That's a factor, but inflation generally affects wages as well. This was more or less the case for GT1-GT6 - as the car prices rose from 500,000 to 4.5m, income rose from 500k/hr to 1.35m/hr. But then car prices rose to 20m while income initially rose to 3.4m/hr before plunging back to 850k/hr.
A further aspect of this is that this income originally could come from interesting and varied events. Sure, there was one "meta" in everything, but you're talking multi-lap, enjoyable races and championships as the "grind" - some grind, considering in GT1 it was one championship... - and interesting alternatives that were almost as profitable.
Rally de Capri in GT4 was the earliest example of a bad one, as the clear meta and a two-lap grind of Costa di Amalfi 32 times for one of the most expensive cars. Dirt Champions was just the latest interpretation of that, with a single-lap grind of Fishermans Ranch (with the rally physics of mystery) 333 times. Blue Moon Bay in GT Sport was pretty bad, but at least there were two alternatives -- one of which paid out slightly more if you could manage the Clean Race Bonus.
GT1 was, if anything, probably too quick. There were six of the most expensive cars, so really it took six hours to have all of the "best" cars in the game. In six hours in GT7 you're halfway to a Jaguar XJ13 - and that's only 60% of the price of the most expensive machines, of which there may be five or so (quite difficult to say actually, as we've not seen all the 20m suspects yet).
Really, GT7 needs more events (it has a third of what GTS offered in numerical terms, and about a tenth in terms of time taken... despite having all but five cars and all the tracks from GTS; that's nuts), more interesting events, longer events, more alternatives to the meta, and a credit earning rate that, in the best cases, is at least four times faster than it is now - and which you can boost another 200% with a GT5/6-like Login Bonus. That would make it far more like the "best of Gran Turismo's past".
Instead of that, PD halved the rate of the meta.
It's pretty difficult to come up with a counterargument to the notion that earning potential is deliberately capped to make winning money as difficult and as time consuming as possible (while still possible for the determined and those immune to boredom) in order to make the microtransactions look like a good value proposition by comparison.
Certainly if you're paid $15/hr, the earning rate at FR is now slightly less valuable than buying a $10 and a $5 MT pack instead of playing the game.
www.gtplanet.net
