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UK: Forza 7 down 22% from Forza 6, down 60% from Forza Horizon 3

Zafir

Member
Not a shock. I feel like If you have Forza 6 there isn't a massive reason to get 7... Especially considering the way they moved the difficulty bonuses into mods. =/ I have to admit the only reason I got Forza 7 was because I got it for like £20, wouldn't have paid full price.

I will say though, since Forza 6 they have introduced play anywhere, so there might be more digital copies this time round. I have a digital copy of Forza 7 where as my copy of 6 was physical.
 

Seventy70

Member
Just curious, what could be done differently to avoid it feeling like a giant list of races? To me, that's essentially what racing games are...

My biggest complaint is that they throw cars at you like crazy. If there's a career mode, they should have you slowly progress up the ladder. I want there to be a sense of ownership towards cars. I like it when I can go to my garage in racing games and look back on cars I upgraded and customized.

So, I guess it's more the lack of progression than anything else. I want to feel like I'm earning things and moving up. I get bored when it feels like I have no sense of direction.

That actually ended up being my problem with Horizon as well. I ended up quite far into the game and it didn't really feel like I had accomplished much. The races and cars weren't all that different from the start of the game.
 

kadotsu

Banned
It's a bundle game. That's why the progression and monetization is the way it is. It also doesn't help that it's the fifth Forza game on XB1.
 

Kolibri

Member
People are sick of racing the same old cars on the same old tracks in these racing games.

"Hey look, i'm at the Top Gear track knocking over pins for the fourth time!"

PD and Turn 10 need to ditch everything and start from scratch. Even how the game is structured. They are both stale as shit these days. We need a big mix up (No, not online only, PD)

And this is coming form a huge fan of both.
 

jesu

Member
They should have Horizon's driving physics added as an option in FM8.
Might steel some of those Horizon fans.
 

HotchieMotchie

Neo Member
It's tarnished by people that don't play the game. The lootboxes are protested on principle rather than implementation.

I've played like 20 hours and already have over 100 cars in a game allegedly ruined by a micro transaction economy. I haven't been forced to buy shit.

They're bringing back the VIP double credit bonus, and I get like 425k each week with my Forza rewards tier. Credits will be worthless in a month like all the recent Forza games.

But lootboxes.

Look, I'm not saying it's justified or not, I'm just saying it's unquestionably dominated the conversation. Also worth mentioning that the double currency VIP perk originally wasn't included and is only being added after a massive backlash, which is not a good look.
 
It's been growing about 5 percentage points every 6 months on a global basis since the start of the generation. Not sure what it shakes out to for the UK in specific.

So as we're 4 years into this gen assuming we had a starting point of 10% digital, that puts the current digital ratio at up to 50%?! That seems unusually high; is that supported by publisher financial reports?
 

Sjefen

Member
Fuck loot boxes and games that ecourage the use of them. I hope this is a trend with AAA games, loot boxes = low sales. User reviews on Amazon is awful for Forza 7, and most complain of them is about loot boxes. I hope Shadow of war and Battlefront 2 also take a hit in sales.
 

LewieP

Member
I think going fully annual was bound to impact sales of the mainline series eventually.

At least the Horizon series has a huge change in setting from entry to entry to keep things fresh. There will always be a dedicated fanbase for the mainline games, but it's not a huge surprise to hear that more of the casual fans skipped this one, or are waiting for a discount.

Loot box/VIP pass discourse can't have helped, either.

It's fairly impressive that Turn 10/Playground Games have managed to keep the momentum going on the series for so long. Not many game series have the track record for critical acclaim, sales success and consistent releases that can match Forza (all I can think of is COD).

I wonder to what extent MS have a plan for what to do when Halo/Gears/Forza are no longer economically viable given their business model.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Can't say I'm surprised. The lootboxes killed a lot of buzz this game had going for it.

There's some fun to be had beneath the poorly structured career/economy this time round but they haven't fixed a number of long term glaring issues that the series has had this generation. Fastest I've ever dropped a Forza game, namely due to the AI issues.
 

Kusagari

Member
I think the amount of people that need a car game every single year is extremely minuscule.

MS is running the franchise into the ground.
 
I think it's franchise fatigue. Personally I haven't buy it because I got FM5 and 6 at launch (also got FH2 and FH3) and I don't feel like I need another one. If I get FM7 it will be with the 1X.
 

ethomaz

Banned
My opinion from other thread...

Forza 7 being down compared with Forza 6 was a bit expected.

