The Gift That Keeps On Giving
If someone would have told me that I'd begin the week with Gran Turismo 7 news and end the week with GT7 news, I wouldn't believe it. I didn't expect Polyphony Digital to respond to the community's outcry so soon. Thus, this will be a very short follow-up to my criticisms involving Patch 1.0.8.
Following the announcement, many pillars of the community including influencers and content creators expressed their disdain. Some had explicitly stated that they will refuse to support Gran Turismo 7 until big changes are made. After a week equivalent of the city burning down, Polyphony Digital released a follow-up patch exactly a week later. Earlier this morning, Kazunori Yamauchi released another letter, this time with a more lucrative explanation.
"An Update To Our Players"
The letter begins with an apology from Yamauchi-san, echoing what I and many others have said. While his vision is pure, the microtransactions and sudden cut of race earnings weren't the right calls. Rather than revert the changes, Yamauchi-san decided to give everyone who's currently an active player a million credits over the course of a month. There is a catch, as players who were active before this announcement are eligible. What's more, players will have a month to claim the voucher. Considering that's the most I ever made in this game, I will not deny free credits.
The Update previously deployed was intended to rectify an issue with inconsistent reward payouts within some of the World Circuits events. But, to re-establish the intended balance 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 Update in the beginning of April. The number of events will be increased, and we will re-establish the reward system with greater balance throughout the game to benefit all players.
Gran Turismo Website
Yamauchi-san also gives a brief "roadmap" detailing a major patch sometime in April. More cars, track variations, and bonus events will become available. Sometime before the end of April, various changes to events will also increase including the default payout of certain untouched events. Perhaps the biggest news is the promise that players will be able to sell their cars which was the one thing many requested. While details were still scarce, this was still better than last week's PR disaster.
I Still Have Hope, From A Casual Fan's Perspective
As of this writing, I have completed twenty-two cafe books out of thirty-nine. This means that I'm halfway done with my "career mode" and I'd be stuck at a crossroads. I'd probably buy my favorite cars, mess around with drift builds, and take pictures of them. Maybe I may take a crack at the online mode and the bonus in earnings may be an incentive. Regardless, I know once I reach the end and unlock all the licenses, I won't be playing it much more.
Gran Turismo 7 is still a fun experience for me and Polyphony Digital had taken several risks with their product. It's been a rough start, but I still have faith. That said, I'll limit the number of articles involving Gran Turismo 7 until the latest major patch. I'm not done with this game by a long shot. Kudos to Polyphony Digital for running damage control, most developers don't even do that much these days.
Gran Turismo 7 is available on the PS4 and PS5