Gran Turismo 7 developer Polyphony Digital is apologizing for the changes recently introduced to the game’s economy and is promising improvements, along with a million free credits. These changes come after the game had a massive outage last week, which was the result of an update that also made changes to how players could earn credits by actually playing the game rather than through microtransactions.
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Polyphony president Kazunori Yamauchi apologized 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.” As a “goodwill gesture,” the company promises to give players “a non-paid credit pack of 1 million” credits.
The post says that clients ought to see the credits in their records “in no time” and that they’ll simply be given to individuals who claimed the game before the post was distributed. While I don’t appear to have gotten mine yet, the cutoff time for signing in and getting them is far out – Polyphony says the proposition is great until April 25th.
The post clears up that the progressions for the in-game economy were made to “give more exact prizes in view of time venture and culmination,” something Yamauchi addressed before while discussing the blackout. At that point, he said he was unable to make sense of any impending changes exhaustively, however Friday’s post is by all accounts that clarification.
The post portrays a fix that is turning out in the start of April, intended to “restore the award framework with more noteworthy equilibrium all through the game to help all players.” After the update, players ought to take note:
- Approximately doubled rewards for “the events in the latter half of the world circuit”
- “High rewards” for getting all gold and all bronze in the circuit experience
- Increased rewards for online races
- Eight new one-hour endurance race events in missions, which will have “higher reward settings
- A higher cap on how many non-paid credits users could have, up to 100 million from 20 million
- More used and legend cars being sold at a time
The post also outlines that will be coming in the “near-term” — though it doesn’t specify a date for these changes or more details. Those changes are:
- Increased payout value of limited-time rewards
- More additions to world circuit events
- Endurance races are being added to missions, including 24-hour races
- Online time trials are being added, with rewards being given “according to the player’s difference with the top ranked time”
- Players will be able to sell their cars (consider your days numbered, 1965 Mini Cooper)
From the looks of the Gran Turismo and PS5 subreddits, users generally seem happy with the changes, especially the fact that you can sell your cars (though there are some questions about whether you’ll be able to sell gifted cars and whether you’ll get GameStop prices for them). One big bugbear that remains unaddressed, though, is the game’s reliance on internet connectivity to function. Last week’s server maintenance put the game into offline mode for over a day, which severely limited how you could play it.
Given that Friday’s post refers to GT7 as a “live service,” it doesn’t seem like we should hold our breath for any changes that would make the game more offline-focused. Still, the updates that we know we’ll be getting are exciting, both in terms of making the game more enjoyable and in adding new (if grueling) experiences to it.
