Forza Horizon Comes With A $50 “Season Pass”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6bDqpTfj9E

Regular visitors to TheSixthAxis will know that – on a personal level – this generation of consoles is really starting to tick me off, and next gen is only going to get worse. Why? A few reasons, but the main one is the increasing levels of greed of some publishers and the hugely frustrating notion that we’re only getting half a game when we hand over our £50 (or so).

The latest? Forza Horizon, a game I was massively excited about and now feel like just swerving clear of, sadly – because it comes with a $50 (or 4,000 Microsoft Points) Season Pass. Depending on where you buy the game, that’s basically doubling the cost of the racer straight off the bat, and that’s on top of any silly so-called Collectors Editions.

I dislike the notion of Season Passes hugely, not least because – like with Borderlands 2 – they don’t even cover all the DLC, just some already planned content that – yes – should be on the damned disk to start with. Forza 4 was already pretty light on content (and more was and still is being drip fed on a regular basis) and it looks like Horizon will be the same deal.

What does that $50 Season Pass get you? Six cars, six future car packs and a “major” expansion pack planned for December. It’s apparently a good deal, too, with a 17% saving if you were to buy all the DLC individually. But we don’t know what all that stuff is yet – we’re being asked to take a gamble on something we can’t see.

Someone on a message board said it’s basically a Kickstarter for DLC.

As far as I’m concerned (and again, this is just my personal opinion blah blah) this is starting to get out of control. When I spend a big chunk of cash on a game I want that game to be the full game. I don’t want to buy it knowing that unless I then throw more money at it (and in this case it’s quite a bit) I’m going to miss out on another large bit of the game in two months time.

Forza Horizon is out in October.

16 Comments

  1. Couldn’t agree with you more. Season passes are increasingly becoming gateways to get the complete game at sometimes double the cost. Its disgusting in this economical climate and shows nothing but greed

    • Quite.

      I couldn’t get two hoots about CoD Elite or whatever as I’ll never play it, but I really wanted Horizon.

      Now I’m not so sure.

      • This is the real shame when it affects peoples interest and excitement. Its doing much more harm to the industry than good.

  2. it wouldn’t be so bad if they gave you all the dlc for a year with the season pass, but they never do.

    i think more and more people are going to start holding off on buying games and waiting for the GOTY editions to get all the content without having to pay twice the original price.

    it’s a policy i’m getting behind.

    • yep, its something I’ve started doing. It makes loads of sense and is a lot cheaper.

  3. £50 is far too much.

    Don’t think there’s any game I could play that much to justify spending that amount on. Especially for franchises that release as often as Forza.

    Better to pick and choose the best DLC if the season pass is that much.

  4. As long as all the content is worth the additional cost and you get your moneys worth I don’t see the problem. Personally I don’t buy into this stuff as I don’t have a much time for gaming so I rarely have a chance to finish the standard games, but if I did have the time I would probably buy some season passes, especially at present, the Borderlands 2 one (but again probably won’t have time to finish standard game).

  5. This is $50 per year?? plus the live membership, your internet connection., cost of game, xbox, and also then the need to buy extra DLC for the whole thing – crazy stuff, if this is an indication of next gen then i dont think i will be joining in

  6. Absolutely ridiculous. I really hope this bites them in the arse. I fecking hate season passes, I don’t care what you get with it, its a cost we shouldn’t have to pay, especially when you don’t know what you are getting.

    That price is bloody ridiculous. If I did have an xbox, I wouldn’t be buying that game out of principle. Bit like me not buying Premium/Elite on BF3 and COD. It’s a rip off. I want the full game at the start, DLC as an extra so I have a choice.

  7. I just had a look at the US amazon site, Forza Horizon costs $59 so the Season Pass is 85% of the game price again, madness. The limited edition of the game is $79 and doesn’t come with the Season Pass, just some mediocre sounding launch DLC, what’s that about?? I think I’ll take Online Passes instead thanks.

  8. I can pay up to £90-100 for this and save 17%. SOLD! Now if you excuse me, i’m going to bash my head in with a hammer.

    What the hell are they thinking? The damm thing costs more then the bloody game and i bet that only half of the dlc will be included in the pass. Why do i suspect most of the car packs will either be retextured cars or content cut from the game? :S

  9. To summarise (and it took some time for me to work out what was happening): You buy the game then there’s DLC, on top, that’s the same cost of the game (pretty much).

    Ha! Ha!…. hahahahahahaha!…. Piss off back to Noddyland.

  10. Cripes, we’re barely getting used to micro-transactions and they evolve into mega-transactions :O

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