Gran Turismo 7 Update Pushes Microtransactions, Draws Backlash

This week, Gran Turismo 7 launched an replace patch that precipitated it to undergo one of many harshest falls from grace {that a} online game has skilled because the nice Cyberpunk 2077 debacle of 2020. 

The 1.07 replace went dwell late on March 16, however the patch had an error that compelled developer Polyphony Digital to close down the sport’s servers for about 30 hours earlier than GT7 was utterly accessible once more. As you might guess, gamers had been not blissful. (Nonetheless, 30 hours of downtime could appear to be nothing in comparison with gamers in Russia who don’t have the sport in any respect but.)

The issue with that’s GT7’s single-player profession mode requires a relentless on-line connection. So, if a consumer’s web is down, or on this case, the GT7 servers are down, gamers can solely entry a restricted choice of the brand-new sport’s options that a lot of them paid at the very least $60 for. Individuals had been understandably mad.

However to make issues worse, the 1.07 replace drastically diminished the payouts for some occasions, making it more durable to earn in-game credit and thus encouraging gamers to spend actual cash on in-game foreign money.

The ensuing backlash in opposition to the microtransactions was swift and predictable.

Because the backlash grew, Gran Turismo director Kazunori “Kaz” Yamauchi wrote a weblog put up to apologize, clarify why the servers had been down so lengthy, and discuss concerning the adjusted payouts.

“Instantly earlier than the discharge of the 1.07 replace, we found a problem the place the sport wouldn’t begin correctly in some circumstances on product variations for the PS4 and PS5,” Yamauchi wrote.“This was a uncommon concern that was not seen throughout assessments on the event {hardware} or the QA classes previous to the discharge, however in an effort to prioritize the protection of the save information of the customers, we determined to interrupt the discharge of the 1.07 replace, and to make a 1.08 correctional replace.”

Concerning the decrease payouts, Kazunori acknowledged that he needed gamers to “take pleasure in a lot of automobiles and races even with out microtransactions.” Nonetheless, he additionally needed to restrict repetitive gameplay and emphasize the worth of GT7’s digital automobiles in comparison with their real-life counterparts.

“The pricing of automobiles is a vital component that conveys their worth and rarity, so I do assume it’s vital for it to be linked with the true world costs,” Yamauchi wrote. “I need to make GT7 a sport in which you’ll be able to take pleasure in quite a lot of automobiles a lot of other ways, and if potential, want to attempt to keep away from a scenario the place a participant should mechanically preserve replaying sure occasions over and over.”

What Yamauchi is probably going referring to is the follow of “grinding.” Grinding is a way utilized by gamers by which they are going to single out which race occasions pay the very best quantity of in-game foreign money that take the shortest time to finish. They are going to then run that race repeatedly to earn numerous credit in a comparatively brief interval. Because of the excessive costs of the automobiles in GT7, gamers had been continually on the lookout for the perfect races to grind and earn in-game cash rapidly. The fee changes from the current replace appear to particularly goal these gamers by lowering payouts for the shorter occasions.

Earlier than GT7’s public launch, the sport was showered with stellar evaluations from main and unbiased gaming retailers. The Drive’s personal GT7 evaluate summed the sport up as “an expansive, beautiful, and nostalgic love letter to GT followers 25 years within the making, however one that may come off as dated and laborious in comparison with trendy opponents.”

Nonetheless, GT7’s microtransactions didn’t go dwell till after its public launch, so critics didn’t expertise them in the course of the evaluate interval. I can’t say for positive how that may have affected evaluate scores, however I can guess that they’d doubtless have been a lot decrease if these critics knew how the microtransactions would work.

The prolonged outage and squeezing gamers to make the most of microtransactions have resulted in some gamers writing off Gran Turismo 7 as “essentially damaged.” 

Moreover, customers have taken issues into their very own arms by “review-bombing” GT7. On the time of this writing, the sport has a consumer rating of simply 2.2 out of 10 on Metacritic. 

GT7’s launch marks the collection’ twenty fifth anniversary. But, only one replace could have wrecked that celebration. 

Primarily based in Lengthy Seashore, California, Andrew Beckford’s been fortunate sufficient to develop up surrounded by California automobile tradition. He is lined automobile reveals, function automobiles, racing video games, and motorsports for Tremendous Avenue, MotorBiscuit, and MotorworldHype.

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