turn 10 have so many "producers"?
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AFAIK, producers are mostly responsible for coordinating work of various teams in large studios (like artists, designers and programmers) and don't actually make games. But @PJTierney could tell us more, I'm curious why there were so many producers at T10 too :)
 
I know the very first reply to this was a joke of mine, but I genuinely feel bad for Turn 10. Even though I was never an Xbox guy, I always respected Forza as being the closest thing Xbox had to Gran Turismo. At the rate the Xbox is cancelling projects, I would imagine that Xbox will go the way of Sega in relatively short order, becoming more of a publisher and ceasing hardware production. Not that I want that to happen, as I believe in healthy competition, and I've found the whole concept of Xbox to be admirable, being the sole console-maker from the US - and specifically from Microsoft, at that. I do hope the Xbox brand does find its niche compared to PlayStation, and fast. Meanwhile, Nintendo's already got its niche more or less figured-out, so I'm unsurprised that its stock price (NTDOY) has been out the wazoo lately.
 
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Draugnimir
AFAIK, producers are mostly responsible for coordinating work of various teams in large studios (like artists, designers and programmers) and don't actually make games. But @PJTierney could tell us more, I'm curious why there were so many producers at T10 too :)
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I wouldn't say they "don't make games" as producers are often the most important people when it comes to game development. They take all the ideas and tasks and priorities, and develop a framework in which everybody can actually do the work. The producers I've worked with have been some of the hardest-working people I've seen in the industry.

They're the ones that set up the action plans for the designers, artists and programmers and help keep a game within scope so that things actually get released. They track everything, take in feedback from the team and ensure the project stays on-track. Without a good producer or two, you don't release a functioning or coherent game in my opinion.

As for why Turn 10 had so many, I don't know the specifics about that studio but given the multi-skilled complexities of a racing game and the fact that they may be working with outsourcing partners, there's simply too much work there for one person. They may split producer roles by department, or by game feature, I can only speculate.
 
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So, should I install Assetto Corsa Evo now, or wait a bit until it gets out of early access? I have a long list of cars and tracks I’d like to see, and hopefully it becomes the game I wanted to see from Forza.
 
ferrarimanf355
So, should I install Assetto Corsa Evo now, or wait a bit until it gets out of early access? I have a long list of cars and tracks I’d like to see, and hopefully it becomes the game I wanted to see from Forza.
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I reinstall EVO whenever there is an update, play for a while, and uninstall. That way I can check its progress and contribute with some playtime so they can have feedback. Could it be the game that brings together casual and sim-style driving? It's too early to tell.
 
PJTierney
I wouldn't say they "don't make games"
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Yeah, that was poor choice of words, sorry. I meant producers don't make content (cars, tracks), don't write code etc. I know it's crucial for large teams to have people who coordinate work of various teams, otherwise things could get messy real quick 😅
ferrarimanf355
So, should I install Assetto Corsa Evo now, or wait a bit until it gets out of early access? I have a long list of cars and tracks I’d like to see
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AC Evo is in very early Early Access, very thin on content and features. I'd suggest sticking to the original AC with mods for now and consider buying AC Evo when Kunos introduces their most important USP, which is the open world, at earliest (it was supposed to come this summer but from the looks of things we're going to wait longer).
 
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If MS kills Forza Motorsport iam done with MS / Xbox as a whole...

And as a pc race fan it would be also very problematic because there is nothing for me there like Forza / GT.

Maybe time to go back console. Only play Destiny 2 and Forza on it. If i have to go back to GT why the need of pc then....
 
Thanks for the advice everyone, I guess I’ll wait to install AC Evo when it leaves EA, and get to playing AC1 or ACC.
 
Famine
The same one or a different one?

As others have noted, this guy is close to but not within the situation and while what he says might prove accurate it's not something that is reliable enough to take as fact just yet.

Edit: Not that this stopped outlets reporting on it. Single-source reporting is BAD, people.
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Not sure I saw it on another forum and I couldn't confirm it since I don't have a FB account.
 
