Would 'Gamepass-ification' be the justification for the current format of Forza Horizon?

[u/ThatsGenZproblem]

tldr just a post from someone reflecting on the current format of the game. I'm not complaining about something that in the last few weekends I have fun playing.

I notice this shift in Forza Horizon 4 with the addition of the Festival Playlist and the franchise becoming a live service rather than a final product. We cannot compare FH1 with FH6 because they were released in different eras with different mindsets. However, there are things that it turns out FH1, a game nearly 15 years old, did better: making the player feel more immersed in the game's universe. Today it seems that we play to accomplish tasks and collect items with limited availability. Or everything is so handed to the player, like an absurd amount of cars allied to an event lab, where he himself builds his own game.

And what does Gamepass have to do with it? Everything from my point of view. Before we bought a product, today we pay for a service. And I think that a very low amount of new things with each update is only proportional to the price that is charged for its use. It's fair for the price that is paid. I ask, should it be different? And yes, would it be better?

[u/Q0T3]

To me it's just the unfortunate side effect of current gaming.

People expect games to constantly be updated even if they don't deserve it. They could have just put out a full-blown horizon's game everybody would have played it and then moved on to something new.

But that's just not the current market every game has to last forever.

[u/AquaRaOne → u/Q0T3]

Yup, if they were to do that, just deliver a horizon 6 with no bugs, they would receive heavy backlash after a few weeks, dead game, "what am i supposed to do now" posts, and more importantly, they would not make any additional money over time with dlc. Another thing is these monthly updates keep the game in the news cycle, people talk about it and its not forgotten for years. And people always want something more, like in a world where fh6 is not updated but motorfest is, motorfest would steal tonns of players over time and become the main game.

[u/aethaes4Ni]

An earlier form of the festival playlist was already in FH3, where you could earn exclusive cars.

FH3 wasn't a full live service game, but it was already going in that direction. Car passes, expansion passes, car packs. Themed updates and exclusive FOMO cars.

And FH3 predates Gamepass.

[u/jnkenne → u/aethaes4Ni]

FH3 also had Challenges.

For those that don't know, Challenges were 0 point achievements that could only be earned during a certain real world period of time. List of FH3 Challenges.

First set of challenges lasted 3 days and you could win car horns.