When the headline says something has reached a new low, I expect that to mean something substantial. From the body of the article, some pretty major elements to the story:
Sometime after launch and with game economy balancing, they'll make a real-money paid option available, at which time:
This ability to totally disable the presence of the real-world money was already there in Forza 6, and that's a massive point to recognize if you're criticing this (otherwise shitty) practice. Mods as a gameplay mechanic have been in place since then as well. I personally liked that implementation. Just so people understand, the "dare" challenge mods were a persistent option you can apply to a race (for things like giving bonus credits for skipping driving assists) once you earned them. So to say the ability to get bonuses for driving closer to sim settings isn't there is misleading, in this context for Forza 7. It's handled slightly differently, but I don't think it resembles "pay money to earn more for your settings" as the article implies, at least in any meaningful way. In the same way if a game "let" you spend real money to buy game money, and you deliberately bought something useless and common, then criticizing the game for that.
I'm mostly calling bullshit, even having very much "I resent this and don't accept it" attitude about full-price games being compromised by prize-box gambling. This is an article imagining how something could be worse if it were worse, not reporting on a reality or clear, impending problem on the horizon. If things really do end up awful down the road, you can bet I'll be one of the first to lay into the publisher.
As of press time, Forza Motorsport 7 does not let you pay real money for its CR coins or for its loot boxes.
Sometime after launch and with game economy balancing, they'll make a real-money paid option available, at which time:
There will also be an option within the in-game menu to turn off Tokens entirely.
This ability to totally disable the presence of the real-world money was already there in Forza 6, and that's a massive point to recognize if you're criticing this (otherwise shitty) practice. Mods as a gameplay mechanic have been in place since then as well. I personally liked that implementation. Just so people understand, the "dare" challenge mods were a persistent option you can apply to a race (for things like giving bonus credits for skipping driving assists) once you earned them. So to say the ability to get bonuses for driving closer to sim settings isn't there is misleading, in this context for Forza 7. It's handled slightly differently, but I don't think it resembles "pay money to earn more for your settings" as the article implies, at least in any meaningful way. In the same way if a game "let" you spend real money to buy game money, and you deliberately bought something useless and common, then criticizing the game for that.
I'm mostly calling bullshit, even having very much "I resent this and don't accept it" attitude about full-price games being compromised by prize-box gambling. This is an article imagining how something could be worse if it were worse, not reporting on a reality or clear, impending problem on the horizon. If things really do end up awful down the road, you can bet I'll be one of the first to lay into the publisher.