Gran Turismo 7 (4th March 2022)

[drahkon]

Thanks @Julius

Those screenshots are ridiculous. Could be real life photographs  

[Hero-of-Time]

Just been reading how the in game payouts have now been reduced, essentially pushing players to use real money in order to buy the cars they want. Beyond scummy. 

Honestly, I'm getting sick and tired of this industry trying to nickel and dime players. People are paying £70 for this game and yet that's still not enough for the greedy SOBs that are in charge.

[drahkon]

How quickly this game went from "sure, will buy it soon" to "nope, fuck off".

Polyphony Digital dropped the ball hard with their MTX and always online bs.
They need a complete turnaround, because right now this is a PR disaster for them.

16 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Honestly, I'm getting sick and tired of this industry trying to nickel and dime players.

Yup, and it feels like there's no escaping. Everywhere you go and play games there's predatory and greedy practices to be found.  

While I sometimes wish I was a child again (fuck growing up ), I'm glad that I'm not one right now with regards to video games. As a kid you rarely have the sense to see through all those money traps.

[Glen-i]

It'd normally be times like this that I'd take solace in saying that you'd never see this kind of crap in Mario Kart.

But I can't even say that anymore...

I'm afraid it's gonna be like FIFA, people will complain and point out how scummy it all is, but the general public will have still lapped it up. Sony got their initial sales, they don't care anymore about getting more, they're going for the whales.

It's gross.

[Ronnie]

22 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

It'd normally be times like this that I'd take solace in saying that you'd never see this kind of crap in Mario Kart.

But I can't even say that anymore...

At least Tour and most MTX games are free to play.

Charging SEVENTY QUID and still pushing people to fork out more is another level.

[drahkon]

21 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

I'm afraid it's gonna be like FIFA, people will complain and point out how scummy it all is

Yeah, it's scummy as fuck. Unbelievably so.

*looks at his FIFA 22 copy on the shelf*

(I only play Pro Clubs )

[Dcubed]

So it's a F2P game being sold at retail for £70, with its horrendous microtransactions purposly hidden from reviewers and racheted upwards after people got their first hit; and with always-online DRM that is now preventing people from even playing the game that they spent £70 for.

Welcome to the future!

At this point though? Quite frankly, this is the future you deserve if you're happily buying this game at this point in full knowledge of what a disgrace this game is.

Looking forward to this Monday's inevitable Jimquisition video about this game!

[Glen-i]

1 minute ago, Dcubed said:

Looking forward to this Monday's inevitable Jimquisition video about this game!

I mean, yeah, they have a phrase that is always spot on with the AAA gaming industry.

"They don't just want a lot of money, they want all the money."

[Hero-of-Time]

2 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

So it's a F2P game being sold at retail for £70, with its horrendous microtransactions purposly hidden from reviewers and racheted upwards after people got their first hit; and with always-online DRM that is now preventing people from even playing the game that they spent £70 for.

Welcome to the future!

At this point though? Quite frankly, this is the future you deserve if you're happily buying this game at this point in full knowledge of what a disgrace this game is.

Looking forward to this Monday's inevitable Jimquisition video about this game!

Just now reading about it being offline. Crazy that it's been down for 24 hours and zero communication given to players. At this point GT brand is being dragged through the mud.

[Julius]

Microtransactions I can do my best to ignore – I've talked about it before, I can't say I disagree with any of the opinions here, and if this is how PlayStation is planning to manage their often mentioned slate of upcoming live service games, I think both players and PlayStation are going to be in for a very rude wake-up call.

It's implementation in the game in that it's always in your face is disgusting and predatory, the absolute lack of detailing their plans for microtransactions prior to launch is probably one of the more stupid moves from PlayStation over the last 5 years (how the hell do you not learn from Battlefront II?), and it's the fact that it makes the game pay-to-win which makes it a massive struggle for me to defend the game, made even worse by the fact that it's the case for both single player and multiplayer performance. It's fine with cosmetic changeups from my perspective, whatever (your liveries, paints, and so on), but it just feels so gross. 

