New Gran Turismo 7 Patch Lowers Currency Rewards, Fuelling More Microtransaction Criticism

GT is my favourite racing series and one of the reasons I've been on PlayStation all these years but things like this frustrate me. They're such anti consumer moves considering I shelled out 79.99€ for the game.

Now's the time to speak up about this. You already paid an extra $10 tax to buy the game on PS5. Will you let this slip by too?

PR disaster. Surely someone at Sony saw this coming. All 1st party titles go under the microscope as it is. GT was already dealing with considerable negative criticism. The smart move wouldn't been to increase the rewards somewhat and fix the games issues.

🙈

This is disappointing
There is already a grind to get the best and rarest cars, and this just reinforces a pay to win cash grab by Sony

Maybe worth considering taking a mark off the original review?

Yea i like that there is a grind and certain cars are hard to get. Itd be better if there was no way to use real money to buy them tho.

If they weren’t trying to push you into MTX, they wouldn’t be patching out credit grinding. These types of tips used to be in guides back in the day, now they’re seen as exploits since the game’s online.

Yep, killed my interest in the game. That’s completely wrong and against what they said. Credit rewards need to be increased more than original to make up for it to be honest.

This is not the way.

Technically, the list only shows three of the events that have had their winnings cut by half or more.

***** this *****

Can't say I'm best pleased with this at all.

I was fine in that I didn't feel the need to use MTX. Now though, they've changed the goalposts after we've dropped our hard earned on the game.

Sorry but IMO that ain't on.

I've got over 25 cars in my garage and I've only bought 3 of them so I'm not fussed about the credits but the fact that we can't even play the game due to 'maintenance' is a nuisance.

If you play through the career mode it gives you most of the cars anyway, then you can buy the rest with the credits you've earned. If you wana spend real money to essentially cheat, that's on you. My problem is the fact the games been unplayable all day because of the update. Usually I wouldn't mind but I'm stuck at home with covid!

@ApostateMage "always online" leave people with drink coasters, if the service goes down for maintenance or whatever. Imagine not being able to play GoW or GoTsushi because of "server maintenance".

That's too bad. I was considering giving GT7 a shot after I finish all my February games but I can't deny this news is definitely turning me off.

"But microtransactions don't affect me if I don't buy them" 🙄🙄🙄

This is one of the reasons why it's always online and the most desirable cars won't always be on sale and will change price

The credits thing doesn’t really matter, I love the gameplay so grinding for them even if the rewards are lower isn’t an issue. The ‘always online’ & the ‘server maintenance’ however, is. Fix your s**t Polyphony because currently I’ve got a £65 coaster & that’s definitely not ok.

Wtf. This is bad! Really really bad...if this is still the case when I'm done playing I will surely reduce my review score

Forcing always-online and lowering race payouts while pushing microtransactions, is exactly what is going on here. This alone would have me drop my review score by 1 full point. And these "maintenance updates", I just want to play the damn game THAT I PAID FULL PRICE FOR, instead you lock me out from everything except for (essentially) ***** music rally...

That’s very scummy, kinda liking polyphony a bit less

Wait until the reviews to turn them on, let diehards defend because they weren't "so bad" and now they rip the band-aid off and make it egregious.
Everything about this has been embarrassing and textbook gaming industry corporate crap. Extremely disappointed in Sony

With enough online criticism, they will change it back whether they want to or not.

This is simply indefensible, especially considering the asking price and the fact that it was reviewed before this myopic change.

Lol people again these days tbh... what is the problem guys??? The game is out 1,5weeks and everybody is thinking he has to own every car and every tune in that period??? Seriously a game like this has to be played for years like every other GT before! Again before you could get 97k for a clean race at fishermans ranch in 3mins and now its at 60k. Well 1-2 mins more to put in, to gain the same amount and everybody is talking about microtransactions train bla. Sorry I dont get it. Even there are coming more races and championships in the future to match the higher licences. Calm down

They really aren’t reading the room are they 🙄

Can I go back to the rate PS5 games article and change my score? 😂

So it seems Sony are just as bad as the rest when it comes to microtransactions. There were pre-launch things that hinted at this like always online and car prices changing with real world car prices but it's still very disappointing to see Sony go this way.

I guess this is what we'll see going forward with the 9 other live service games Jim Ryan announced as well.

I think it's time for GT stop being made.

Focus on other areas of gaming.

Nickel-and-diming your player base can really hurt your brand long term, ask EA.
I'ts just not worthy, but right now seems like PlayStation is so on top that they don't really care about what players think.

@Rozpac what are you talking about?

