Details on player experience improvements, upcoming patches.
Dear Gran Turismo Community,
Thank you for your continued support and feedback on Gran Turismo 7, your voices have not gone unheard. I would like to apologize for the frustration and confusion caused last week with our patch updates which resulted in, not only a server outage but also adjustments to the in-game economy which were made without a clear explanation to our community.
We know that this is not the Gran Turismo experience you expect and we will be making a goodwill gesture in the form of a non-paid credit pack of 1 million Cr. available to those players who may have been affected*. You will see this hit your accounts shortly. Make sure you log into the game before April 25 to claim the credits.
The patch update previously deployed was intended to rectify an issue with inconsistent reward payouts within a part of the World Circuit Events. But, to re-establish the intended equilibrium and provide more accurate rewards based on time investment and completion, it was necessary to recalculate the rewards system as a whole.
To improve the player experience, we will be rolling out a considerable patch in the beginning of April. The number of events will be increased, and we will reestablish the reward system with greater balance throughout the game to benefit all players.
Updates which will come into effect beginning of April:
- Increase rewards in the events in the latter half of the World Circuits by approximately 100% on average.
- Addition of high rewards for clearing the Circuit Experience in all Gold/All Bronze results.
- Increase of rewards in Online Races.
- Include a total of eight new one-hour Endurance Race events to Missions. These will also have higher reward settings.
- Increase the upper limit of non-paid credits in player wallets from 20M Cr. to 100M Cr.
- Increase the quantity of Used and Legend cars on offer at any given time.
Beyond this there will be a few additional patches deployed between now and the end of April which will add new cars and course layouts and make some other fixes.
Finally, we also want to take the opportunity to lay out some of the near-term updates we are working on. We can’t confirm an exact date or specifics yet, but will give advance notice via www.gran-turismo.com.
- Increase the payout value of limited time rewards as we develop as a live service.
- Further World Circuit event additions.
- Addition of Endurance Races to Missions including 24-hour races.
- Addition of Online Time Trials and awarding of rewards according to the player’s difference with the top ranked time.
- Make it so cars can be sold.
We want to thank you for your continued patience and valuable feedback as we grow and evolve GT7 to make it as enjoyable and rewarding for as many players as possible. We always want to keep communication lines open with our community so that we can work together to build the best racing experience possible.
*Limit 1 per person. Must own a digital or physical copy of GT7 for PS4 or PS5 prior to the publication of this post (Friday, 25 March at 1:00am PST) and log into Gran Turismo 7 between Friday, March 25 at 5:00pm JST/8:00am GMT/ 1:00am PDT and Monday, April 25 at 5:00pm JST/8:00am GMT/ 1:00am PDT to receive the free credit pack.
Hi Kazunori.
Thank you for taking the time to communicate with your player base.
Though in reality, you are still sidestepping the core issues your player base has with the game.
1. The game will continue to be a massive microtransaction grind. It is fundamentally designed like that. And of course, during the review period (before the game launched), the microtransactions were switched off. There was no disclosure from your studio or the publisher, Sony, of the microtransactions nature of the game. And while you cover this with statements that suggest that you are attempting to create an in-game economy that is similar to real-world prices, this is just as scum as the scum tactics we have seen from EA or WB. Also, nobody asked for an in-game economy that is as expensive as real life. In case you have forgotten, we play games to do things in games we can’t do in real life. Nobody asked for this ****.
2. The online DRM nature of the game fundamentally means players have paid the full price for renting the game. Game servers will be eventually switched off. You know this. Sony knows this. Everybody knows this. There will be a time I cant play the game anymore, even though I “own” the game. There is practically no reason why the game cannot have a single-player offline component. This practice of online DRM deserves as much pushback as microtransactions and NFT’s have had. Becuase they all fall under the same umbrella of **** none consumer-friendly, greedy corporate scum tactics that reinforce how companies are no longer keen on having a customer pay for a product once.
I am genuinely saddened by the direction you and Sony have taken for this game. Gran Tourismo is the game that started my love for the PlayStation brand back on the PS1. All good things come to an end and I do know that you really don’t care about a single player’s voice as the only thing that matters is your income statement. If the game was still a passion project as it once were, this would not even be a topic.
Luckily, there are other studious that still make games as passion projects.
It doesn’t matter how much premium currency you give someone as an apology; the very existence of premium currency deserves an apology. We are way past the point of live service models benefiting, in any way, the consumer. If you want your game to be a micro transaction fueled live service, make it free to play. If you’re charging $70 for a game, everything should be unlockable with normal progression. The very existence of in-game currency that can be purchased with real money inevitably results in an unbalanced economy. Because that’s entirely the point.
Good God… This reads like an Ubisoft “apology.”
How far we have fallen.
There is no satisfying people. If you make it too easy to get all the cars people complain “80 hours in and I have all the cars. There’s nothing left for me to do. Where’s the content?” and if you make it more difficult you get people complaining that they make it impossible to get all the cars.
Obviously there are genuine concerns and the addition of paid currency makes all balance changes suspect but frankly I think *most* of the people complaining aren’t even playing the game in the first place. Because of Horizon and Elden Ring I have only spent about 10 hours in the game and yet I have 40+ cars in my garage – there’s no lack of car acquisition. Sure it might take a lot of work to get the most expensive, high end cars but isn’t that the point? They are supposed to be special and difficult to get.
I want to be able to play the game i paid for OFFLINE.
Theres no justification for this “online only” fascism.
Have been playing this game for 25yrs and im really pissed at this “game as a service” ****.
Btw thanks Septomor.
The last GT game I played was GT4. Sport wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m not interested in multiplayer.
I was really looking forward to GT7. I almost pre-ordered it, but I had a terrible gut-feeling that convinced me not to. So, I waited.
My gut-feeling was proven correct. Even after the rave reviews before your bait-and-switch on the reviewers, I held steadfast. The feeling didn’t go away.
Requiring a perpetual online connection for single player was teetering on diffusing my desire to play this game, the grind-heavy, anti-player, microtransaction infested model you’ve adopted officially killed the series for me.
I’ve felt PlayStation was always pro-player. We’re your customers. You understood this. Microtransactions and loot boxes are inherently a giant middle finger to your players.
Please learn from the missteps of EA. If you’re going to have microtransactions, don’t charge $70 for the game. At that point, it should be free-to-play.
I know my lost sale is a drop in your bucket and you don’t care, but I hope you reevaluate how you treat your players. We deserve more respect than to be treated like a coin purse.
When I tune transmission settings it doesn’t save. Is this being fixed?? It complete ruins the gaming experience
Would be nice to remove the always online requirement for single player
GT 7 unfortunately it’s a mobile game designed with a console budget with
micro-transactions in mind first and foremost.
On top of this…they’re planning 10 more of these Gaas garbage always online ab0minations. Buyer beware.