An Open Letter to Microsoft, Turn 10 Studios, and Playground Games Regarding Forza Horizon 2 DLC

Dear Microsoft, Turn 10 Studios, and Playground Games:

Congratulations on the launch of Forza Horizon 2!  It’s a fantastic game, and easily one of my favorite racing games of all time. Unfortunately, today I am writing not to praise, but to criticize your continued nasty DLC policies and the lack of value therein. You listened to your fans when we questioned your practices within Forza 5 and I’m hoping you consider doing so again.

Today, 1 week after release of the base game, you announced the Mobil 1 Car Pack for $5. I’m assuming Mobil has paid you straight out for this placement or has offered you some kind of valuable marketing cross-promotion in exchange for having their name associated with this content. That you are charging customers while simultaneously accepting sponsorship does not sit well with me.  

Much worse though, is that you decided to sell all the cars individually EXCEPT the Jaguar F-Type, which can only be acquired with the purchase of the full pack. This ongoing practice of holding the most desired cars “hostage” behind $5-$20 DLC packages has to be one of the most hostile anti-consumer practices that exists in the gaming industry. If you have the capability to sell the cars piecemeal, excluding certain cars only highlights greed and how little respect you have for customers and fans.

In Forza Motorsport 5, you locked the Bugatti Veyron behind the $20 VIP pass. Yes, one of the most coveted cars in history was not available unless customers, who already paid $60 for the game, ponied up an additional $20. This is analogous to sports games making the most popular players or teams available only to those who pay extra. These practices exemplify everything that is wrong with DLC today, and as consumers, we must rally against them or face a very bleak and expensive gaming future.

Also, there has been a noticeable decrease in value provided by the Forza series.  Forza Motorsport 4 Limited Edition for $80 which included a physical package with a steel case, a very nice 100 page hardcover book, an additional 15 cars and VIP membership.  In stark contrast, Forza Horizon 2’s $80 Limited Edition was download only (so no disc, steel case, or book) and only included 5 extra cars and VIP membership.    

I hope you will consider freeing the most popular cars from their packs and allow ALL cars to be purchased separately.  In the meantime, I will continue to urge gamers to avoid DLC purchases of this nature and spread the word that these business practices are insulting to your most dedicated customers and a blight on the gaming industry.

Thanks,

David "CheapyD" Abrams

Cheap Ass Gamer
 

Wow, guess its a good thing I decided to skip FH2 until a good deal pops up on Black Friday.

edit- I really hope they read this and listen to the podcast.

Also, we had a discussion about this on this week's CAGcast.  The clip is here:

https://soundcloud.com/cheapyd/clip-from-cagcast-382-value-and-dlc-forza-more

Purchasing the cars individually or at least in choose your own bundles may open the gates for more people making purchases too. I am very hesitant to spend 5 dollars or more add on items for games but I could be tempted to spend a dollar here and there,

Forza's DLC does not bother me whatsoever.  I won't even come close to driving the 200+ cars included with the game for free.  

Yeah, Forza gets crazy expensive once you start to look at buying all of the cars. I remember even in the first Horizon, they had the VIP pass and the rally DLC for like $50...and it didn't go on sale once until the game had been out like 5-6 months. Racing games are great...and Forza is one of the best, but $110+ is crazy when they're just going to pump another one out next year anyway.

I've been down on console gaming for the past couple years...but this is another example where PC gaming can't be beat. Most racing games feature an endless supply of car mods and even track mods. On console, it seems like publishers know they have you over a barrel and barely even bother being discreet about taking advantage of it anymore.

Just as an example, Assetto Corsa on Steam has a freaking Rainbow Road mod, lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSLAKff835E

I'm totally in agreement with you, Cheapy. FH2 is one of my favorite driving games of all time. I'm enjoying it so much. But these DLC practices feel so slimy and consumer-hostile. It's really a shame.

I don't play Forza at all but DLC in general has got WAY out of hand.  More and more games are making DLC feel like content removed from the main game rather than additional content that adds to a game's experience.  Definitely feel that way with Shadow of Mordor's ending and planned DLC.

GOTY contender... but the DLC practice is very shameful.

You have my sword!

Well said. Being able to buy individual cars is not too much to ask for at all. Holding the most wanted content behind larger more expensive content packs is just absurd and I hope people do not fall into it. 

I like the basketball analogy. It wouldn't make sense to be able to buy all the Bulls players individually but then the only way to get Jordan would be to buy an expensive larger pack. 

Well said.

Neo said:

Forza's DLC does not bother me whatsoever. I won't even come close to driving the 200+ cars included with the game for free.

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Neither will I, but, for me at least, it's the principle of the thing. Forza has gone from my preferred sim racing series to an off-putting nickel-and-diming fest.

CheapyD said:

Also, there has been a noticeable decrease in value provided by the Forza series. Forza Motorsport 4 Limited Edition for $80 which included a physical package with a steel case, a very nice 100 page hardcover book, an additional 15 cars and VIP membership. In stark contrast, Forza Horizon 2’s $80 Limited Edition was download only (so no disc, steel case, or book) and only included 5 extra cars and VIP membership.

