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

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FordGTGuy
Tango's leadership had left after it was purchased by Microsoft, essentially gutting the creative direction of the studio.
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That's not quite right, Shinji Mikami created this studio specifically to train young talent which he did and said young talent took over directorial duties after Evil Within 1, John Johanas directed Evil Within 2 and HiFi Rush, and another guy directed Ghost Wire Tokyo. Mikami was satisfied with this, considered his goal accomplished and retired happy that the studio was in good hands creatively and with MS money should exist for many years. But of course now MS can't use the name of the legendary creator of RE 4 in their marketing so Tango was of no further use.
Of all their closures this is probably the most tragic one because Tango delivered solid games with reasonable dev cycles and budgets and was built to carry on Mikami's legacy. Alas this was not to be.
Thankfully Krafton acquired the studio from MS and they will continue independently.
 
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UKMikey
"Former dev". Is this based on that same social media message from the guy who left fifteen years ago? If so I'm not sure it counts as further confirmation.
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Yes, it's the same "source" as all the other articles have used. Still very much unconfirmed.
 
Man this is brutal. I haven't been the biggest fan of this franchise since FM4, but I suspect my issue is with the management at MS, rather than the developer. How long can you step on the creators out there before nobody is left to make anything? A world run by accountants. So frustrating.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Man this is brutal. I haven't been the biggest fan of this franchise since FM4, but I suspect my issue is with the management at MS, rather than the developer. How long can you step on the creators out there before nobody is left to make anything? A world run by accountants. So frustrating.
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Like I've said somewhere, Turn Ten can only do so much, but at the end it's Microsoft pulling the strings and treating them like their puppets, everything from game design to employment of developers.
 
Social team is still alive at least, though I feel it's brave to stick with the pre-planned content calendar without the team addressing the Unimog in the room first.

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Maybe Microsoft is hoping this will blow over? Guess we'll have to wait and see.
 
PJTierney
Social team is still alive at least, though I feel it's brave to stick with the pre-planned content calendar without the team addressing the Unimog in the room first.
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Not sure why you would expect anything else?
 
With how much of the staff has been reduced, its certainly choice to just advertise that as if that'll go smoothly with only half or less the manpower on hand.
 
GlamFM
Not sure why you would expect anything else?
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I’ve worked socials for many a “doomed game” in my time and when something big goes down it’s best to address it somehow before returning to normal programming.

This tweet is effectively the first official communication from the game since the layoffs were announced, and the replies to it are all about one topic.
 
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PJTierney
I’ve worked socials for many a “doomed game” in my time and when something big goes down it’s best to address it somehow before returning to normal programming.

This tweet is effectively the first official communication from the game since the layoffs were announced, and the replies to it are all about one topic.
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MS have figured out how to automate tweets from their games' PR accounts, all it took was billions of investments into generative AI and enough power stations to run Ireland.
 
They should have added ALL NEW to those posts, given I've seen people who cover the game give the impression The Champions Cup is made up of previous tours, although having previous reward cars as prizes doesn't help in that regard.
 
There might still be some hope.



At least they're still posting and the social media team is intact.

But I suggest you all keep your eyes peeled until we get an official statement so we can get some clarity... and what will happen moving forward.
 
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GBalao888
There might still be some hope.



At least they're still posting and the social media team is intact.

But I suggest you all keep your eyes peeled until we get an official statement so we can get some clarity... and what will happen moving forward.
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It does annoy me how they're just avoiding to talk about the issue and continue posting on social media like nothing has happened 🙄
This Is Fine GIF
 
Hasse 86
It does annoy me how they're just avoiding to talk about the issue and continue posting on social media like nothing has happened 🙄
This Is Fine GIF
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It's entirely possible that Microsoft instructed them to not say anything about it, because news like this tends to make shareholders grumble impatiently and we wouldn't want them to see that there were drasctic cuts made to disguise that there still haven't been any ROI with their AI follies, now would we?
 
I continue to be surprised that you guys think the layoffs are something T10 somehow needs to address on their socials.
As long as it's not of consequence to the consumers, it's honestly none of their business.
Support for FM seems to be intact, so this is probably the end of the story.
 
