GTPNewsWire
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This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Kyle Patrick (@SlipZtrEm) on August 18th, 2018 in the Forza Horizon 2 category.
Forza Horizon 2 To Disappear From Xbox Store September 30
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
- 45 comments
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Lain
Premium
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- Pasadena, TX
- Yaywalter
This is why I'll never support a digital-only platform. Luckily Horizon 2 was released in an era where physical media's still a thing... but in the future, you're just gonna be screwed if you're late to the party and want to check out the older entries in a series.
And unlike the iterative mainline series where older entries arguably become somewhat obsolete by the newer ones (though I'd still argue that the older ones still have some merit and are worth preserving and making available for purchase), each Horizon game features a distinct location. There's absolutely no reason to delist other than to try and get people to make last-minute panic purchases and/or to force people to buy the newer, more expensive releases. This is some EA-level crap.
And unlike the iterative mainline series where older entries arguably become somewhat obsolete by the newer ones (though I'd still argue that the older ones still have some merit and are worth preserving and making available for purchase), each Horizon game features a distinct location. There's absolutely no reason to delist other than to try and get people to make last-minute panic purchases and/or to force people to buy the newer, more expensive releases. This is some EA-level crap.
- 24,612
- Anoka, MN
No sympathy or no understanding?
Nope. With EA Access and Game Pass the games are only available for free for as long as the service says they are. Games with Gold on the other hand gives you the game for free for as long as you have Gold. Even then it’s still considered a part of you collection and will be available again once you redo your Gold subscription.
Also, not sure you can really compare NFS titles considering how small their car lists are.
- 5,551
- Controls set for heart of sun
- GTP_RogerTheHors
If you're not prepared to make the media you have created and previously made available to the public readily available to the public when it should be fully within your power to do so (and if you're Microsoft it damn well is), then the copyright on it should immediately expire.
Anything else is the destruction of culture, the hindering of preservation. The digital age's equivalent of nitrocellulose films being lost in vault fires.
Anything else is the destruction of culture, the hindering of preservation. The digital age's equivalent of nitrocellulose films being lost in vault fires.
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
How is it an "excuse"?
Licenses cost money. The longer the license, the more it will cost. Or a manufacturer may not be keen on the idea of a no-end-date license. It'd be a pretty silly business practice to spend vastly more money to extend a license past what seems to be a four-year cut-off; for what, a few thousand people that may buy the game (at a steep discount)? Going by sales trends, and the fact this is a franchise, I can't imagine FH2 is seeing significant sales figures 47 months after release.
There's two types of people that will gnash their teeth over this: those that already have the game, and those that never plan on getting it any way. There may be a few folks that, three years from now, for whatever reason, want to explore the game, and they won't be able to check out all of the DLC. But it will be a (likely vocal) minority.
Before we get into the "evil corporation trying to force people to move onto the newer products" discussion, it's worth pointing out the servers for all of the old Forza games are still active, with (AFAIK) only FM1 and FM2 down. That's eight titles, soon to be nine.
It's an unfortunate issue, but one that's unavoidable in the licensed cars racing genre. It isn't the only one either: Marvel vs Capcom 2, Joust, Outrun — they've all disappeared from digital retailers in some form or another due to licensing issues.
I didn't realize Microsoft was going around burning the millions of physical copies out there...
Lain
Premium
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- Pasadena, TX
- Yaywalter
Yeah, I thought about licenses after I posted that. Regarding car licensing, I think game studios can and should play hardball... It's effectively free advertising for the car manufacturer. If anything, the car companies should be paying to have their cars featured in-game... though I understand that it doesn't play out like that since the game devs need the cars more than the car companies need the exposure. Still, there's no reason why such licensing should have an expiration date. If they need to, I'm sure they could get the car companies to include retroactive licensing rights for older games into their licensing agreement for the newest entry... just say hey, for these games that are old and don't sell much, we'll just give you a small % of whatever little money they manage to bring in.
And for music licensing, hell. Just pull the expired music out of the game. There's already precedent for this, and while I don't agree with the notion of patching such content out of people's existing purchases, I would much rather them leave the game available for purchase than to pull it down because of the music. I'd even go so far as to say extend this train of thought to any car manufacturers who refuse to play ball. I'd rather have future generations be able to check out Forza Horizon 2 sans Ford than to not be able to play it at all.
At the end of the day though, regardless of whether they have justified business reasons for doing it or not, it's still a damn shame and is going to keep me from embracing a digital-only future. Physical is one of the few things helping to preserve game history. That, and emulation.
It's not exactly free, no-strings-attached... You must have and maintain an XBL Gold subscription. But fair enough, perhaps I was being overly cynical regarding Microsoft's motives. The situation stinks nonetheless, and is going to be unacceptable in a digital-only future.