To somehow make matters even worse (?!), the game has been down for the last 24 hours due to the latest update being rolled out, meaning you can't even play the damn game you've dropped £70 on and potentially been foolish enough to invest in the microtransactions of, because it needs to always be online. You can't touch the campaign, the missions, the license tests, etc. - the only thing you can do is a few exhibition races with an extremely limited pool of cars. 

It's such a shame, because I've greatly enjoyed this game from a gameplay perspective for the most part, and I haven't felt about this way in a racing game for a long time. The DualSense is damn near transformative here in how the haptics make the car and every surface it comes into contact with feel, and the adaptive triggers offering resistance makes it so much easier to lock into a certain speed, or to feel how and when to brake and accelerate. And it looks freaking gorgeous. 

This was meant to be my FIFA replacement, but I'm already sick of the conversation around its microtransactions. Every time I buy a car or some parts, I feel like I need to take a shower, and I almost feel guilty for playing the game at times. 

I think I'm just going to have to say sod off to the grind for new cars and just focus on the Missions and License Tests I have left to Gold, and then the Platinum – the absolute bare minimum of what I actually wanted to do in the game, and I'll get my money's worth at least. I wanted to build a garage of some of my favourite cars, which I now won't be doing, yet this is the same game has finally been the push to get me back into a subject I loved so much growing up but fell away from!

It's one huge step forwards as a simulation racing game, because it's fantastic in that regard, but it's ultimately been sullied by the two steps it's taken back through some heinous decision making – and while I know this was the case to some extent with GT Sport too, which also had microtransactions, I struggle to see the blame falling on Polyphony. This has to be a decision made by the big wigs at Sony, the guys who are doing fine in selling the console and games, but have also been making some very questionable decisions over the last few years. 

Gran Turismo was, for me, growing up always the premier racing game series. But then the games got delayed for longer and longer periods of time between every newly announced entry, and the consistent releases and quality of Forza took the crown. This was the return to form the game needed to be for the series – but it just wasn't meant to be. 

See you all late this year, or sometime next, to see how atrocious the microtransactions turn out in The Last of Us Factions 

[Glen-i]

Really tempted to plug the Mario Kart session tonight at 8pm... Oh, too late.

[Dcubed]

 

[Sheikah]

37 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

So it's a F2P game being sold at retail for £70, with its horrendous microtransactions purposly hidden from reviewers and racheted upwards after people got their first hit; and with always-online DRM that is now preventing people from even playing the game that they spent £70 for.

Welcome to the future!

At this point though? Quite frankly, this is the future you deserve if you're happily buying this game at this point in full knowledge of what a disgrace this game is.

Looking forward to this Monday's inevitable Jimquisition video about this game!

It's quite weird, Sony first party games usually don't have much of this microtransaction nonsense in. Wonder what gives?

[Dcubed]

12 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

It's quite weird, Sony first party games usually don't have much of this microtransaction nonsense in. Wonder what gives?

Yeah, there's a definite shift going on at the moment towards trying to squeeze more out of an existing audience... and I think it is partly to do with the sluggish PS5 hardware sales (in the face of ongoing shortages).  Sony have already stated that they're looking to shift their overarching strategy with Playstation, with them now expanding to the PC platform and with them now moving towards producing more multiplayer focused GAAS titles & less traditional single player experiences.

However, I think it's more a matter of Sony realising that their traditional console market (primarily single player focused) now has very limited growth potential in the future.  The total market for traditional console games is only going to continue shrinking, as it continues to fail to reach new audiences beyond the traditional 10-25 year old male demographic, and bring in new children (who are now growing up with mobiles, Minecraft and Twitch/Youtube instead).  And coupled with incessent hardware shortages that aren't letting up any time soon, that will continue to limit the sales of PS5 hardware? And further increasing costs of game development?  Sony need to find other sources of growth and revenue; hence the switch to supporting the PC platform, the increase in standard PS5 game RRPs and the switch towards squeezing more out of their existing audience with game design (see, GAAS and incessent MTX).

