Turn 10 apologizes, free stuff & changes coming to economy.

In case you haven't heard, there are some messed up things going on in Forza 5. Well, less than a week after the launch of the Xbox One and Forza Motorsport 5, developer Turn 10 Studios has already considered feedback and is starting to implement changes.

In their Week In Review post they say that they are working on more permanent changes for the game. But until that happens they're handing out a bunch of free stuff and boosting credit payouts.

• From 11/29 to 12/1 every car in the game is 50% off (both credit and token price).
• Free La Ferrari if you've bought the Ferrari Car Pack or have the season Car Pass.
• Increased credit payouts in the month of December via their Forza Rewards system. (pretty cool stat tracking stuff, not just a dumb thing)
• Limited Edition owners get one free car of their choice via their website, available no later than 12/16.
• Free 2013 Lotus E21 grand prix car for VIP members, or free Ferrari 1962 250 GTO if you somehow already have the F1 car.

One more additional thing that I want to single out.

Now, a word about tokens in the Forza Motorsport 5 Limited Edition. In our original description for Forza Motorsport 5’s Limited Edition, we told you that Limited Edition owners would get 1,250 in-game tokens, which we mistakenly said would be enough tokens to afford any car in the Forza 5. It isn’t. As a result, a number of you have pointed this out to us – that there are a number of cars in the game that cost more than 1,250 tokens to purchase.

And that's where the any free car comes in. However, I think that's total bull shit. I find it extremely hard to believe the people coming up with the 1,250 number didn't know about or never talked to anyone to see that the most expensive cars in the game are 10,000 tokens.

It's unfortunate that most of this stuff only applies to LE owners, VIP members (which you are if you have the LE, I think $10 otherwise), and those that have gotten the day one car pack or season pass. I mean, it's not like this is an MMO and giving everyone the F1 car is going to break everything. I got the LE so I'm happy about this stuff, but I can also understand those who got the standard edition but still way into Forza being pissed.

But yeah, at least this is a step in the right direction. Once they make more permanent changes I'll be sure to keep the Giant Bomb community informed.

In my last post in the other thread I wondered if Forza 5 should have been a tiered system from free to standard to LE to VIP with everything "purchased". There is something weird about the whole "price structure" I can't wrap my head around because it doesn't feel like they are trying to "up sell".

I'm kind of disgusted by all of this.

A 50% sale for three days? Why even bother?

This is such a "Hey we know the game is fucked because our money men wanted more money, but before we really change things we're going to keep things the same and see just how much we can milk from you".

This is crap because it either doesn't apply to owners of the standard game (most of the people who buy Forza just buy the regular game) and/or it doesn't help people who (like me) can't get an Xbox One yet because the sale will be over before I can buy any cars. They should cut the price forever, or double earnings forever. Or, they should just go away forever and we can all subscribe to iRacing, where overpaying for mediocre content is at least somewhat offset by the prospect of actually having an engaging multiplayer experience.

I'm not too clued in on the whole situation, but the stuff they're offering seems crap.

Apologies all over the place. Battlefield, NBA Live, Forza... What's next?!

This recent trend of double experience, discounted cars, etc. to make up for flawed games needs to stop.

Honestly... I like that it is hard to get cars. It makes it that much more special when you do buy one.

That being said, you should be able to test drive any car you want. And man... those accelerators make it seem super scummy. But overall, I don't really care about this aspect.

I would much rather they let us use our racing wheels!

well considering inflating development costs and that games typically don't stay full price for long nowdays, this faux f2p monetizing has to just be a tactic to recoup the losses they take on production alone. would people be happy with paying $80 instead and guaranteed all the content and no DLC (i would probably go for it, but i'm pretty sure the answer is no). i mean maybe it's the developer at fault who can't curb their spending and i'm not trying to make apologies for their systems in place, but it just seems like a lose-lose situation.

I already got my Lotus E21. You (VIP) guys/gals ought to check to see if you got yours too.

A fucking temporary 50% sale for your 60$ retail f2p game. Someone at Turn 10 is having a laugh, fuck off with that shit.

That doesn't sound like "We're sorry" as much as it does "We're sorry you didn't fall for it."

@itwastuesday: Amen.

Turning $60 games into storefronts is a surefire way to turn people off of gaming completely. It sours the whole experience as far as I'm concerned.

One hundred US dollars.

That's an embarrassing example of an apology. Turn 10's mother should be ashamed.

