Unfortunately, different manufacturers have radically different hang-ups. Also, the hang-ups are not proportional to the real-world prestige of the brand or its importance to the Forza franchise. I'm not going to name names, but I will rant a little bit.
One American manufacturer will allow damage all day, but is adamant about cars not rolling over. We have several other manufacturers that will only allow roll-overs if all of the others agree first hellofa Catch 22. One of our European marks can't be used in PR materials as solo, winning or losing. It must always be pictured with other cars and dead even with them. Another European brand will allow painting and decals, but we cant allow players to put thunder on the side of the car. Im not even sure what that means. I assumed it meant lightning, but when I asked that specific question, the representative was very insistent: no thunder.
We have brands that charge ridiculous fees and make pretty "meh" cars. We got very popular brands that make awesome cars and charge next to nothing. Some brands are dead set against DLC. Other brands are willing to sponsor DLC.
There is a huge difference in how thorough each brand is when approving the car renders. On version 1, we accidentally submitted a car render from one Japanese manufacturer to its rival as one of their own cars
and they actually approved it as their car.
As youd expect, these licenses are usually a lawyer to lawyer affair, but sometimes I get involved so we can escalate the matter higher up in the company. Some brands control other brands. Some brands hire outside licensing companies. Other brands have a licensing division within their legal or marketing departments. Sometimes different regions of a brand control the licensing, but usually its at a corporate level.
We have one European manufacturer that allows damage and rolling over, but is fairly unreasonable about upgrades and painting - core features to Forza. Truth is, I've spent 80% of my licensing time with just this brand. All that, and we still only got the licenses signed for half of the cars that we built from that brand. And yes, that means we spent months building cars that will never make see the light of day. I had to do back flips just to keep the small group of their cars that I felt were critical we even got Peter Moore involved with this brand to help us pitch a higher level of partnership.
In the end, its all about building a partnership which takes time. The key is to show them that we have passion for their brand and will defend it. It helps that we make a simulator they know our goal is to achieve reality and celebrate their brand in a franchise, not use their brand to sell a quick product."