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- 135
- FI
- NaughtyLittleBoy
- NuttyLittleBoy
Even though FH2 gets pulled from Xbox Store (like FM5 was), you can still re-download it. If your hard drive fails or you upgrade your console (like I did), you can still re-download it, so the game you have purchased isn't gone forever.
- 1,656
- Bristol
- MrCrynox
- Mr Crynox
The only thing that is really annoying is the fact that the minute they put it on Gold this month the servers for rivals, online road trip and liveries went down. Why is this, because the game licences expire at the end of the month ?
I'm way behind the times with the Forza games this gen and have just only started playing FH2 in July, so now I have some cars with liveries but most without and I cannot race or compare times with my friends because it's all not working. They say they are working on it, but are they ? Don't get me wrong I'm still liking the game but it feels like half of it is missing, and worse than that the people who have recently bought all of the DLC which was on offer at the start of the month can't download the cars etc!! Not good.
I'm way behind the times with the Forza games this gen and have just only started playing FH2 in July, so now I have some cars with liveries but most without and I cannot race or compare times with my friends because it's all not working. They say they are working on it, but are they ? Don't get me wrong I'm still liking the game but it feels like half of it is missing, and worse than that the people who have recently bought all of the DLC which was on offer at the start of the month can't download the cars etc!! Not good.
- 3,172
- Lokeren
- breyzipp
- breyzipp
Battlefield 1 Revolution Edition is currently 9 EUR on the Xbox store. Granted that’s not free, but if you see what’s all in that (base game + all deluxe content + 4 weapon/map/mode expansions from season pass) and how great the game is that is as good as free if you ask me.
I know what you’re trying to say though and I sure don’t want to defend EA and their anti-consumer business practices, but that entire Battlefield 1 Package for such a low price is an absolute steal.
You can always reinstall it from the Xbox store but only if you already owned the game and updates before (so you won’t loose it from resetting your console to factory settings and then reinstalling content). But I absolutely agree it’s a sad thing to see it go already. FH2 was my first game into the entire Forza franchise (coming from GT5 and GT6) and I absolutely loved it. It’s sad that future Xbox gamers who don’t have the game yet, won’t be able to experience this beautiful map of Southern Europe. And FH2 is also the only Forza game with the most complete popular manufacturers present, having Porsche, RUF, Volkswagen, Toyota and Lexus all in there.
Maybe in the future when the next Xbox console is out Microsoft will do more backwards compatible & enhanced versions of their games. Since both FH1 and FH3 got an Xbox One X enhanced patch after their releases, maybe FH2 will get a “Xbox Two” enhanced patch a few years from now. It will be great for people who already own the game, and it will be sad for those who never had the chance to play it.
Alas RIP FH2, thanks for the awesome time I had with you!
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- 358
- Germany
- 2,596
- Brazil
You can't run from it,licensing deals always expire,and in racing games it's a time bomb.
- 1,492
- Germany
- KiroKai
- KiroKai
No understanding for it. As in - it's obvious why this happens and I get that, but I refuse to just accept it. I'm biased with this game, it's probably my favourite.
Both offer a paid subscription to access games - different terms, neither are free.
Most NFS have less manufacturers and music, but tons of licenses when you think of all decal sponsors and brand advertising in the game world. Undercover is so old it had PS2 and PSP versions with completely different licensed content. It comes from everyone's favourite epitome of greed, EA, yet it's still sold after nearly 10 years.
On a series with annual releases, it just seems a convenient reason to drop old games asap. This may have had purpose when it was just iterations of Forza Motorsport which always improved and made the previous entries redundant (in theory), but it's just a sign of cost cutting and disrespect for their own work and legacy now when it comes to titles as unique as Horizon. It affects FH2 especially since, as you're aware, a good third of FH2's content is sold extra and digital only, including some of the best experiences and cars.
We don't know their license negotiations or budgets... but they are first party. Do we even know if car licenses are the issue? Four years is a very short window when even EA does 10. What other games are even pulled so quickly?
These are hardly comparable, unique cases and I can't even find what ports of the two games from the 80s you mean. Marvel v Capcom 2 came out 2000 and 2013, 4 years after the last re-release, rights were lost? Not really the same either.
FH2 is restricted to just this platform and not readily available unless you have an X1 - most went with PS4 this gen. Forza Horizon is shaping up to be one of Microsoft's leading first party offers with 7~9 million sales of FH3 and every title offers a unique experience. Does it really seem that unlikely to have future interest in previous titles?
Horizon 2 made me purchase an Xbox One and I was very happy the original came to X1, too. About 40 mates from PS3 also got this console as their main, many of us are switching between the Horizon titles because each offers a unique game and its own qualities. I'm not sure why you dismiss this. I didn't have a 360 and would gladly pay to play Motorsport 3 or 4 or Project Gotham Racing 4. The backwards compatible tech is here, but all of Microsoft's racing games share this fate so there's no reason for MS to put them on X1, let alone update them for One X. Even Horizon 2 itself might be skipped now and perhaps won't appear on future platforms. That's a great shame.