To be honest I thought the amount of money being awarded early on was oddly high! I've barely scratched the surface but so far have had more than enough money to win most races easily. The only thing holding me back is skill (or lack of it).

But then I'm in it for the long-haul, don't mind waiting to build up my collection. I don't intend to buy any currency.

@EmperorJake not true mate. Once you complete all the cafe menus, license (all gold) and missions (all gold), you'll end up with around 100 cars. That's 25% of the total amount and the only other way from there to win free cars is the rigged daily roulette tickets. So that you means you're gonna be grinding races and buying the cars with the earnings.

Also sucks about you getting COVID. Feel better mate.

I would have thought the natural and logical thing for them to do would be require people to do longer races for more credits. Keep the minutes per credit ratio at a level. The fact they weren’t doing this already is what really baffles me.

Definitely a bad look. The game already was being criticized for rewards being too stingy (mainly if going for the platinum trophy and getting legendary cars). But now cutting the rewards in half essentially. Terrible look for a $70 game that pushes its microtransactions.

Getting less anything is never good but you don’t really need to buy cars anyway - most of the ones you need are given to you for completing menu books from the cafe.

When I first started playing I used all of my credits to buy a car from the dealership, which was later given to me for free for placing top 3 in a race. Haven’t bought any cars since.

Credits are useful for tuning up the vehicles you do own though, which can be pricey. Still, I’ve never not had enough credits to buy whatever parts I wanted (so far anyway). You still get 50% bonus credits for every ‘clean’ race completed and bonuses for coming 1st overall in the cup races. The last one I finished gave me 30,000 extra credits (in addition to the prize credits for completing the race).

The raffle system does feel kinda fixed though. I must have played the raffle 20+ times by now and I always get the ‘worst’ prize every time, which is annoying.

Still, I don’t think this is quite as scandalous as it seems really. I’ve already decided not to bother with the platinum so I don’t need all the cars. Disappointing for the completists though I suppose.

@ORO_ERICIUS You literally have a "GT" logo as your avatar. Biased, much? I like GT as much as the next guy, and I have a full on sim rig with Fanatec gear. But this is absolutely scummy. If your idea of "fun" is grinding away "for years" to get cars, then you have too much time on your hands.

These on the fly adjustments piss me off and are bullsh**.

I specifically remember reviews talking about how credits are pretty common and make it so it’s not that bad of a grind. THE REVIEWS REFLECTED THAT.

All reviews should be updated. Metacritic should get a complete adjustment.

Ive been a huge GT fan since day 1. Beat the linear “cafe” in like 12 hours. I have 120 cars or so. This is not Gran Turismo. I get its 25 years old and has matured and evolved but i gave it a try. I still pop in GT4 to continue my career. Even GT5. Where is the grind for cars, not cash? I actually started playing Greatest Hits version of GT2 last night. Thats GT at its core.
I like stuff gt7 did and Ill give GT7 time to grow and then ill come back to it. Biggest thing i love is that the ai cars upgrade along with you appearance wise.

Wheres the grind? Please dont become Forza

@BRT15 My mistake. I'm around menu 20-25ish and assumed it would go on longer then that.

Well its scummy, but knowing Sony they won't listen.

I qas planning on buying this in next couple of weeks, think I'll wait till its at least half price

@ApostateMage Is that what's happening!? Like you can't even access the core content of the game because of maintenance and the servers being down? That's dumb AF.

I bought the game but promptly returned it the same day for numerous reasons and now I'm happy I did. At least when you get kicked off on Elden Ring it kicks you back to the title screen and you can just play the game offline from there and start exactly right where you left off. In fact, you don't need to be online at all so it's no big deal. GT7 seems to just prevent you outright.

I went from "I returned the game but I'll buy it in the future" to "Not buying at all." I'm springing for WRC 10 tomorrow-- on sale for 23.99 I think with a PS+ subscription discount. I'll get much more enjoyment out of that I think (I love Rally)

So people that shelled out between $60-$70 have at this moment a glorified beer coaster because they are doing maintenance 😑 how where there people here defending always online? If is so good maybe all future PlayStation titles should require a internet connection to play.

I've played a fair few hours now and probably spent very little on cars so far, so my funds are racking up. However, I don't agree with lowering the rewards, I don't think they were exactly high originally.. the microtransactions doesn't overly effect myself, as I'm just playing and enjoying. (It's a great game)

@Juanalf Basically. This is solely the result of the always-online requirement.

What about the two events which had their rewards increased by 1400% if my calculations are correct?? Nobody is looking at that? Both World Touring car 800 events had their rewards increased from 5,000 to 70,000! That is an increase of 130,000 credits for just two events. Seriously, PD just evenly divided the rewards based on the time and effort required for each event. I sense that certain people are trying really hard to tarnish the reputation of GT7 for some reason.

