Since the publishing of Gran Turismo 7’s reviews Sony has flicked the switch on its microtransactions and the news is as we suspected – and, in some ways, much worse.
As it appeared, GT7 is based on a direct cash-for-credits scheme (as opposed to GT Sport’s microtransaction functionality, which allowed players to purchase individual cars valued up to 2 million in-game credits with real money instead of in-game credits).
This means instead of being able to purchase cars individually, which in GT Sport range in price between US$1 and US$5, players tempted to accelerate their GT7 car collections by using real money need to shell out for batches of in-game credits. There are four tiers of credits available:
- 100,000 credits – US$2.50 / £2 / AU$3.75
- 250,000 credits – US$5 / £4 / AU$7.55
- 750,000 credits – US$10 / £8 / AU$15
- 2,000,000 credits – US$20 / £16 / AU$30
GT7's credits are shockingly expensive.
There are several glaring problems associated with this new approach to microtransactions. At a basic level, the limited set of tiers means there’ll regularly be no way for a player to purchase exactly the amount of credits they may want for a particular car. Just want 1 million credits? Well, you’ll have to spend US$15 on packs of 750,000 credits and 250,000 credits, or US$20 on twice as many credits as you wanted. It’s a pretty gross approach considering all these cars are on the disc already and very much part of your initial purchase.
At a fundamental level, though, these credit prices are simply out of control. For example, if you wanted to fast-track your way behind the wheel of a 2014 Lamborghini Veneno in GT Sport, you could pay US$5 and purchase this car direct from the PS Store. But in GT7 this process is now rendered hideously more expensive. To purchase the Veneno in GT7, which costs 3,640,000 credits in-game, you’d need to hand over US$40 (£32/AU$60) for 4 million GT bucks – a 700% increase! These aren’t microtransactions anymore; they’re maxitransactions. Again, these aren’t even DLC add-ons, either; these are vehicles that are in the game already.
It's especially dismaying that the full scope of this new cash-for-credits scheme was only revealed after the review process was completed. Yes, it is an optional shortcut, but considering credits build fairly slowly via racing, you can’t sell cars from your garage, and a number of GT7’s coolest cars have been made artificially scarce, at what point do we call it predatory? With rare cars in the legendary dealer rotating in availability before they’re “sold out” (and unobtainable to you in your single-player game), and others that require peculiar, time-limited, in-game invitations to actually purchase, it’s definitely easy to see how some players who know they won’t have the time to build a large amount of credits by racing may be compelled to part with real cash to snag certain cars before they’re gone.