- Some Forza fans moved to Horizon spin-off (Forza Horizon will be the top seller Forza game this gen)
- General sales in UK are below last year.
- Forza has too many releases... one per year making some guys skip some of them like it happens with FIFA that has bigger sales each 2 years.
- The game received some critics due microtransations and loot box progression... even the VIP pass was not well received.
 

Carlius

Banned
i like horizon a lot better...i hope the downsales had something to do with the lootboxes too, cause we need to make this shit clear to developers.
 

Trup1aya

Member
The average person may not know that, it happens on gaf all the time. They could have used Forza for the main series and Project Gotham Racing or whatever for the arcade.

People see Forza every year and think it's an annualized game. It's happened for years now.

Unless you are a person who plays the games, the frequency of release has no effect on "fatigue".

And if you are a person who plays the games you know that they are completely different.

"Fatigue" is the result of exposing customers to the same formula over and over... which isn't happening here. It has nothing to do with what a game is called.
 
Not a shock. I feel like If you have Forza 6 there isn't a massive reason to get 7... Especially considering the way they moved the difficulty bonuses into mods. =/ I have to admit the only reason I got Forza 7 was because I got it for like £20, wouldn't have paid full price.

I will say though, since Forza 6 they have introduced play anywhere, so there might be more digital copies this time round. I have a digital copy of Forza 7 where as my copy of 6 was physical.

They moved into game difficulty not mods.
 

TheRed

Member
The loot boxes don't even really bother me. The terrible AI makes the game worth skipping though. In my opinion.
 

Wiped89

Member
I said this in another thread but they clearly made too many Forza games this gen.

I bought an Xbox One S last year and I couldn't decide whether to get Forza 5 or skip straight to 6. Then I heard 7 was coming and ended up skipping them both. And I still haven't bought 7 because I'm playing Horizon 3 all the time.

Microsoft, take a leaf from Nintendo's book, make 1 or 2 games per series per gen, it then centralises players around those big releases instead of spreading them between lots of iterations.

For this reason alone, the timegap to GT6, I expect GT Sport to sell well.
 

ViciousDS

Banned
meh, let me see Horizon 4......don't care about the motorsport series anymore


It's never been a big seller taking almost 3-4 months just to sell a million copies the last few releases
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
So as we're 4 years into this gen assuming we had a starting point of 10% digital, that puts the current digital ratio at up to 50%?! That seems unusually high; is that supported by publisher financial reports?

EA expects 2017 to end at 40% digital for the industry, with last year having had 9% (percentage points) growth in digital, and this year they're expecting 5% (percentage points), though this was an estimate from much earlier in the year.

Drew Crum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.

Okay. Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. So I wonder if you guys could comment on your experience with Battlefield 1 DLC. What the conversion rate was in the March quarter and what your expectations are for fiscal 2018? I believe you guys had four maps launching this fiscal period. And then second question is more a clarification. Your commentary on full-game downloads being 9% last year, but moving back to 5%, is that a number for the company or something you expect the industry to trend at? And if it's not for you, where would you expect it to be given the Star Wars versus Battlefield dynamic? Thanks.

Blake J. Jorgensen - Electronic Arts, Inc.

Yeah. So thanks, Drew. The first question on Battlefield 1. We're not going to disclose attach rates because they're becoming less and less meaningful, particularly in a world of live services. And you'll see some changes to our approach, particularly with Battlefield and Battlefront over time that makes those DLC less important because it's ongoing content that's being delivered. I will say, you'll also see a lot of content delivered to the broad community for Battlefield, not just for the DLC owners going forward, which I think will continue to make those numbers a little less meaningful.

We're very pleased with the engagement levels on Battlefield, as well as the ongoing sales of Battlefield 1, and we think that will continue on. And I guess what I would say is, based on having seen some of the DLCs, I would never refer to them as a map. We've got a lot of exciting stuff coming and a lot of interesting things about World War I that have yet to be even seen.

In terms of full-game downloads. The number surprised us because we had thought that it'd be around the 5% year-over-year growth. Some of that may simply be the consumer is shifting faster than we know or we expected. The trends can sometimes jump in dramatic ways and maybe we're starting to see that overall shift. And some of it could be product-related. We do think the industry will end calendar year 2017 probably above 40%. We will most likely lag that as we have historically because FIFA is such a large product and it is so global that we are operating in markets where either the ability to purchase digitally, or the ability to download based on bandwidth speeds, are compromised and thus we tend to skew a little lower on FIFA than we do on the rest of our portfolio. So we've always lagged the industry slightly, but we are excited about the potential that you're seeing the consumer possibly shift quicker to digital than we'd originally anticipated.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/40...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single
We do know that For Honor's first month in NPD was 52% digital sales, and that it was one of the best selling games of the year, to take something approaching that level.
 

