http://www.pressfire.no/spesialer/intervjuer/2991/-Gran-Turismo-og-Forza-er-kliniske-sterile-og-kjedelige
He starts by claiming that Forza and GT games are sterile, clinical and boring.
"We don't aim to be a "driving simulator", rather we want to give the player the chance to be a racing driver by looking through your helmet visor and cockpit and become a "real racing driver", much more so than our competitors." "We percieve this as truly authentic racing and not what we see in other sims when we play them."
"They (Forza and GT) model and mimic going around a course more like a research project. We represent the battle between drivers, the battle against yourself, especially with the new night driving this will become intense indeed."
"Need for Speed" games have always been attributed great fun and excitement, but as soon as you enter the whole sim sphere, the fun just goes out of it completely."
Abney goes on to mime steering with a racing wheel and continues (oh lord); "This is a very good basis for a simulator but only for five percent of the market, the vast majority use gamepads. The challenge lies in giving people the "feeling" of driving a 800 horsepower real wheel drive car by balancing and "dumbing down" things. 95 percent of the audience want to play racing games this way."
"When I'm playing other sims, I'm not having any fun, they're impossible to play! Or maybe I'm just not good enough?" he laughs (I cringe).
He then goes on to claim that Forza and GT games are unplayable with gamepads since the physics and controls are too poorly balanced and are made solely for people with expensive racing bucket seats and steering wheels in their living room. "Its either on or off with them."
On what they are doing differently; "Simulating driving physics is just and idea and an interpretation by a group of developers. It is a subjective opinion on how a car handles and feels on the track. It remains an opinion no matter how many focus tests and trials one performs and this is something which we take very seriously. Sound, visuals and the experience we've gained thus far is our main focus."
In conclusion; Forza and GT games are boring and appeal only to 5% of the market which is probably why they've only sold tens of millions of copies. Physics are subjective, you heard it here first. Lastly; the best way of improving the simulator genre is by making it less realistic and dumbing it down (yes, he uses that term word for word) , who wants realistic sims anyway? He all but comes out and says what I've been saying all along; developers are dumbing down even serious genres in order to appeal to those who would not normally like them. Also, apparently, there is no element of competition in GT and Forza games, nor are there any settings to be used one way or the other. No wonder no one buys them.
This man shits on everything Turn 10 and Polyphony are doing and is basically making a mockery out of both sims as a genre and its audience in one fell swoop. This kind of audacity only comes along very rarely and I'm not surprised that an advocate for EA is the one fronting this hogwash, to be honest.
