Forza Horizon 4’s termination is just the latest industry middle finger to the people who ultimately fund it

Here I am watching the trailer for Forza Horizon 4 on Steam. The praise for one of the best racing games ever made is palpable – “The king of open-world arcade racingOne says.Pure racing enjoyment” And “Very entertaining” Others say. Eurogamer finally said “The perfect open world arcade game.,

Great, this sounds like a game that will be remembered forever. Like a hall of fame. But no, in December this year, you won’t be able to buy it and all digital traces of it will be erased from history because of the “license”.

in a slightly reserved manner statement The developers didn’t even say ‘sorry mate’, writing in the opener, “Due to licensing and agreements with our partners, Forza Horizon 4 will be removed from digital platforms (Microsoft Store and Steam) on December 15, 2024. This means the game and its additional content will no longer be available for purchase through the online store.”

Am I, or you, or anybody else not a party to the agreement that when I gave you all the money for Forza Horizon 4, I could actually play it the way it was meant to be played?

You can ease your anger a little now that if you already have the game you will still be able to play it, albeit in a stifled format with no DLC added if you want to expand it in the future, and the Festival game mode that has been present since launch in 2021 and has reached Series 77 has been removed.

Forza – Disappear…

And as much as Playground Games is trying its best to keep its baby alive (it’s 80% off its price on Steam right now, so you might as well buy it and keep it), the whole thing tastes sour because I’m buying a rotten carcass of a game, not the game that was “pure racing bliss” until yesterday.

Should I not buy the next Forza game because “licensing issues” will take them away from me at some point and my favorite parts will probably be missing? Yes it’s on sale right now, but it was still on sale for $60 recently. Is this something that just came out this morning? Will this be the case for any games from now on with licensing, if so may I suggest making a version that doesn’t have anything that will destroy the game itself a few months later.

As of today all DLC has been removed from purchase. Now the only way to get Forza Horizon 4 DLC is to pirate the game. How is that correct?

Until recently, the only way to illegally acquire what was called the “perfect open-world arcade game”? Maybe in the future people will decide to do this from the start, so they can avoid annoying middlemen.

This isn’t me being possessive. You guys have pushed me down a path where I can no longer buy physical copies of games to keep safe under my bed.

And what license are you talking about? And why were they so short? Imagine if Aston Martin suddenly decided they didn’t want to be James Bond’s car and you couldn’t watch Casino Royale unless you had that car on VHS. And if you decided you wanted to buy it for yourself, you couldn’t because of the license, or worse yet here’s a version where Bond has to go everywhere by bus.

I’m huge into video game preservation and a little bit into corporate bullshit that destroys history for a few dollars. The developers, coders, marketing people, and gamers have all worked hard on Forza Horizon 4, all working together to make it a great game (which it’s going to be soon). It’s not right that it can be wiped from everywhere except torrent sites.

Game companies are once again pushing people to illegal methods, as people can’t trust that the games they buy today (but don’t own) will still be available to play in the years to come. ever rising costsThe Shameless Microtransactions, Oppressive DRM, Meaningless Skins, Mass layoffs And now because of things like this, the gaming industry will have to struggle to improve its reputation in the long run.

And to be fair, it’s just not worth it at this point.