I think that you're only going to see more of this MTX abuse going forward, not less.  Especially as Sony struggles to compete in the subscription space and in the face of The Great Industry Consolidation happening right now.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

@Dcubed Yeah, that's what I've also been thinking as well.

Sony's hands are really tied at the moment due to chip shortages and it's not going to get better anytime soon. Microsoft is in a much better position to deal with this, as seen with the Series S recently outselling the PS5 in Europe. Sony also cut the legs from under the PS4, where sales have pretty much stalled. 

Watching the recent SoP and it's evident that Sony and other publishers are going to have to continue to support the PS4 for a couple more years in order to get any gains back from development costs. There simply isn't enough PS5 consoles out there. I think we are in for a very long generation from both Sony and Microsoft, neither of which have really dazzled when it comes to their new consoles.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

Sony have already stated that they're looking to shift their overarching strategy with Playstation, with them now expanding to the PC platform and with them now moving towards producing more multiplayer focused GAAS titles & less traditional single player experiences.

To clarify, they only said that they would be producing more multiplayer focused GAAS titles through saying that they would have 10+ live service games released by the end of 2026, and there hasn't been any signs or anything said that would make me think that we would see less traditional single player experiences at this current point in time.

From the IGN piece covering their earnings call where that was stated:

Quote

Speaking during Sony's latest earnings call, CFO Hiroki Totoki said, "Through close collaboration with Bungie and the PlayStation Studios, we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 31 2026."

...

"From calendar year 2014 to calendar year 2021, the size of the global game content market doubled, driven by add-on content revenue from live game services, which grew at an average annual rate of 15% during this period. We expect this trend to continue going forward."

Bungie's early investment into live service games with the launch of Destiny in 2014 allowed it to accumulate "a wealth of experience and superb technology in the space," Totoki said, something Sony sees as a major asset in acquiring the studio.

"The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise as well as major new IP that Bungie is currently developing," explained Totoki, "but also in incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies that Bungie has developed in the live game services space.

"We intend to utilize these strengths when developing game IP at the PlayStation Studios, as we expand into the live game services area."

Now, whether they internally plan to transition towards that and whether we think that's where they might be going, considering how Japan Studio and the like were so unceremoniously shuttered, is another conversation entirely. But what we can try to infer from their actions and what has so far actually been stated are two separate things. 

But, personally, I do agree with you in that it's concerning. I feel like that's been the only rhetoric since Shawn Layden left, and it seems to be getting more and more concerning with each passing year. 

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

However, I think it's more a matter of Sony realising that their traditional console market (primarily single player focused) now has very limited growth potential in the future.  The total market for traditional console games is only going to continue shrinking, as it continues to fail to reach new audiences beyond the traditional 10-25 year old male demographic, and bring in new children (who are now growing up with mobiles, Minecraft and Twitch/Youtube instead).  And coupled with incessent hardware shortages that aren't letting up any time soon, that will continue to limit the sales of PS5 hardware? And further increasing costs of game development?  Sony need to find other sources of growth and revenue; hence the switch to supporting the PC platform, the increase in standard PS5 game RRPs and the switch towards squeezing more out of their existing audience with game design (see, GAAS and incessent MTX).

Yeah, agree with a lot of what you said here.

There's a rock hard ceiling we've seen with even the best-selling first party PlayStation games - which do sell well, to be clear - when it comes to sales potential which are time and again naturally going to be beat away by third party games on multiple consoles and with a much wider reach (be it demographically or, as I suspect will be the case with Game Pass once Xbox finally gets thing going consistently, just in sheer size of the audience with immediate access to a game, which, as an aside, I think is going to be very alluring to creatives like Kojima). As we've seen with games like Days Gone too, it's clearly not about the creatives telling their stories any more, unless you are a brand name like Kojima, which is maybe the most concerning thing now, in how they gauge success: purely on sales and aggregate scoring. That's a very slippery slope. 