Buy this game used.

What a mess. "Hey, we're sorry we completely screwed up our game with super-gross micro (or not so micro) transactions, so here's a sale on cars I guess?". That doesn't cut it.

In fine print at the bottom:

"sale on cars expires December 1st. After that we're going right back to the buuulllshit. gotcha dodo birds"

yes

@spraynardtatum: only if you actually are a dodo bird that purchases tokens in the first place, right?

It's not really their fault that Turn 10 sucks.

@ripelivejam said:

I imagine the high cost of living where these studios are located has something to do with severe budget inflation. A studio in San Francisco would need an inflated budget just to keep the lights on. I never understood why more studios don't follow the likes of Bethesda, Epic Games, and Volition. They make quality, high-end games for a fraction of what Turn 10 spent to make cars go vroom vroom. Hell, the Gears of War series never spent a dime over $15 million on production, and Bethesda spent more on marketing Skyrim than they did making the damn game.

Point is there is a way to play the AAA game and win without betting your shirt. I have no idea why more studios don't do it.

I don't understand why people are surprised. Microsoft wants your money, and they'll want to stick it up your ass while you pay for it. Sony wants your money but at least the're seemingly willing to work for it. Microsoft is in the industry for money, Sony's in it to create an art form and keep gaming around for as long as possible.

I had so many people on GB lambasting me for being upset about the Forza DLC/Season Pass setup relative to past Forza titles... I'm glad I wasn't wrong in the long-run.

MORE LIKE MACRO TRANSACTIONS

I'm holding off until the next iteration of Forza. I was on the fence about the game in the next week or so until I started reading these articles, but now I'm just disgusted. I like racing sims, but I dont have the time to invest 50 hours to get one of the new cars they are marketing as a reason to buy the game in the first place. I realize that the cost of producing the same amount of content gets more expensive with each generation as the level of detail increases, but there has to be a better way than this to make the game profitable. Raising the number of credits to earn a car exponentially, raising the cost of purchasing a car exorbitantly, and eliminating the ability to win a car is just disgusting. A two day sale is just a slap in the face to people who plan on buying the game a week from now.

Of course I want a challenge and to feel like I earned the car, but at the end of the day I want to play the cars in the video game I just bought for 60 bucks the same year that I made the purchase... Why would I want Ferraris to be as rare in my 'racing dream' world as they are in the real world?

This sounds more like an advertisement than an apology letter.

In fairness, this has very little (if anything) to do with the DLC car packs, which I'll argue are still reasonable for the price. This whole kerfuffle revolves around car tokens and changes to rewards in-game that increase the difficulty of buying and enjoying cars already in the game.

Wow, I didn't realize when I wrote my last post that some of the super cars and F1's cost millions of points. I just got the game two days ago, I thought that they cost like... hundreds of thousands. Some of these prices do seem ridiculous, unless the points you earn really start to scale up a lot.

Well, you aren't wrong. It does cost a lot to hire people in SF and the like. When a (programer) friend told me what he made at Volition, I didn't believe him. We paid our QA like 30% more! But there is more to the story. Talent will flock to where they are most valuable. And, if you want them, you can get the best in a place like silicon valley, which is one of the reasons they cost more. The high salaries are a result of supply and demand (and those salaries are what causes that high cost of living). If you set up a studio where there isn't a lot of demand for programers (and other game peoples), you can pay them a lot less. But why would a good programmer who wants nice salary want to live where he isn't wanted? It's all a mater of trade offs.

As for the micro transactions, I think they put them in because they thought they could get away with it. They always want to be making the maximum amount of money possible, high costs or not. And when its a $60 game, I think that super fucking gross. Our hope is that real gamers will drift away from $60 games that have F2P mechanics and move to alternatives. That's the only way they will learn and change their ways.

sounds like they are just sorry people are bitching about it

It's so strange. This is the one game with a lock on a good review and some serious goodwill for a launch game. But they found a way to make their customer's unhappy.

@koolaid: except that $90k in SF is equivalent to roughly $50k in champaign. Biggest talent pool is of course Silicon Valley but salaries are very comparable

This seems to be par for the course for Xbox One Exclusives. Sure, there are more varied exclusives on day one (Forza, Ryse, Killer Instinct), but they're also saddled with minefields of microtransactions. Content you don't have to pay for, but it sure would be awfully convenient if you did.

A sale that coincides with black Friday is not an apology.

