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EA Blocks Porsche From Appearing In Forza 4
Racing game fans to suffer due to exclusive agreement.

In an interview on forzamotorsport.net with Turn 10 creative director Dan Greenawalt it's been revealed Porsche will not feature in Forza Motorsport 4.

"This kills me," says Greenawalt in the piece. "While Forza Motorsport 4 will feature RUF, it will not include Porsche cars. As many of you know, since the beginning of the Forza franchise, the Porsche license has been available only through a sub-licensing deal with EA. In Forza 3, we were able to feature more than 35 different Porsche models by offering to collaborate with EA. For Forza 4, we were looking forward to adding even more Porsche cars, and we were especially looking forward to featuring multiple Porsche experiences in our new Autovista mode. In the end, however, EA couldn't see their way towards collaborating again."

According to Greenawalt Turn 10 has asked its contacts at EA to reconsider their position "frequently and regularly over the last 18 months," but to no avail.

Even "key people in Porsche circles" lobbying from within on behalf of Forza 4 were unsuccessful.

"While we respect EA's need to run their business as they see fit, we've regularly collaborated in the past and hope we can find our way back to that approach," continues Greenawalt. "Forza had the exclusive license for all Ferrari cars, for example, on the Xbox and PC platforms. But at the end of the day, we've always found that we just weren't willing to block other racing games from having Ferraris outright, as we believed that this would do nothing but hurt the racing ecosystem."

Forza and Porsche fans have been speculating for months that Forza 4 would not feature Porsche. Suspicions were first raised when a RUF RGT8 was announced as a pre-order vehicle. RUF, an independent German company that builds cars from unmarked Porsche bodies and chassis, is traditionally used by non-EA developers who want Porsche lookalikes. Games like Gran Turismo 5, Test Drive Unlimited 2, Driver: San Francisco and many more feature RUF cars because they can't have Porsches.

The EA decision to refuse to sub-license Porsche to Turn 10 anymore is likely the result of EA's SHIFT series attempting to make a dent in the sim market. We've reached out to EA for comment.

Ultimately the real victims are racing sim fans, particularly Porsche aficionados. It's worth noting that, despite the fact EA holds the exclusive Porsche license, SHIFT 2 only features around a dozen Porsches. Forza Motorsport 3 features more than 35. It can be argued Turn 10 has made a better use of its Porsche sub-license than EA has recently made with the license itself.

"I'm very sorry for all of this," concludes Greenawalt. "Fans shouldn't have to think about any of this – you should just be able to drive Porsches and Ferraris in the games you love. Porsche makes wonderful cars and I'm sorry that we won't have them in Forza 4."