Personally, I think there's a lot of space for more variety in their approach to games –  as much as I love storytelling in games and many PlayStation first party games, Astro's Playroom was an absolute breath of fresh air compared to the rest of Sony's slate from the last 5 years. The problem with that is that they just cut Japan off like it was a tumour, when that's where I believe the most creativity was being shown from them in the first place. 

It's funny that you mention Twitch and YouTube, because with Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll last year and ongoing consolidation of Crunchyroll and Funimation, I think they already have an answer to people watching things: they now, for all intents and purposes, practically own anime streaming in the west and have a pure monopoly. How exactly they leverage that moving forwards I'm not so sure (I know they've done offers previously with Funimation alongside PS Plus, but I think there has to be a more effective approach), but that's an industry which is booming right now and has been catching fire like a Charmander drowning in lighter fluid over the last 5 years in particular, so I'm really curious to see how that's handled. 

The hardware shortages is something that's tough to do but react to, and as I think I've mentioned before, I think it's why so many games initially announced in a way that would make you believe they were PS5 exclusive have ended up being cross-gen releases: they need those software sales to compensate for limited hardware sales which are, again, out of their control, otherwise I think we'd be looking at a console which would have crushed every early gen sales record for a new console. I still think there's a chance that Final Fantasy XVI ends up cross-gen and on PS4 for this reason, as otherwise if we say the game comes out March 2023, there'll be some 25 million PS5's out in the wild (or whatever number) compared to what could have easily been 50+ million without the shortages (I always come back to their earliest shared projections for the PS5 which were insane - and as always, would have been modest to be outdone in reality to impress shareholders). If that does happen, COVID impacts on development itself aside, I could see that being a key reason for what was likely an internal delay. 

It's sad, because their hand is being forced to some extent by the shortage, but at the same time, there are much easier and more cost effective ways to shore up your revenues than going all-in on what I can only view and describe as a disgusting revenue stream in microtransactions, at least in how they've utilised them so far in GT7. 

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

I think that you're only going to see more of this MTX abuse going forward, not less.  Especially as Sony struggles to compete in the subscription space and in the face of The Great Industry Consolidation happening right now.

Agreed, and it sucks. 

PlayStation definitely aren't the only ones guilty of this, but it's the aggressive turn in which they've done this which I think has caught everyone a bit by surprise in the case of GT7. Them being quiet to a fault about their handling of microtransactions in that game also definitely makes it look much, much worse. 

As for subscriptions, I'm both excited and very, very concerned about the possibilities there. We've talked about Project Spartacus before but while I want to hold off and see the available games...man, just let me buy the games and get some real backwards compatibility beyond the PS4 in. I know it would take a while lot of work and wizardry, but it seems more a case of them deciding not to offer that, more than it being a case of it not being achievable. 

46 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Sony's hands are really tied at the moment due to chip shortages and it's not going to get better anytime soon. Microsoft is in a much better position to deal with this, as seen with the Series S recently outselling the PS5 in Europe. Sony also cut the legs from under the PS4, where sales have pretty much stalled. 

Watching the recent SoP and it's evident that Sony and other publishers are going to have to continue to support the PS4 for a couple more years in order to get any gains back from development costs. There simply isn't enough PS5 consoles out there. I think we are in for a very long generation from both Sony and Microsoft, neither of which have really dazzled when it comes to their new consoles

It's absolutely insane to me that the PS4 isn't going to pass the 120 million mark when it should have been a certainty that it did. I enjoy PS5 games when we get them, but man, the PS4 catalogue is just immense in terms of its sheer scale and diversity that 90% of the time, they're what I'm playing on my PS5. 

It's funny just how well the Series S has worked out for Xbox – while there will always be a market for a less powerful, but still able, console, I think it would have died a fairly swift death in more privileged markets (such as across Europe) had it not been for the chip shortages. 

Agree with you wholeheartedly when it comes to supporting PS4 releases with their exclusive software - first and third party - for the next few years, genuinely think it could be until 2024 at this rate with what little we know about their current slate outside of pure remasters (such as Demon's Souls and The Last of Us Remake, if and when that arrives, and even then I wouldn't be surprised to see either land on PS4 down the line) and titles which are smaller in scope or require the DualSense (ahem, that fully fledged Astro's Playroom sequel which is an absolute certainty).

