Forza Horizon 4 is disappearing and it’s because of licensing

The news came that Forza Horizon 4The DLC is no longer listed in all game stores, with the entire game being removed from sale entirely this December 15. beloved racing games— damn it, my beloved Games…of the last decade. And in a few months, it will just be gone. For what? Because of the license.

Originally published in 2018, Forza Horizon 4 brought the popular series to the bucolic setting of the Cotswolds in England, and conquered everyone with its dry stone walls and incongruous cinema waterfalls. It was a work of art and a brilliant racing simulation. And even though there has since been Forza Horizon 5this time in Mexico and just as awesome, FH4 still has an active community served by ongoing “Festival Playlist” events in the game (incredibly about to start Series 77, which will be the last).

But as developers Playground Games say in a statement released on June 25th, they will soon no longer be able to sell the game. Gradually, it is being removed from all online stores before Christmas, with elements already gone today. The reason given is “licenses and agreements with our partners.”

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 that the game and its additional content will no longer be available for purchase in online stores.

Honestly, it seems tragic. We are in a disastrous period for game preservationaccelerated by the move toward fully digital consoles and bolstered by a publishing industry that is morbidly hostile towards external attempts to preserve what they don’t want. But that can happen to a game as recent, as beloved and as GOOD as FH4really shows how short-lived and transient the gaming industry we’ve endured.

Playground’s statement doesn’t go into detail about the licensing issues the game faces (we of course asked for clarification), so we’re not sure if it has to do with something as simple as the music used , or as complex as the litany of real car models in the game. There are more than 750 precisely modeled cars from dozens of real car manufacturers, each of which had to be individually licensed to appear in the game, and during development, the end of the contracts they had in place probably seemed incredibly far away. FH3 had only been released two years earlier, in 2016, and it’s fair to say that the Australian edition of the open-world series, while fantastic, didn’t have quite the same impact and longevity . So seven years probably seemed more than enough.

Of course, these new events demonstrate that nothing, except in perpetuity, can ever be enough.

Playground and Microsoft are doing everything right, right awayWhen it comes to Forza Horizon 4. The game is currently 80% off on Steam, with similar discounts planned for the Xbox Store in mid-July. The companies are encouraging people to make sure they own full copies (rather than accessing it through Game Pass) and have promised that it will remain available for download, and that it will indeed still be playable offline and online. online, with multiplayer features maintained. Well, in the short term, at least.

Playground also stated that those who purchased DLC for FH4 while playing the Game Pass version, if they currently have an active full-price (as in, not discounted) Game Pass subscription, they will soon receive a “game token”, valid until July 2026, to make sure you don’t need it. to buy it again. It will disappear from Game Pass on December 15.

But of course, that leaves a huge question: what about Forza Horizon 5? What about last year’s extraordinary Forza Motorsport? Will we say goodbye to them forever in 2028, 2030? (Again, we asked.)

It should be noted that the release schedules of the Forza games have changed, as games have gotten bigger and more involved. For the 2010s, there was a new alternation Horizon Or Sports car every year. They were, in a certain sense, more “disposable”. But since 2018, we have only played two more games. It’s been three years now since there was a new Horizon-the longest gap since the series began in 2012 – and there was no mention of FH6 during all the revelations of the summer. Losing Forza Horizon 4 this year is therefore much more impactful.

Surely the answer must be to plan for licensing contingencies? Yes, I guess it actually is far It is easier (although still extremely difficult) to accurately model 750 real cars than to imagine up to 750 completely original models that do not conflict with anything that already exists. But also, you know, we don’t really know need 750 cars. 100 would be a lot! But at least a suite of cars in the game that are completely original brand models that represent each of the most enjoyable archetypes, which can be left in the game until the heat death of the universe. Warn players that everything else has a shelf life of seven years (or whatever), and that they still have a playable and, more importantly, sellable game at the end of those contracts.

This would absolutely affect those who play these games for the realism, the accurate representation of the cars that provides the all-important simulation aspect. However, it would still allow gearheads to spend the same amount of time with the game as before, but would also provide a way to continue selling the product later. Of course, this would lose a lot of its identity, and it’s not a perfect solution. Perpetual contracts are the perfect solution. But maybe it’s better if the game is never sold again?

And of course, this is not exclusively for Forza. This is a common sense approach that we desperately need every studio to implement when creating games around licensed properties. It’s unfortunate that we’re losing so much art to this corporate pit, and it’s incredibly short-sighted to find ourselves in such a situation today. (Not to mention these studios are completely screwed by the licensors, given a game like Force is the most extraordinary advertisement for car manufacturers.)

Licensing makes a lot of sense for making a game look or sound flashy, absolutely. But unless perpetual contracts become the norm, unforeseen must be built from scratch.

And hell, there’s no movie you can’t watch because the main character drove an Audi. (Indeed, Audi probably paid a huge amount of money for its car to appear in the film.) There is no book that is unpublishable because the protagonist drank a Coke. We can’t let games disappear because of these short-term deals.

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