GlamFM
I continue to be surprised that you guys think the layoffs are something T10 somehow needs to address on their socials.
As long as it's not of consequence to the consumers, it's honestly none of their business.
Support for FM seems to be intact, so this is probably the end of the story.
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To be fair, it's become standard practice for game studios to whip out an apology PNG on their socials for damage control whenever something bad happens with a game, and with a lot of tech and gaming sites pointing this out it's not too far out of line to think T10 would at least make an acknowledgement that this could affect long term support of the game. Especially with the aforementioned sites maybe not presenting the full picture, and more and more people deciding to quickly abandon games as "dead" as soon as the monthly river of free content dries up.

So long as they don't pull an Ubisoft and completely remove the ability to play it, I'm personally not too concerned, but not everyone has been looking at this from all angles as to why it happened.
 
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EngieDiesel
To be fair, it's become standard practice for game studios to whip out an apology PNG on their socials for damage control whenever something bad happens with a game
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Absolutely, but as I see it the nothing bad is happening with the game? It seems fine therefor the inner workings of T10 are of no consequence to the consumer.

The rumor was that the 50% of T10 that are still there are specifically still there to support the game.
While I'm skeptical that we'll get a new FM, I firmly believe this FM will be well supported for a lot longer.

Once that chances I expect an announcement / acknowledgement on their socials, but as long as we're still going it's business as usual imo.
 
GlamFM
Absolutely, but as I see it the nothing bad is happening with the game? It seems fine therefor the inner workings of T10 are of no consequence to the consumer.

The rumor was that the 50% of T10 that are still there are specifically still there to support the game.
While I'm skeptical that we'll get a new FM, I firmly believe this FM will be well supported for a lot longer.

Once that chances I expect an announcement / acknowledgement on their socials, but as long as we're still going it's business as usual imo.
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I admit I'm more skeptical just because of who's in charge, and if Windows 11 and Copilot still have slow uptake at the end of the year it wouldn't surprise me if the rest of T10 and maybe even Playground get tossed under the axe simply to avoid having to make larger cuts at Bethesda or Blizzard (and thus admitting Microsoft made questionable purchases there). But there isn't much we can do other than wait and see, I suppose.
 
EngieDiesel
I admit I'm more skeptical just because of who's in charge, and if Windows 11 and Copilot still have slow uptake at the end of the year it wouldn't surprise me if the rest of T10 and maybe even Playground get tossed under the axe simply to avoid having to make larger cuts at Bethesda or Blizzard (and thus admitting Microsoft made questionable purchases there). But there isn't much we can do other than wait and see, I suppose.
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I think they'll sooner throw Ninja Theory under the bus, a completely useless team for MS and horrible financials for Hellblade 2, honestly surprised they're still around after this round of cuts.
 
GlamFM
Absolutely, but as I see it the nothing bad is happening with the game? It seems fine therefor the inner workings of T10 are of no consequence to the consumer.
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Bit of a consequence when I paid for a live service game to be supported for many years that dies before its second birthday because there's no one left to make the live service live anymore. It's over. The staff is gone. As weeks pass the cope I see online starts to look more like delusion.

I left behind a little MMO called Brighter Shores. The developers have made almost no progress in early access. Despite there being approximately 3-5 major updates since November, and plenty of evidence of scrapped plan after scrapped plan, the remaining players still hold onto hope that this time, the developers are really going to listen. They're really going to address the problems with the game.

They don't. The players keep hoping and coping. It becomes delusion. Eventually they're 8 months deep into a 6 month estimated early access period still telling themselves the devs are going to hit another early access target any day now. The 3rd of 8 total tasks on the list will be checked off any day.



Point is, it's just not happening. You're grabbing onto little bits of hope; a social media post, ManteoMax posted that he'll post a statement if there ever is one. But it's been nearly 3 weeks. They already didn't promise another content update, which is unusual. They dropped their final track and Microsoft sent everyone home. That's it.

Bad things don't tend to come with an announcement letting you know what's going to happen. They just happen.

I love Forza Motorsport. I really do. My hours in Forza could only compete with my hours in RuneScape. But it's quite clear now that FM is dead.

And unfortunately, I was playing out of a desire to see it get better. I don't think it ever got to a point I'd be happy with long term. The AI isn't fun to race against over a long race when they can't handle certain cars and tracks. Old muscle cars at Laguna Seca, I lapped 2nd place after about 10 laps because many cars found the sand every other lap, and would often smash into the other cars on track. This is the kind of behavior I was happy to see worked on even if it wasn't there yet. Now it never will be. And I don't really know what to do with this game now. Maybe I should seek a refund since the live service aspect is dead far earlier than promised? Or does that only work for a Concord-level failure?
 

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