ArronWestley
I saw it written on the wall back in 2018, when FM7 was getting poor DLC packs, because the good content was being saved for FH4. They even used FM7 as a test mule (tons of FH4 assets in leaked FM7 builds).
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There's a big shared car list between both studios, so FH5 has references to FM8 content in it too. It's necessary for them to co-operate like that because by FH2 there was a complete mess where Turn10 and PG had separately made different cars using the same internal IDs, causing lots of conflicts when adding FM5 cars to Horizon. There have been quite a few times too when PG have accidentally included cars in FH5 promo screenshots that were never released in that game, but some of which turned up in FM8. Just the nature of having two teams sharing assets.
 
Remember what is possible, and what is chosen. An executive chose greater personal wealth over the lives of all of these people.

www.bbc.com

Nintendo executives take pay cuts after profits tumble

Nintendo's top executives take temporary pay cuts to atone for a dive in profits following disappointing sales of the company's Wii U games console.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

There was another option. It's one that has been taken in the past, to great success.

Nintendo was able to recover from the Wii U because they understood they must invest in their studios if they want to survive. A smart executive would take a pay cut to ensure the company's survival. Microsoft, and really much of the west it seems, is only focused on how the quarterly report looks. Killing the company and ruining lives to make sure the line doesn't go down this quarter is what they do.

Nintendo is now doing very well, with the Switch and now Switch 2. Microsoft threw money around and did nothing afterward and now they are realizing they spent too much and will suffer the consequences because their greed does not allow them to have less unimaginable wealth right now. Their hardware sales will continue to plummet as will their software sales. Xbox is on the way out, at best they will go the way of Sega.

This is the consequence of short-sighted decision making. By planning no more than two seconds ahead, you cannot guarantee longevity beyond those two seconds.

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

www.madinfinite.com

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 www.madinfinite.com
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Flight Sim 2024 would like a word.

Microsoft loves making these promises. This is the last one you'll ever need to buy! 10 years of support! Windows 10 is the last version! Forza Motorsport is meant to live forever! Flight Simulator will receive 10 years of updates!

They don't deliver.
Imari
If I had to be trapped on an island with one racing game, I'd pick GT7 or FM23 over GT4 or FM4.
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Hope you have wifi on your island then ;)
 
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AutumnalGlow
Remember what is possible, and what is chosen. An executive chose greater personal wealth over the lives of all of these people.

www.bbc.com

Nintendo executives take pay cuts after profits tumble

Nintendo's top executives take temporary pay cuts to atone for a dive in profits following disappointing sales of the company's Wii U games console.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

There was another option. It's one that has been taken in the past, to great success.

Nintendo was able to recover from the Wii U because they understood they must invest in their studios if they want to survive. A smart executive would take a pay cut to ensure the company's survival. Microsoft, and really much of the west it seems, is only focused on how the quarterly report looks. Killing the company and ruining lives to make sure the line doesn't go down this quarter is what they do.

Nintendo is now doing very well, with the Switch and now Switch 2. Microsoft threw money around and did nothing afterward and now they are realizing they spent too much and will suffer the consequences because their greed does not allow them to have less unimaginable wealth right now. Their hardware sales will continue to plummet as will their software sales. Xbox is on the way out, at best they will go the way of Sega.

This is the consequence of short-sighted decision making. By planning no more than two seconds ahead, you cannot guarantee longevity beyond those two seconds.
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I'm about to discuss this on a broad topic, none of what I say is to belittle the ramifications of people being laid off. People losing jobs is never a good thing and should never be overlooked. I'm just discussing the platform and the reasoning behind certain decisions (from my own perspective and opinion.).


I'm going to be the contrarian here, but Xbox has 40 games in development

The studios and games that suffered these layoffs were in development for 6-7+ years without clear release dates. Whether due to poor management or not, this is what likely led to them being a target of closure and cancelation. It is highly likely Everwild, Perfect Dark, and Zenimax MMO were still years from a release and never capable of return on investment.

