Racing games are always going to look to each for influence, taking the best from both digital and real racing worlds, while trying to put their own signature on the final product. But one thing we didn’t realise, is how a game from a completely opposite genre can have an impact on the design and development of a racing game, with a certain Japanese pocket monster collecting game having inspired the crew behind the upcoming Forza 4.
“I tend to look at the other franchises that are not thinking about themselves as a competitive war in the marketplace, they think about a longer vision and the experience they want to provide to people”, Dan Greenawalt, Creative Director for Turn 10 said in an interview with GodIsAGeek.
“So, we take inspiration from Pokémon for our levelling systems and addictive layer rewards and variable schedule for rewards to get people addicted. World of Warcraft for our Auction House. Storefronts was from Yahoo Stores”.
Greenawalt explained how Turn 10 Studios was becoming “that nexus between passionate gamer culture and car culture”, but that they wanted to draw inspiration not from their competition, but from different genres and other non-gaming sources.
“I play all the other racing games but I take no inspiration from them because the goal is to actually push the genre forward, and we’re known for pushing so much more than most of the genre because of things with social and user-generated content”, Greenawalt said.
Forza Motorsport 4 drops next month, exclusively for the Xbox 360.
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