Cpt Lmao

Member
Microsoft really need to be careful here, Forza is their last healthy IP. If they were smart they'd give the mainline series a hiatus, have the Horizon devs make Project Gotham Racing 4, and then return with some fresh new ideas in Forza 8.
 
I'm kind of amazed how many Forza games they've managed to pump out in such a relatively short period of time. 10 games in 12 years. Maybe the series is suffering from fatigue
 

Zafir

Member
They moved into game difficulty not mods.

What are you even on about?

The credit bonuses you got from changing the difficulty/assists are gone unless I missed something.

Now those kind of bonuses are tucked into mods you get from loot crates. So you have to use credits to get mods to get bonuses to credits... It's pretty ridiculous.
 

BeeDog

Member
I have serious doubts the loot box shenanigans put a dent in the game's overall sales. It seems like a thing that only savvy online-aware gamers might truly care about, and not the general public. Regardless, I don't doubt the game will still sell really well.
 
It looks like a good game... but not drastic enough of an improvement for me to want to get it after playing Forza 6.

Plus, loot boxes.
 
What are you even on about?

The credit bonuses you got from changing the difficulty/assists are gone unless I missed something.

Now those kind of bonuses are tucked into mods you get from loot crates. So you have to use credits to get mods to get bonuses to credits... It's pretty ridiculous.

Difficulty alone can give up to a 100% credit/XP boost. AFAIK, a race on Forza 7 with any given difficulty setting will pay more than that same exact race/difficulty + assist bonuses in Forza 6.
 

a.wd

Member
A lot of people probably waiting for the X1X, I know I am, I played the demo and I will be waiting patiently for the X to come out then, probably sending the girls off to the spa or something for a loong weekend gaming.
 
I hate loot boxes as much as the next guy, but the intentional misinformation about how loot boxes work in this game is sad.
 
I'd agree with the too many games crowd. Forget Horizon as well, three standard games a generation is too much for the genre. A launch title and a polished follow up that pushes the hardware is about right.
 
I think that racing games in general have stopped really improving to the point where every iteration is just slightly better. I haven't really invested any racing game this generation. I think racing games peaked in quality last generation. What we see now is just a refinement to what we already know. That's my opinion at least.
 
What are you even on about?

The credit bonuses you got from changing the difficulty/assists are gone unless I missed something.

Now those kind of bonuses are tucked into mods you get from loot crates. So you have to use credits to get mods to get bonuses to credits... It's pretty ridiculous.

You missed the boat

e3PnofH.jpg
 
I think part of the reason for adding the loot boxes was to try and chase the Horizon revenue. Can't be a great feeling for Turn10 that the spin off series is more popular. And more importantly, makes more money.
 

hawk2025

Member
It's tarnished by people that don't play the game. The lootboxes are protested on principle rather than implementation.

I've played like 20 hours and already have over 100 cars in a game allegedly ruined by a micro transaction economy. I haven't been forced to buy shit.

They're bringing back the VIP double credit bonus, and I get like 425k each week with my Forza rewards tier. Credits will be worthless in a month like all the recent Forza games.

But lootboxes.


Here’s a fantastic example of how Forza tries to subvert the narrative: By giving out bonuses to loyal fans that played previous games and adding a multiplier to VIP (note how you somehow conveniently left out the fact that VIP is a *paid* addition), it immediately turns loyal fans into defenders.

After all, you are getting twice as many credits and bonus goodies for spending $100 this year and hundreds in the past on the series. Why are all these casuls complaining about the rate of earned credit?

You “haven’t been forced to buy shit”, but you sure as hell are peddling buying a VIP pass to help.

Forza has steadfastly declined into the worst, most pernicious case study of microtransactions in the industry.
 

_Legacy_

Member
Loot boxes may have done some damage on this one but I think Forza doesn't need to release every year, I think it's killing the series a bit. Horizon is a breath of fresh air and that is what it seems the consumer wants.

Forza always looks amazing but I think they need to focus more on Horizon instead.
 
You can't even buy lootboxes with real money in this game. it's weird that a sales thread is about loot boxes; instead of the general UK market which is the main problem.
 
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