@get2sammyb These games make bank off microtransactions. Sure none of us who post on gaming message boards and are passionate about gaming might pay but the average player has no qualms with tossing $5 or $10 at a game if it means they get to show off a fancier car to their friends faster than they can grind for it.

The microtransactions aren't for us...but for the millions of other casuals that also bought the game.

For a game like GT, I don't know how I feel about microtransactions or the obvious push towards then.

I'll never buy in game currency, because it's simply not needed & if there's any money glitches I'll just do those instead.

But if you're Polyphony, you get money from the sale of the game for the next year or two, before that dramatically falls off in the following years & then what? No other income from the game? Yet you're expected to pump out updates & have the cost of people working on this game for the next 5 years?

And it's not like the audience for this game is massive like a GTA audience or something... Gran Turismo has always been more niche. A big deal for us Europeans, but doesn't sell anywhere near as well elsewhere & even in Europe it's not as popular as the big releases because it's the nature of what it is... A racing game.

So how are they supposed to make money to ensure they have enough for development on this game for the coming years & development on potentially a new game in 7 years or whatever.

What's a good way for them to generate revenue outside of diminishing sales over time?

Sony is not for the players anymore.

Glad I rrsited buying this dated garbage.

@get2sammyb Push Square should drop its review score for this game by 1 point. We haven't been able to play this game for over 12 hours, all simply because this game's always-online requirement.

The Jim and Hermen effect. PlayStation has become noticeably crappy/scummier under Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst. Yes im relating this to them because It's an overarching theme.

To be polite, one is unimpressed.

Initially I wasn't too bothered about the always online requirement. That changed today, having sat down at 745am once the patch had installed to play this after having taken a couple of days break from it and still not being able to play the game after nearly 12hrs I'm rather effing annoyed if I'm honest. Not only did I spend £90 on the 25th anniversary edition, but I purchased a PS5 last year specifically for this game (before it became known it would be available on PS4 as well) but last week I ordered the Fanatec GT DD Pro... That's a total of £1400 on hardware primarily to play one game. Yes I've enjoyed a number of games on the PS5 since I got it, but that's besides the point, PD and Sony have been taking the p!$$ with this game since before it launched. Adding MTX, reducing the rewards for races to push people into them are the final straws.

I am seriously sitting here considering cancelling the Fanatec order and selling the PS5 stuff and buying a scalped GPU and just sticking with PC gaming. Not. Happy.

At this point I think it won’t be long until all sony 1st party game all comes with mtx 😕

The credit rewards were pretty average to start considering you have to keep upgrading cars you have unlocked in order to compete in the next set of challenges. What a mean spirited move.
They didn't happen to fix the 95% chance your reward card ends on the lowest credit reward available did they? I bet they didn't lol

Unacceptable, especially coming from a $69 game.

Hate the always online thing
Hate that this is a bad foreshadowing of sony's 10 GaaS upcoming games.
The graphics aren't that good. Sorry. It's the truth. Some textures look like ps3 ones.
Don't see the $10 extra logic with this one compared to hfw.

While I agree there shouldn't really be microtransactions at all, people are making a way bigger deal out of this than it is. Most commenting haven't even played the game - it's not as invasive as most are making out. It's still the same level of grind as previous GT's.
Of course the predatory practise of MTXs is pretty sickening - I suffer from various forms of addiction so I completely understand it's an insidious business practice. Still, it doesn't really effect 99.9% of people playing this, and certainly doesn't make it a bad game.

@RubyCarbuncle "train wreck" is a massive dramatisation of this 😂 how much have you seen of this title in action?

https://twitter.com/_SuperGT/status/1504485019359666186?s=20&t=Qm-P7YIcuVYe85d8MadEBg

For those of you not familiar with Super GT, he's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Gran Turismo streamers, and his AI driver (Steve Brown) is actually in GT7 ...

My thoughts are it will be fixed in a few hours. The real question is what is going to happen to the "daily workout.

@Gloamin Yeah, everything is fine. No big deal

Wait, I thought patches were supposed to make a game better...

@eagletrippin I totally get not liking MTX but it's odd to pick out this game as the worst offender. Compared to almost every other game I've played that has them GT7 is the least worrying.

@RubyCarbuncle haha! Yeah, no need to say anymore

This whole "GT games back in the day, had to grind for months, anyway" attitude is ridiculous. We were all 10 years younger then, with far less responsibilities. Hell, I'm older than many of you, I was senior in high school when the original Gran Turismo came out, so OF COURSE i had all day, all week, and month long to grind away at a single game.

