Forza Motorsport 6’s TV spot is a retro homage — and a classy rarity for game ads

It was an early San Francisco morning the first time I saw this ad. I was at a Forza Motorsports 6 prelaunch event and the PR rep had gathered the games media in front of a giant high definition television screen. My body cringed. I was preparing for another full on hit of that familiar flavor of fremdscham that all games media experience. It’s a particularly nauseating feeling I get when forced to watch yet another self-righteous video game advertisement. This industry has a thing for being unflinchingly cliche and full of its own shit, and often when trying to sell itself, it tries to push an image that games are interactive transcension. Within that is a delivery containing all the cheap audio and visual cliches, meant to make me feel emotional, but just make the eyes of my jaded soul roll.

And the poor PR reps that have to upsell these pretentious affairs: I feel for them.