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This is how I personally feel about the Call of Duty Advanced Warfare prestige edition this year. They're charging $120 and you don't get anything physical like years past (rc car, camera, goggles..etc)

While I'm not as bothered by it because I will never use all of the cars in any racing game, I agree that what they did with the Bugatti in Forza 5 was pretty terrible.  You didn't even mention the car pass.  They wanted people to spend $60 + $50 + $20 to get all of the cars.  Wouldn't that extra $50 be enough?

I actually really like Forza 5 the way it is, but a Bugatti would make it better.

I keep having to remind myself that the majority of DLC and extra "packs" for most games are shit. Even one of my most favorite games ever, Fallout 3, had only 2 packs that were really worth it. The rest, though wasn't bad. It wasn't anywhere near the quality of spending $10 on a 2 hour virtual mission in Alaska. But really. This is where we need to remind ourselves to be weary of any DLC or Season Pass or any bullshit like this. Since then, I've always tried to wait on it. It has proved to help me not only save money, but also sanity. 

It really really irks me that Forza has these packs, as a recent Xboner owner, I looked up these day one packs/VIP packs and what hit me was that out of 5 cars only 1 was worth it. They're obviously trying to get you to open your gaping asshole for their two/three fingers.

Basically DLC is no different than back in the day when they would release full "expansions" for PC games. it's just broken up into smaller pieces now. And i totally agree with you Cheapy, the way they are presenting this extra content is just offensive to the consumer. But oh well, people will vote with their wallets first and not their minds.

The Tesla is what drew me to it. I used Bing rewards for the pack, and I realize that I have more fun with the souped up (included) Abarth I have now, then with any of the cars that came with the pack. Ah well. I love the game, DLC issues aside.

It really is shameful, and eventually I hope people flat out stop buying the games to try and teach these companies a lesson. 

Thank you for this. The DLC situation is crazy. I mean saying before the game is released oh we are going to have DLC cars is crazy seeing it seems like they are just holding back cars for DLC purposes.

Plus it's ridiculous at how much they are charging.

I don't disagree with most of this article.

But I would question that MS is getting promotional money from Mobil. There are even odds that Mobil is actually charging for the use of logo's, etc. That should be clarified.

I stopped playing forza games when I "bought " access to a car with real money and it only unlocked the ability for me to either buy the car again with in game currency or real money in the form of tokens. Essentially, If I wanted the car right away, I would have to buy it twice. Is it still that way?

Has this been sent to Microsoft or any gaming news sites?

georgeb76 said:

I stopped playing forza games when I "bought " access to a car with real money and it only unlocked the ability for me to either buy the car again with in game currency or real money in the form of tokens. Essentially, If I wanted the car right away, I would have to buy it twice. Is it still that way?

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That's how it was in Forza 5. I have not played Horizon 2.

I'll stick with Forza 4, where you keep getting given cars in-game for no extra money.  The way it should be.

I may get Forza 5 and Horizon 2 at some point, like when the complete editions are $20 each.

After the debacle that was Forza 5 I swore off Forza. I felt like Grid Autosport on the 360 was a far superior game and glad there is competition out there. 

We all want to believe companies/people can change, but a some point they are the sum of their decisions. I'm dealing with Comcast now who pulled a bait and switch on me. I wanted to believe they could have changed. Shame on me for not taking my business elsewhere.

While painful, at some point you have to do that. Which is also why I don't own an Xbox one, the entire proprietary hard drive situation on the 360 showed me what was important to Microsoft. I made future console decisions based on that.

So Cheapy I understand Forza is a great game, but also understand what is par for the course.

I'm enjoying the game but also not a huge car nut so I have no interest in paying for other cars anyway.

I do totally agree with the open letter. When is enough enough with the constant money grabs?

The Jordan analogy was great also.

georgeb76 said:

I stopped playing forza games when I "bought " access to a car with real money and it only unlocked the ability for me to either buy the car again with in game currency or real money in the form of tokens. Essentially, If I wanted the car right away, I would have to buy it twice. Is it still that way?

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Any DLC cars you buy in Forza Horizon 2 are free in game. I think they stopped charging credits for them in Forza 5 after people complained, but I haven't booted it up in a while.

Just wanted to voice my opinion on this open letter, 100% in agreement with CheapyD's points.

Hopefully studios like Turn 10 will change their ways.

Unfortunately, until a majority of consumers stop purchasing games with this kind of DLC, I doubt we will see much change.

Here is something i didn't realize.  A car pack of 5 cars is $5 while individual cars (the ones not held hostage) are $3 each!

The pricing is very strange.

Stop buying games that are built around DLC. Stop supporting games that plan Season Passes. Stop buying this shit. Stop.

UjnHunter said:

Stop buying games that are built around DLC. Stop supporting games that plan Season Passes. Stop buying this shit. Stop.

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Unfortunately it's not that simple. Gaming is so mainstream now that there will be plenty of casuals ready to fork over the dough for the extras, be it car pack or map pack, so you and your friends "not supporting" it will go unnoticed.

I've played all the Forza games and I've only just recently picked up the car pass, last time it was a deal of the week, but usually I just ignore the DLC (unless it's a game I absolutely love and play online with friends, Mass Effects, Halos, Borderlands for example).