@BritneyfR_ee I totally agree with this take. I get the feeling that most of the fiery comments here are coming from people who haven’t played they game, and probably never will. Most likely because they enjoy outrage more than excellent racing games.

@Amnesiac Yeah, it's all just another conspiracy

@BRT15

Those tickets are definitely rigged. You always win the lowest amount... What a scam

@RubyCarbuncle

It's pure greed. Anything to get more money, they'll do it, even if it means ripping gamers off

@KilloWertz
Making it better for them, not us. Lowering winning credits is an obvious ploy to push gamers to buy them instead.
They've been getting their ideas from EA on how to rip gamers off

@Gloamin as someone who has played/is playing the game, the lowering of the currency rewards isn’t that big a deal at all. It’s only mildly inconvenient if you want to 100% the game and collect all (400+) cars. Most people will just buy the cars they really want and will have more than enough credits in-game to buy and upgrade them (without the need for micro transactions). It feels like more of a trophy hunting issue than anything else, which isn’t the end of the world 🤷

@BritneyfR_ee Agreed. I've bought all the cars I've wanted so far with slight grinding, the same amount of time I put into 6 and Sport (and it's not like I spend hours only playing these games)

All microtransactions are sh*te and I wish they had no presence in gaming. This game should 100% be criticised for including them, as should any game that does. I just don't get why this title in its entirety has received so much animosity when its nowhere near to the same extent as other offenders. It doesn't ruin the game or make it un-fun. It's not like we're defending ***** MTX, just that people are being way too dramatic by writing this game off completely.. especially when they haven't even played it!

I was interestwd in this game until i realized its just a grind or pay game. 70 dollars and you still want cash? Hard pass.

Gee right after all the reviews were out. As predicted.

I'm not at all surprised by this. It's very similar to a common tactic used in mobile games where they make the first few hours or levels easy to progress through to draw users in, then suddenly you hit a brick wall that's virtually impossible to get passed without massive grinding or micro transactions. But it's exceedingly shameful on this title considering the premium price tag just to get the game. It's nothing more than pure greed. On the other hand, we consumers have only ourselves to blame by paying for these microtransactions in the past and therefore setting the precedent within the video game industry. I'd say North America should boycott the game, but I know (and don't take this the wrong way folks) that the vast majority of gamers out there don't have the discipline to hold back and will just shovel out the money, making any sort of boycott ineffective.

The servers are still down. Unbelievable

To be fair grinding your way through hundreds of races to buy a top car has always been part of GTA's game model, this is not a new grind.
I'd still have no issue with it at all if there was no purchase option.. but the fact there is makes this seem like a cash grab, even if its intention was a genuine rebalance (which seems pretty unlikely).
Unfortunately, just like FH5, there's no escaping the option, you can simply choose not to use it, or not play at all.

Ok I’m gonna address some of what some “it’s not that bad” people have been saying. First of all, if you haven’t finished the café menu and the main campaign you shouldn’t be having an opinion on this. The game during the campaign makes it deliberately easy to get credits and cars so you don’t feel it’s a grind or a problem. The real problem starts once you finish the café and stop receiving free cars. You only get about 60 cars from the café menu which is about 15% of the whole 400+ cars the game has to offer. A lot of high-end cars cost upwards of 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 credits and some are invitation only meaning that once you get a time limited invitation to buy it you need to grind and get the credits before it expires of you miss out. Buying some of these high-end cars with MTX is the equivalent of $70-$80 which is insane. So yes, this is a really scummy move and the always online aspect of it is only to oversee what players are doing in single player mode and nerf what people do to force then and lock them out of contend or pay up. The increase in the two races was not really an increase it was a known bug it was broken so they just fixed it to what it was supposed to be originally.

I'm not going to pay for microtransactions...... Period....

Polyphony digital are now just as bad as EA and Bethesda. I'm disgusted, I was a fan boy. I'm 47, had every GT game and it got me into sim racing. But I never would have believed they would put greed before the loyal fans. I pre ordered it, think its a great driving game, but I will NEVER buy credits from the playstation store when I have paid £60 for the game to start with, and any more money will be wasted if the servers go down or support for the game ends. This situation is unacceptable to me and they have definetly lost a loyal fan. I will carry on grinding for credits and if it gets worse I'll just go to project cars 2/3 and assetto corsa/competitizone.

God damn, so much whining! Did you guys buy it for a challenge or just for your participation medal? Yeah, I wish I could buy supercars after three hours, but you don't need credits to play the game. Are you playing the game to get cars or are you playing it to as a race simulation? Stop your complaining and grow the hell up.