I also think that whatever Square Enix's plans were for the entire Final Fantasy VII Remake project will have been bent sideways too at this point, as I reckon they would have been hoping for a PS5 console exclusive release with a good number of them out in the wild, but now, say this is a trilogy, how do the next two games both not come to PS4? And then you've got Atlus playing coy with Persona 6 (can't think of any reason why that wouldn't also be on PS4), we haven't seen Dragon Quest XII in action yet (but I have to imagine that could be targeting PS4 too, what with it likely being a multiplatform release and hopefully getting its Switch version at launch), Granblue Fantasy Relink hopefully arriving this year, etc. Basically, if you're a JRPG not doing anything too wild, cross-gen confirmed 

Then you also just get the bizarre sense that PSVR2 is going to drop by the end of the year (if not the end of the next financial year) with how they're ramping things up in terms of press releases and updates, so what I can only describe still as the privileged few with PS5's (due to the console shortage), is now going to see an even more privileged group enjoying PSVR2, all the while PS5's are still a nightmare to get a hold of. 

Sigh

Edited March 18, 2022 by Julius

[Julius]

Going by the logic we saw behind Days Gone not getting a sequel, based on the game's current Metacritic user score, I guess we're never seeing a Gran Turismo 8...

[bob]

God, it must suck to be a game developer, spending years of your life working hard on a big game, only for some higher up to make the decision to plonk microtransactions in it and basically fuck it up. 

[Jimbob]

I get free to play titles like Fortnite having MTX, that's understandable.  However, £70 games like GT7 cutting back on how much you can earn from racing in-game and pushing MTX is something else.  GT Sport had MTX in a way, you could basically buy a car you wanted with real money instead of earning credits.  I'm not a huge fan of MTX, especially in games where you've already paid (in this case) a premium to even play.  If PD had it in the same way as GT Sport, probably wouldn't be as bad (still bad none the less, but at least you know that £3.99 will get you a car in-game instead of credits towards a car/parts etc.

[Julius]

Pretty sizeable update set to go live early next month, which seems to be a half step in the right direction. 

Quote

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 tracks 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.

I do wonder if it's already too little too late for the more casual GT players (including myself). I've not touched the game in over a week as I've been waiting to see how this all pans out, and I probably won't get back to it now until I've seen credits roll on Elden Ring (and not to mention it's going to be at least a week until the update is rolled out anyways), but it really took the wind out of the sails of the game for me.

It's all been very reactionary so far, which is rarely a good thing for a game like this. The lack of DRM removal to allow for offline single player is still a huge concern given how long the game was down for during its most recent update. And, while it's pie in the sky here due to this being a first party title, even Battlefront II completely removed it's pay-to-win microtransaction system (indefinitely and then permanently) and had to fully rebalance the game, so what does it say that they clearly haven't reviewed that as an option? 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Julius

[drahkon]

Good. First steps, but at least they are steps in the right direction.

Criticism works.

Now get rid of the always-online crap, please...

[Jimbob]

Chuck the "always need to be online" requirement, and i'll be a happy person.

A good step in the right direction for GT7.  I'm especially looking forward to the Endurance races coming back.

[drahkon]

On 3/3/2022 at 2:15 PM, Will said:

Which one has he got and what do you think of it? I’ve been thinking of getting a Fanatec wheel at some point in the future.

Completely forgot about this.

He actually cancelled his pre-order. I can't remember which wheel it was, but yeah...can't give you any impressions whatsoever, sorry  

[Jimbob]

Check your accounts, just had my 1 million credits pop up.

[Dcubed]

Sorry we got caught basically.

I fully expect them to turn the heat up on this boiling frog more slowly over time until we get back up to where we were before (and beyond) though.  We've already seen the mask come off and we already know their true intentions.  If I were a GT fan, I wouldn't touch this game with a barge pole.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Dcubed