Dan Greenwalt, Creative Director on Forza Motorsport 5:
Well, it's hard to say with the XP boost, because that was an experiment just seeing whether people are interested are not. It's not meant to be something that you're meant to do. Right now we're looking at whether people are using it or not. If they're not using it, we'll remove it, if they are using it we won't remove it. The work's already done to put it in, and we're experimenting - we didn't expect people were going to take it as a statement. That's something... I understand how people took it. Most of us were just surprised that people were up in arms. I'm not blaming people, and I want to be clear on that. I'm just saying that wasn't our intention going in, and so it was surprising to us.
It's interesting, to me, to read this article. By and large, I see FM5 as a huge success and a blast to play. I understand the design decisions Turn 10 has made, and I think it works. I've used to XP Boost, myself, as a quick way to gain levels. I understand that adding a way to use real-world currency to purchase cars makes the game more fun to people who don't want to spend hours and hours grinding out wins to earn enough credits for one car.
Maybe it's a function of growing up. I don't have the time to invest in games that I had ten or fifteen years ago, and when I do play games, I really want to get the most out of my time, so I see the value in how Turn 10 designed the systems. I'm certainly not a "hardcore" gamer, so I might not be in the demographic that feels hurt by this.
Obviously, I'm a fan of the game. There's a lot to love. But, maybe nothing more than the ablity Turn 10 has to iterate and experiment with a game that's in production. It's wonderful.