The Forza series has come some distance since its ambitious beginnings back on the original Xbox. Today half of all Xbox One gamers have played Forza Motorsport 5, and the number of people playing it, the first Forza Horizon, and Forza Motorsport 4 right now may surprise you.

“ It’s a different world. And that’s when we started looking at free content.

“ There is a hardcore player in Europe that represents a larger percentage of the population than it does in North America.

“ [Car] manufacturers now value the relationship with a game franchise and our fan base... 10 years ago we were like, ‘Why are you charging us money? We’re giving you fans!'

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“ [T]here are certain features that always rise to the top. Night and weather are one of them.

“I was humbled and flabbergasted when I learned that one out of every two Xbox One player profiles had played the full version of Forza Motorsport 5,” says Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt. “That is ridiculous, for any game. Certainly racing games have not usually seen that amount of adoption.”Since the launch of Forza 5 Turn 10 has responded to the game’s success by releasing three additional tracks for it, which have been distributed to players for free. It’s not clear to the team yet what impact the free content has had on the game, but the one thing Greenawalt does know is that it’s “a different ball game” these days.“Even though it’s been six months you might think we have conclusive data. It’s not. We’re just seeing an ever-evolving community of people as more people are adopting the Xbox One and playing Forza Motorsport 5. So I can’t yet say what the results of it are, outside of this attach rate is still incredibly huge and right now, this week, there are over a million people playing in the Forza universe. This week. Six months after the launch of Forza 5, a year-and-a-half after the launch of Forza Horizon, two-and-a-half years after the launch of Forza Motorsport 4, we’ve got a million people playing in these games.“We’re just in a new world. There’s no road map, there’s no playbook, there’s nothing we can do besides listen to our fans, make a change, and listen to what they say next.”The problem with the data, as Greenawalt explains, is that it can be a bit of “a bit of a firehose” and while it’s straightforward to see what people are doing in their games it can be difficult to correlate why they’re doing it.“The truth is we’re in a place right now on the Xbox One where we have more data than we’ve ever had, and this is kind of what game studios are dealing with in general,” says Greenawalt. “The question is, what do you do with it?”“The difference in Europe has been stark,” says Greenawalt. “Specifically with the pipeline coming from Forza 5. There is a hardcore player in Europe that represents a larger percentage of the population than it does in North America. So looking for options like simulation damage, looking for great wheel options. I think there’s a motorsport culture, especially in Southern Europe, that simply is just different to North America.”Interestingly, the last customer satisfaction survey the team did in Southern Europe showed that upwards of 30 per cent of players of the Forza Motorsport series were women.“We’re just getting to a diversity of audience that it’s simply impossible that any one forum goer could represent that,” says Greenawalt.For Greenawalt the increased importance of a series like Forza to contemporary car manufacturers is still slightly “weird.”“Over the 10 years that we’ve been making Forza the industry has changed quite a bit,” says Greenawalt. “The things that we can add as a game company, as a game studio and a game franchise, have really increased in value to these companies.”“With Forza Motorsport 5 we debuted the P1. Then we premiered the LaFerrari; the LaFerrari was in a PDLC pack shortly after the game launched. And these are cars that are once-in-a-generation, right? I mean, the P1 was replacing the old McLaren F1, and that’s 20 years old. These cars don’t come along very often.“So Lamborghini was yet another one; the Huracán is replacing the Gallardo. It’s an amazing car, really beautiful, hearkening back to the old Muira. The nice thing about having a franchise that is constantly talking to its fans, constantly trying to make our fans excited about cars, is that we always have an opportunity to highlight the newest, hottest car. Lamborghini was excited to be involved here and that involvement means they give us behind-the-scenes access at the ground level. Right from the beginning when they’re starting to plan out their actual timelines of what cars they’re building over the next 10 months, we’re there getting access. We’re there getting source material, we’re getting CAD data, and they’re sort of starting to line up. Which is a very weird place to be in for me, because 10 years ago we were like, ‘Why are you charging us money? We’re giving you fans!’ Now they’re starting to realise this is a big opportunity for them.”So with Forza Horizon 2 adding weather, and continuing to feature night racing, is it safe to say these features are headed across to the Forza Motorsport series next?“Having the Playground guys working in the tech that is shared by both teams is always gonna make things easier, for all tech. It’s just gonna become a more powerful engine as it’s used in more places. But, the truth is we look at features based on, ‘What’s the game experience we’re trying to deliver to fans?’ Right now, what I’m excited about is to see it Forza Horizon 2… Honestly, we need time to just play with the technology, let features emerge, and figure out what the right thing to do is.”

Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can find him on IGNor on Twitter, or chat with him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia