Ms needs to get rid of these stupid rules, but it could also be an issue with the state of Washington, I dono…
Microsoft's long-reported insistence on contract hires took its toll on the rebooted racing sim's development, according to one artist.
www.thedrive.com
Although a slew of post-launch updates have improved
Forza Motorsportfollowing the title's October launch, it's fair to say the franchise's big reboot has fallen short of fan expectations. It had been six years since
Forza Motorsport 7's release, and the follow-up still hit consoles and PCs with glaring graphical and gameplay bugs, incomplete features, and an unpopular single-player campaign—not to mention the Nürburgring Nordschleife's absence. A first-hand account of the game's development published to
YouTube by one of its artists may give us insight as to why the day-one product turned out the way it did.
Adrian Campos was employed by
Forzadeveloper Turn 10 Studios as a Senior Environment Artist on a contract basis from June 2022 to October 2023. Campos was tasked with building the terrain and scenery surrounding the circuits, "essentially everything not on the track," in his words. His tenure began with work on Mugello and Spa-Francorchamps, but just a month and a half in, he learned that the other environment artist on the team who was showing him the ropes had to leave because their contract was ending. This, unfortunately, would become a theme of Campos' employment.
In time, Campos says Microsoft hired three additional artists to assist him. His description of "crunch" to meet Turn 10's target of 20 environments on launch day, particularly during the period when he was working solo, is regrettably all too common in the realm of triple-A game development. But the key here is what Campos describes as the "18/6 Rule." Basically, the developers that Microsoft would hire on a contract basis—that is to say, for a fixed term without healthcare or benefits—could only work for a maximum of 18 months before being required to take six off.
"Fast forward to around June of 2023, I received an email from the contractor company that really stun-locked me. It said 'hey, your contract is almost up.'" Campos thought he was contracted for 18 months rather than a year, and all Microsoft was willing to do for him was extend his term by a few more months.
"I feel bad—not necessarily for the system or the higher-ups," Campos said. "But I feel bad for the coworkers I'm leaving behind. That's one extra hand they don't have. So much knowledge and niche things I found out about the [game] engine, gone, simply because I didn't have time to write down documentation, because I had to finish a track." He left a week before
Forza Motorsport's release last fall.