Over the years, the Gran Turismo series has been known for making video game racing as realistic as possible, from in-depth engine tuning and car dealership browsing to branding itself as “the real driving simulator.” However, thanks to Gran Turismo 7, the franchise is now better known for its mismanagement, shady tactics, and greed. GT7 didn’t just have a bad launch; its creators have consistently stood by their poor decisions and even doubled down despite their game earning a dismal 1.7 on Metacritic.
Of the 6,500 user reviews for GT7, over 5,500 are overwhelming negative, often giving the game the lowest score possible. Players were appalled when the game launched, and they were met with hefty microtransactions to unlock cars in the game. Players were upset further when the game’s server was mysteriously taken offline for 48 hours after release, preventing even the single-player mode from being accessed. Gamers were finally pushed over the edge when developers increased the price of cars and made microtransactions more egregious.
Compared to other titles in the series, GT7 is a grind-focused game. While all the cars in GT7 are purchasable with in-game credits, players will need to race for over 20 hours to earn enough credits to buy just one of the game’s higher-end cars. The developers have backed up their stance by explaining that they want the experience of GT7 to mirror the real world as much as possible, and that means making cars that are expensive in the real world just as expensive in the game. When developers took the GT7‘s servers offline, it was to lower the amount of credits players earned from races in order to make the grind even worse, attempting to push players towards their microtransactions.
Players have responded in kind to Polyphony’s questionable strategy by review-bombing the game. While GT7 has a solid critic score of 87, the user score is the worst of any in the GT series, not to mention every other game for the PlayStation itself. Some user comments accuse Polyphony developers of selling their souls and ruining a fantastic series through greed. When compared to other racing titles like Forza or Dirt, Polyphony’s move to push players into microtransactions seems to have backfired spectacularly and alienated an otherwise dedicated community of fans.
Players are not letting Polyphony off the hook, and many are turning to a script exploit using PlayStation’s Remote Play on their Windows devices. When GT7 was first released, players could earn about 1.75 million credits per hour of pure racing. After its update, the amount of credits players could earn was lessened to 850,000 per hour. Players have since come up with a clever way that allows them to earn tens of millions of credits a day without even booting up the game. First posted in a PSNProfiles forum, the script allows players to race a single track over and over again throughout the day, earning them credits passively. After one day of running the script, players have enough to purchase any of the game’s most expensive cars.
Despite the glaring problems with microtransactions and shadowy management, GT7 is a good racing game. The graphics are top-notch, developers brought back many fan-favorite modes and features from past titles, and the director, Kazunori Yamauchi, managed to bring a passion and love for car culture to a new generation with his favorite aspect of the game. With quality cars, classic racetracks, and the best graphics in racing, GT7 was expected to be one of the biggest driving games of 2022. Instead, it will be remembered as a game marred by greed and apathy towards its players.
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