@hailinel: Ill agree with you on Forza and Ryse, but how does KI have horrible microtransactions?

HAHAH! Scoundrels!

The game is being sold in a piecemeal fashion with different pricing tiers. If you buy all of the content in Season 1 and all of the content coming in Season 2 next year, it seems that you will have a game roughly equivalent in the level of content for a basic modern fighting game package for well over the standard price of a modern fighting game that you would buy on a disc. Microsoft even has a $60 package sold at the Microsoft store that includes all of the Season 1 content and some physical bonuses, but does not contain any discount or voucher for Season 2.

So

$20 for Season 1 + $20 for season 2 (assuming) $40 seems alright

Nope.

@hailinel said:

@connerthekewlkid said:

@hailinel said:

@connerthekewlkid said:

@hailinel: Ill agree with you on Forza and Ryse, but how does KI have horrible microtransactions?

The game is being sold in a piecemeal fashion with different pricing tiers. If you buy all of the content in Season 1 and all of the content coming in Season 2 next year, it seems that you will have a game roughly equivalent in the level of content for a basic modern fighting game package for well over the standard price of a modern fighting game that you would buy on a disc. Microsoft even has a $60 package sold at the Microsoft store that includes all of the Season 1 content and some physical bonuses, but does not contain any discount or voucher for Season 2.

So

$20 for Season 1 + $20 for season 2 (assuming) $40 seems alright

Nope.

Yes

$40 dollars if you want to pay for just the characters and not all the extra costumes and trinkets.

They already said theryre gonna do the season 2 Bundle the same as season 1

more like turn 180 amirite

I still don't get the big deal about the Forza thing. You can play the game just fine, without using any real money right? What's the problem?

It's good to hear that they will be making changes to their economy system. I like how they listened to their fans and reviewers and are at least taking steps in the right direction. These sales and stuff are pretty weak, but at least we know that they are going to make permanent changes. Hopefully it'll be ready when I get my X1 next year.

Just researched more about this, and these sales and free things are just meant to tide us over. They're currently going over how to change the system. Go Turn 10!

I wonder if this will nullify any reviews that bashed the game for it's economy...

@kishinfoulux I think what the argument here is is that there are a lot of screens where you are able to bring up a "Pay with real money" option. I'm not sure if that's the full extent but from what I hear it doesn't REALLY get in your way, it's just that people hate the idea of it.

@kishinfoulux: For the most part, yes. I haven't been buying too many cars at the outset compared to previous games, but I don't feel like I'm not getting enough credits or anything.

@xyzygy: It doesn't. When you're buying cars there a second option to buy using tokens. It's not the default option so it's not an issue. There's also now XP boosting on pre-race pages, which is kinda weird, but okay whatever.

I don't hate the idea of it, I hate the implementation.

Almost every next (or now current) generation game I've picked up so far has heavy integration with micro transactions, and I have almost every launch game on both platforms (seriously, the stack of cases is probably 4 feet tall).

Pragmatically, I think we all have the same choice if this bothers us: skip out on next/current gen entirely, or just not use the micro transactions boosts and stick with actual DLC content packs. I have and will continue to exercise the former, and hope that game developers figure out a more reasonable balance between in-game rewards/currency and micro transactions for future iterations of their titles.

I just picked up a xbox one tonight, is the limited edition still the way to go or just the regular version?

Still ridiculous. Right now this is just a list of temporary stuff, oh and a lot of it's keyed to having bought a version of the game that costs more than $60 anyway.

And I still can't use any of my existing racing wheels.

They're only seem to be sorry they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

They still are charging for double XP with the limited and VIP editions. Give me a break.

Just throwing this out there, but the Wii U does not feature many, if any, games that function on microtransactions. It's certainly not the case that Super Mario 3D World asks the player if they want to unlock worlds or buy power-ups by spending $10.

How about some more tracks to race on? This game has like 14 and two of those are freaking test tracks..

It seems the extra credits for December are already live on Forza Rewards. There's one for 1M credits and another for 5M credits (wowza). It's not entirely clear who gets what tier (I thought I was getting the 1M but ended up getting the 5M one). As of right now the temporary in game sale of 50% off all cars ends today, so be sure to get those credits and grab everything you can.

EDIT

Correction, it seems like the amount of credits you get is based on your Rewards tier. And then you get another 1M credits for every tier you go up afterwards.

People really fall for T10's shallow tactics. Amusing.