The Detroit Auto Show Mystery

As is generally the case professional game development teams like to make a big splash when they do the official reveal event for a project, and Forza Motorsport 6 is no exception to that rule.

In fact and thanks to the secret agreement that Turn 10 made with the Ford Motor Company, holding the International Reveal Event at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit: it gave Ford an opportunity to trumpet the presence of some of its new lineup in the game, as well as the choice of the 2017 Ford GT as the cover car.

And it presented the perfect opportunity for developer Turn 10, and publisher Microsoft, to reveal the game and provide lots of details - and a release date.

In the process of doing all that, something odd happened. We were there to see it, we just did not know what it was we were seeing. What we did know was that there was an 800lb Wombat in the room that needed to be addressed - and so we started digging.

At first we thought it might be something about the reveal - and then we partly speculated that it could be Forza 5 repeating itself, with a game set for release that was not ready...

The history of Forza Motorsport announcements and reveal events is such that there should be absolutely no doubt that nothing is left to chance; if something happens or is said at the reveal, well, there is no such thing as coincidence when it comes to Forza and its guardians at Turn 10 and Microsoft, right? Well we thought so...

It was no accident that FM6 was revealed at the very same event at which Ford's new interpretation of its classic GT design was also revealed. Or that the 2017 GT is the cover-car for FM6!

Ford's Group VP and CTO Raj Nair started his wrap-up of the 2017 Ford GT reveal by sharing with the crowd - and a pack of automotive and games journos - how cool that the Ford Motor Company thought it was to have their entire new model year power lineup inserted into - and basically launched through - FM6.

In fact he told us he was going to tell us that, then he told us that, then repeated what he told us just to be sure that (a) we understood how cool it was, and (b) we had plenty of opportunity to get the quotes right. Okay maybe I am a wee-little-bit-jaded... I will tone down the sarcasm from here on.

An Entirely Re-Imagined Rewards Hub Experience

The point to Nair's segue from the GT to FM6 was to make it crystal clear to the assembled journos that the 2017 GT was not the only Ford product being inserted into the game as a result of the until-that-moment-super-secret partnership between Ford and Turn 10. The performance vehicle lineup was also part of the deal. We are all clear on that.

So at this point - and not a moment too soon if you ask us - Nair turned the floor over to Turn 10's Creative Director Dan Greenawalt - and a 2017 Ford GT!

As we watched and listened, Greenawalt confirmed the partnership between Turn 10, Microsoft, and Ford, and filled in the gaps, adding details and fleshing out the very valuable synergy between the auto maker and Forza. This is where the 800lb Wombat somehow entered the arena.

See, while he was presenting the information, it becomes very clear just where it is that Greenawalt went off-script in the reveal.

When he began to drop his professional presentation voice and suddenly turned a hard-left as genuine emotion crept into his voice, for a few minutes on a cold January evening in Detroit we somehow got exposed to the genuine thoughts of an otherwise professional PR.

As Greenawalt reflected upon what the game - and the deal with Ford - actually meant to him, we started to wonder just what was going on here? Because when you read between the lines of emotion, clearly something was off.

As January turned into February and then March, and as we prepared to cover E3, we spent considerable time and effort trying to run down a public source for the rumble we picked up on at the auto show in Detroit.

There were Hints and allegations, but nothing we could sink our teeth into. So it was time to actually try to leverage the source we really do have at Turn 10. Eventually we got to the heart of the matter, but not before we ended up building a literal dossier on the man.

It turns out that Greenawalt was there from the beginning, being one of the original 24 working on the original Forza Motorsport.

We are pretty well-versed in the history of Forza, and we have extensively covered the battle-and-war, death-and-dreck aspects of what really was a slug-fest between Team Forza and the Sony Machine. That happened.

When Turn 10 took on Sony they really did it with a glint in their eye, and the intention of illustrating with single-syllable words so that there would be no confusion about their intentions to knock GT off its pedestal and carve out a share of that genre while they were at it.

We still were not sure what was concealed by the smoke but we took our questions to our source - and they immediately circled the wagons. Something was up. It just wasn't what we thought it was.

And our source wanted to make damn sure we knew it. That we knew Greenawalt was a True Believer.

"It's like this," our source explained. "Dan is a True Believer. He didn't just drink the Kool-Aid on Day One, he laughed at the tiny cups, then chugged it straight from the jug!"

While establishing the FM series really was an uphill struggle from the start, the honest intentions of the team of wizards behind its creation really was to establish a fan base, and if that meant they had to go to war with GT, they would do that.

Along the way they all helped to shape the game. They built something - something that they are justifiably proud of as it turns out.

The emotions we spotted in Detroit, it seems, had everything to do with the fact that he was helping to do the reveal for FM6. Specifically that he was introducing a game that he was one of the main advocates for; an event that was the culmination of a long struggle and round-upon-round of Kool-Aid.

"The source of the emotions you picked up on in Detroit was a combination of relief and exhaustion," our source explained. "What happened with Five? He took that to heart, man. It hurt. There were reasons for what happened, and I'm not going to go into that because it's water over the dam now, but Dan took all that **** personally. He really viewed it as a failure.

"That motivated him to work ten times harder to keep it from happening again, and THAT is the source of the reaction that made you suspicious. So if you are going to write about this, then make sure you get that part right.. Just don't mention my name."

So there you go. One 800lb Wombat identified.