It should also be said that Nintendo is exclusively a gaming company and does not answer to a larger corporation. Satya Nadella is not taking a paycut for Xbox when he has overseen Microsoft becoming the largest company in the world worth almost $4 trillion dollars.

You are implying that the Xbox hardware becoming less centralized is somehow a bad thing. It's a good thing that we have more options to play the games how we want and where we want. There will be another 1st party Xbox to likely set the standard for any 3rd party Xbox-like device releases; just like the Surface.

The end-game is likely to be an AMD APU that allows any Windows PC to run Xbox OS and all your existing Xbox games, including backwards compatible games. The truth is that Xbox does not make a profit on their hardware and the more people they can sell software to, the better. They seem to understand that what ultimately matters is going to be an ecosystem and locking to a single piece of hardware is a detriment in the long term.

I think it is naive to look at Microsoft's strategy as short-sighted just because of a round of layoffs that barely effect the massive amount of games that they have in development. Especially when Sony continues to eventually follow Microsoft's "short-sighted" strategy repeatedly.

I am not defending Xbox and Microsoft's actions; they mismanaged studios to an insane degree and management is ultimately at fault for the failures of these studios. In my honest opinion, I think Phil Spencer should step down just from the insane failure of The Initiative alone. An "AAAA" developer that never released a single game.


I would also warn against idolizing any video game company; Nintendo's executive were extremely kind to sacrifice their own pay to maintain positions in their company during a drop in profit.

However, that are also the same company going through multiple anti-consumer controversies at this very moment. Some even leading to lawsuits against Nintendo. They are also the same company who has mercilessly harassed the Palworld developer with broad and absurd lawsuits. Not to mention their insane reaction to any fan projects related to Nintendo properties. Going way beyond what is necessary to protect their own trademarks. They even attempted to sue a grocery store over their name, a lawsuit that they lost.

None of these companies are your friend.
 
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FordGTGuy
I'm about to discuss this on a broad topic, none of what I say is to belittle the ramifications of people being laid off. People losing jobs is never a good thing and should never be overlooked. I'm just discussing the platform and the reasoning behind certain decisions (from my own perspective and opinion.).


I'm going to be the contrarian here, but Xbox has 40 games in development

The studios and games that suffered these layoffs were in development for 6-7+ years without clear release dates. Whether due to poor management or not, this is what likely led to them being a target of closure and cancelation. It is highly likely Everwild, Perfect Dark, and Zenimax MMO were still years from a release and never capable of return on investment.

It should also be said that Nintendo is exclusively a gaming company and does not answer to a larger corporation. Satya Nadella is not taking a paycut for Xbox when he has overseen Microsoft becoming the largest company in the world worth almost $4 trillion dollars.

You are implying that the Xbox hardware becoming less centralized is somehow a bad thing. It's a good thing that we have more options to play the games how we want and where we want. There will be another 1st party Xbox to likely set the standard for any 3rd party Xbox-like device releases; just like the Surface.

The end-game is likely to be an AMD APU that allows any Windows PC to run Xbox OS and all your existing Xbox games, including backwards compatible games. The truth is that Xbox does not make a profit on their hardware and the more people they can sell software to, the better. They seem to understand that what ultimately matters is going to be an ecosystem and locking to a single piece of hardware is a detriment in the long term.

I think it is naive to look at Microsoft's strategy as short-sighted just because of a round of layoffs that barely effect the massive amount of games that they have in development. Especially when Sony continues to eventually follow Microsoft's "short-sighted" strategy repeatedly.

I am not defending Xbox and Microsoft's actions; they mismanaged studios to an insane degree and management is ultimately at fault for the failures of these studios. In my honest opinion, I think Phil Spencer should step down just from the insane failure of The Initiative alone. An "AAAA" developer that never released a single game.


I would also warn against idolizing any video game company; Nintendo's executive were extremely kind to sacrifice their own pay to maintain positions in their company during a drop in profit.

