Currency adjustments convey value and rarity of real-world vehicles
Gran Turismo 7’s servers have been restored after an unexpected and unprecedented 24 hours of downtime. Due to the PlayStation 5 and PS4 exclusive requiring an Internet connection in order to save gameplay progress, the entire experience was largely unplayable over the past day. The new update, which weighs in at 354.5MB, brings the release back online.
Here are the patch notes, from Polyphony Digital:
- Fixed an issue wherein the lineup of cars would not appear in the Used Cars and Legend Cars dealerships
- Fixed an issue wherein in some cases the game would not progress to the World Map, making it impossible to play
Series creator Kazunori Yamauchi has also commented on the outage: “Immediately before the release of the 1.07 update, we discovered an issue where the game would not start properly in some cases on product versions for the PS5 and PS4. This was a rare issue that was not seen during tests on the development hardware or the QA sessions prior to the release, but in order to prioritize the safety of the save data of the users, we decided to interrupt the release of the 1.07 update, and to make a 1.08 correctional update. This is the reason for the delay. My sincere apologies for the late report to everyone.”
That makes sense, but we’d argue communication could have been better over the 24 hours the entire game was offline.
Furthermore, it’s not the only concern that fans have with Gran Turismo 7 right now: in-game currency rewards were adjusted with the 1.07 update, raising questions about microtransactions in the £70/$70 release.
Yamauchi had the following to say: “In Gran Turismo 7 I would like to have users enjoy lots of cars and races even without microtransactions. At the same time the pricing of cars is an important element that conveys their value and rarity, so I do think it’s important for it to be linked with the real world prices. I want to make Gran Turismo 7 a game in which you can enjoy a variety of cars lots of different ways, and if possible would like to try to avoid a situation where a player must mechanically keep replaying certain events over and over again.”
He continued: “We will in time let you know the update plans for additional content, additional race events, and additional features that will constructively resolve this. It pains me that I can’t explain the details regarding this at this moment, but we plan on continuing to revise Gran Turismo 7 so that as many players as possible can enjoy the game. We would really appreciate it if everyone could watch over the growth of Gran Turismo 7 from a somewhat longer term point of view.”
Frankly, it’s a terrible statement, and it’s such a shame to see a release so warmly received fall into these obvious traps just two weeks removed from its release. Gran Turismo 7 is a fantastic racing game with some of the best content in the series’ illustrious history, but acting like adjustments to the in-game economy are intended to convey the “value and rarity” of real cars is a ridiculous statement.
Sadly, mere days after launching a critically acclaimed game, Polyphony Digital will now have to work hard in order to save face and restore this release’s reputation. A true unforced error!