More reason to keep them on sale!
It's worth pointing out there was an XB360 version of FH2, ported back to the FH1 engine with a modified form of FH1's physics (ie. tire grip cranked up to eleven). It even includes some of the XBone version's DLC cars straight from the disc (and a few FH1 cars that didn't make the jump, IIRC?), but it didn't get any DLC or post-release support itself.
Lain
Premium
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- Yaywalter
Even though I've backed off of my initial vitriol towards Microsoft with regards to their motives for delisting, I will say this: 4 years does seem like a fairly short time window for FH2's licenses to expire. Microsoft knowingly accepted licensing terms that would make the game obsolete before the end of its generation.
There's no shortage of racing games that are still available many years after their initial release. Even Gran Turismo PSP with its fairly large car and track roster is still available for sale digitally nearly a decade after its initial release. So I'm inclined to believe that licenses aren't really the main issue in the cases of racing games being delisted... or, if they are the issue, that it's because the game devs are intentionally pursuing short-term licenses for whatever reason. If I had to guess, something like GT PSP probably has indefinite licensing agreements that involve paying royalties, whereas the games being delisted due to licensing issues have fixed term agreements in exchange for a fixed sum.
And sure, I get it. Prefering to pay for the license upfront in order to keep more of the profit per sale is totally reasonable... but it seems totally feasible for Microsoft to get licensing agreements that are fixed sum for a fixed term, but instead of totally expiring after said term, they just start paying royalties for each sale after the term expires. So they'd get to keep all the profits while the game is relevant, but wouldn't have to delist the game when it becomes old news. The fact that they don't go this route indicates to me that they're totally fine with delisting their old games, or even prefer to delist them rather than keep them available.
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- 2,596
- Brazil
My cynical theory is that Microsoft doesn't see a reason in making long term license deals because they keep making a new Forza Horizon every 2 years,there's always a new version to buy,Gran Turismo might get different license deals because the way those games are made is a little different(there is no Gran turismo being released every year) but even that franchise is caught by the license problem,you cant remaster GT1 to 6 because the license deal expired.
It's not cynical just good business sense. Sales of a four year old Forza game will be almost nothing due to the annual/bi-annual nature of the franchise, so the cost of having licences beyond four years will be much higher than any potential sales. Any sales at that point would be at a massive discount. As Gran Turismo doesn't have a fixed release schedule and often runs late, sometimes significantly late then it makes sense for Sony to secure longer term licence so they aren't left in a situation where they can't sell the most recent Gran Turismo game.
- 14,430
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- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
I really don't get how you can easily throw out "no understanding for it." Licenses cost money, and for a game to be up-kept like that, you'd have to constantly pay/renew that license. Eventually, it becomes a loss of money. For the vast amount of vehicles that these games, as well as the many, many games they have out, I'm sure it adds up. Refusing to accept it just doesn't really sound logical in this regard.
And the very same is with these games, on a much larger scale. I also wonder if that's why there's little variation to the available cars in the many games that they have out, that make it easier in that regard. They seem to always aim for the extremely similar vehicles, with some new sprinkled in from time to time, especially lately. Or it's just EA being EA and trying to pinch every single penny they can out of something.
Bi-annual.
There's been more change to the Horizon series with it's iterations compared to Motorsport, so I can't really understand where you're trying to get with that. I'm also completely baffled as to how its disrespecting its own work? Before this digital-age push, this was things that they didn't have to worry about because once the game was published, hard copies where made, and stopped at a certain point. A prolonged license agreement wasn't needed, but now with it constantly being sold as digital, it likely changes that scenario. That's just my guess, though.
No we don't, at all. So just like us, you're guessing. I think a better developer to compare this to would be GT6 in my opinion, as they are both extremely large games in comparison to the relatively small games that NFS. That game was also removed digitally 4 years into its life span. Why is it that these two fairly similar games are both facing the same issue?
How is it hardly comparable? It's a game that was released that was pulled from the market. That's similar enough already.
It does, but at the same time, it probably wasn't the most popular at the time of it's inception, maybe that was cause for such short licensing? If that even is the issue. Coming right after a relatively lack-luster appearance from FM5, I'm wondering if that had any sway in that regard.
Yet, like I mentioned, ironically GT6 isn't listed for purchase as a digital download anymore. You can still check out the listing, but theres no download option, even if you click the download option. You can add it to your wishlist though.
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GTnForza4ever
(Banned)
- 182
- Location? My Bedroom.
The races were so short in Horizon 2 that they were barely enjoyable. Of course, there was the goliath but it was limited to two times only.
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