In a segment of a large interview posted on the Forza Motorsport website, Dan Greenawalt – the game’s director – has blamed EA for Forza 4’s lack of Porsche cars. All Porsches will be RUF variants, like in almost every other racing game.
This is apparently because EA owns the exclusive rights to the Porsche license in videogames. Forza 3 only had Porsches because of a sub licensing deal which EA are unwilling to allow this time around, presumably because they want to push their own competing racing brand, Need for Speed: Shift.
According to Greenawalt, Turn 10 owns a similar license for Ferrari cars featured on the PC and Xbox 360 but has always allowed those cars to be used in other games because they believe that keeping those cars out of other games “would do nothing but hurt the racing ecosystem”.
Nobody can blame EA for protecting their licence and refusing to allow a competitor to use it. That makes good business sense. However, as a Forza fan, I just want as many manufacturers and models as possible in my game. Similarly when it comes time for Shift 3, if Turn 10 decides to retaliate and withhold Ferrari’s from EA’s track racer, I’d be disappointed at their absence.
Add to that the fact that Forza 3 contained 35 different Porsches, Greenawalt claims they intended to put more in Forza 4, and EA’s Shift 2 had only a handful. However well reasoned the business decision, this is a shame for gamers and it has the potential to get much worse if companies start to scrap over licenses in the future.
Source: Forza Motorsport
Fresh191
Ah this sucks! It’s GT all over again.
I have to say since NFS Hot Pursuit I have become MUCH less a fan of the NFS series and really don’t care if they specifically don’t have Ferraris in their up and coming crap-fest The Run but I agree its a bad thing for the racing game business and it’s ultimately the fans and gamers who suffer.
EA seem to be muddying the whole industry with this kind of thing, between taking cars out of Forza and encouraging haters to jump on the Battlefield VS MW3 bandwagon it’s all getting a bit boring.
Forza 4 will still be EPIC and will no doubt push the racing sim genre to sunny new heights :)
Lymmusic
Ah good old fashioned greed
wick15
This a shame for any Porsche fans and T10. I can see EA reasoning for it though. At least they are replacing Porsches with RUFs, which are literally identical anyway. As long as they keep the Subaru 22b and the Skyline R33 I shall be happy.
Really looking forward to Forza 4, I’m a big fan of 3. Forza 4 looks likes it’s going to be fantastic.
Faulker
Does Shift 2 even have Ferraris? Shift 1 had a few as DLC, but not with the original game.
If Turn 10 didn’t give EA Ferraris then this shouldn’t have come a surprise to them.
Also screw this licensing crap. Car manufacturers are idiots for doing this.
sanmartinez
Its a bit sad to read this, but at least there will be RUFs. Not that im really a Porche fan but I would lioe as much cars as possible. My only hopes are for a Mazda 787B, been wanting that in Forza since Forza2
Smallville2106
Very sad indeed.
Awayze
Why do car manufacturers even do this, giving rights to a gaming company! It’s pointless.
cam the man
Money, they don’t ‘give the rights’ they sell them.
cam the man
Although it’s nice to drive the worlds best cars in video games you can have just as exciting races with most other makes of cars.
Foxhound_Solid
Bit silly really. You would think car manufacturers would jump at the chance to have their rides showcased via GT5/FORZA/NFS etc…
bacon_nuts
They do, but EA own it and wont let the Forza people use it..
Voganlight
Oh god, this better not turn into something similar to the patent wars with mobile phones.