However, that are also the same company going through multiple anti-consumer controversies at this very moment. Some even leading to lawsuits against Nintendo. They are also the same company who has mercilessly harassed the Palworld developer with broad and absurd lawsuits. Not to mention their insane reaction to any fan projects related to Nintendo properties. Going way beyond what is necessary to protect their own trademarks. They even attempted to sue a grocery store over their name, a lawsuit that they lost.

None of these companies are your friend.
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I was interested in the Switch 2 until I saw the performance/money ratio and the price of the games.

Something that makes the PS5 Pro seem reasonably priced is clearly not for me, especially with Nintendo's archaic practices when it comes to service.
 
FordGTGuy
I would also warn against idolizing any video game company; Nintendo's executive were extremely kind to sacrifice their own pay to maintain positions in their company during a drop in profit.

However, that are also the same company going through multiple anti-consumer controversies at this very moment. Some even leading to lawsuits against Nintendo. They are also the same company who has mercilessly harassed the Palworld developer with broad and absurd lawsuits. Not to mention their insane reaction to any fan projects related to Nintendo properties. Going way beyond what is necessary to protect their own trademarks. They even attempted to sue a grocery store over their name, a lawsuit that they lost.

None of these companies are your friend.
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I'm well aware. I'm praising the actions of Nintendo when they were struggling during the failure of the Wii U as a smart business decision for the overall longevity of the company. What Xbox is doing is foolish. They could have been competitive with competent management. They can only focus on the present moment.

If they were smart, they would have invested in the developers they already had and ensured they were in competent hands. Instead, they kept buying new studios in hopes they'd just keep producing money.
 
GTvsForza
If FM's future updates are like GT7 with less cars and content every one or two months, I think I'll be okay with that.
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I would absolutely take that at this point as well.

But somehow I doubt that'll be the case, and it might be a while until we hear the future plans for FM2023, as many in this thread have pointed out.

Just an awful situation all around and I hope those affected find themselves on their feet ASAP.
 
It is a holiday weekend, so they should have something to post tomorrow. We just have to wait.
 
GTvsForza
If FM's future updates are like GT7 with less cars and content every one or two months, I think I'll be okay with that.
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I will not. If they bring tracks like Monza, Long Beach, I will be okay. FM is not GT and T10 have a lot of licenses and a lot of tracks that did not make their return or a debut into the series(Interlagos, please make a debut someday).
Please bring Monza in Update 22 with 499 P, 296 GT3 and I will be really happy despite all this chaos and drama.
 
BRS Zeus
I will not. If they bring tracks like Monza, Long Beach, I will be okay. FM is not GT and T10 have a lot of licenses and a lot of tracks that did not make their return or a debut into the series(Interlagos, please make a debut someday).
Please bring Monza in Update 22 with 499 P, 296 GT3 and I will be really happy despite all this chaos and drama.
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I think you expect too much at this point
 
BRS Zeus
It's not too much. It's the basic. They have the 2nd half updates almost 95% ready. T10 not bringing "simple" tracks like Monza that they already have the model and scan is a shame for us.
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It's a bit of crisis mode for T10 right now. I think content while would be nice to continue to get it, we can't expect it until more info from their side is given. Im looking at all this from the perspective of we are not getting anything else...until I see the fate of this game posted from T10/Microsoft themselves. So basically we hear nothing,we get nothing.
 
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Famine
This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

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

Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 Studios has lost almost half its staff in one fell swoop, according to industry reports, amid a wide-ranging reduction in staff numbers across Xbox’s various subsidiaries...
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This is actually devastating for me. I originally got on the franchise since Motorsport 5. Been a long time supporter, played a heap and spent so much money. I was one that didn’t play Gran Turismo at all, and I have a PlayStation. I might as well play what I can, but unless Gran Turismo will add groups where I can force the AI in cars like Motorsport 7, I’ll stay on Xbox for a while longer.
 

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